Viva vitriol
You cannot be serious! The April issue carried a Buyer’s guide to the Vauxhall Viva, with lots of positive comments. I am old enough to have had an HB Viva when it was new, and it was the worst car I have ever had.
I was a lowly sales rep, and it followed a ‘pre-enjoyed’ Mini Traveller that was a reliable car but with 80,000-plus miles on the clock, so the thought of a new Viva was very exciting for this young chap back in ’78.
I lived in a terraced house in the Cotswolds, and the car had to live outside. At the first sign of a damp, misty morning it would only cough into life after liberal application of WD40 to anything electrical under the bonnet plus a squirt or two of Easy Start up its air cleaner.
Wanting to show off our new car to another couple, my wife and I chauffeured them in the shiny Viva to Oxford for dinner – probably at a Berni Inn. While I tried to reverse into a space, the gearlever detached itself, leaving me half in and half out of a bay.
It was reasonably nippy and I was determined to drive it flatout at every opportunity. On a sunny day with 90mph on the clock, I made the mistake of lowering my window. I should have realised that the vacuum effect at that speed would defeat the flimsy fixings holding the headliner in place. The ceiling collapsed on to my head, leading to a rather exciting moment.
The final drama I recall was not really the car’s fault. Come the day of my wife’s driving test, the examiner managed to step into a large fresh dog turd as he got in. My poor wife was totally distracted by both the stench and what her husband would do about the mess on the floor of his new car. Needless to say, the test did not go well.
The Vauxhall was followed by several Ford Cortinas, the rep’s chariot of choice and all far better than that awful Viva. Alec Hammond
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