The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

This is based on a video on youtube by Hubnuts, who review classic cars. They compared a Princess, with an Austin Ambassador. You would assume that the Ambassador would be better, as the later updated model. OK the princess looks better but the ignoring subjective judgments about looks, the later Ambassador should have been an upgrade.

However based on the videos, apart form the addition of a hatch, the Princess was the better car. It had a nicer interior, not only aesthetically but in terms of build quality. The ambassador shaked and rattled on the move, with a poorly made interior. Somehow BL managed to make the car worse. The reviews are below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWZWukWzO6A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6R9HT6TGEw

So I was wondering if you can think of another facelift that was actually a downgrade?

Sure do! When the Vauxhall Vectra A (AKA CavalierIII) became the Vectra B (First UK appearance of the Vectra name)

EVERTHING good went out the window, looks, functionality, performance, ease of maintainence, durablity of parts, you name it, the Vectra B did it worse!

Steve

The Rover 25 and 45, late last ditch effort facelifts looked awful and by that time a lot of quality had been removed from the car to keep costs down. Fiat Multipla facelift made it look more normal so therefore taking away the purpose of the oddball looking thing in the first place.

SprintMWU773V wrote: ↑Wed Nov 20, 2019 11:02 am The Rover 25 and 45, late last ditch effort facelifts looked awful and by that time a lot of quality had been removed from the car to keep costs down. Fiat Multipla facelift made it look more normal so therefore taking away the purpose of the oddball looking thing in the first place.

Ah yes, the infamous project drive, I have a late Rover 75 and you can see some of the things they removed. Though I am glad they got rid of the hopeless dual fuel pumps on the diesel and went with a much more reliable single pump.

Series 2 E Type to Series 3!

xvivalve wrote: ↑Wed Nov 20, 2019 10:40 pm Series 2 E Type to Series 3!

If it comes to that, all E types went downhill from the series 1, losing the fully faired in headlamps was sacrilege and replacing the proven and flexible 3.8 with the cumbersome and slower revving 4.2 was little short of disaster. The V12 could have been a revival, but it was too complex, there was no really suitable manual gearbox to handle the torque, and in any case, federal specs had made it too tall and with ugly add on bumpers and afterthought lights. They may have lost their way a bit at the series 1.5, but the Americans, ironically (since they were it's biggest marketplace) destroyed the E type!

Steve

Fiat 500,
VW Beetle,
Mini

SprintV8 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 10:13 am Fiat 500,
VW Beetle,
Mini

I concur.

Land Rover Defender, not strictly a car, but we used one as the main family transport for over 15 years (still got it and use it where nothing else will do - carrying 9 people or towing 3.5 tonne trailer usually). Rugged, easy to fix/service, reliable, bomb proof, go anywhere, cheap spares, loads of room, adaptable etc. The new one ..... in my view and pretty much any one who used a Defender - misses the point by a country mile.

Roger

That said, there was a metallic gunmetal grey Series 3 next to the Club stand at the NEC a couple of weeks ago that I'd happily have taken home...

Lotus Elise: niche & unique became a competitor with the also ran.

xvivalve wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 1:49 pm Lotus Elise: niche & unique became a competitor with the also ran.

To be fair to Lotus, their big problem is they have no money to update their line up properly. So they have little choice but to keep updating an ancient design.

cleverusername wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 5:41 pm

xvivalve wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 1:49 pm Lotus Elise: niche & unique became a competitor with the also ran.

To be fair to Lotus, their big problem is they have no money to update their line up properly. So they have little choice but to keep updating an ancient design.

What a load of tosh! The original Elise was a brand new design, ground breaking in several areas that have now become standard for the industry. Since then, they have been owned by General Motors and Proton, both of whom pumped in plenty of development money.

The decision to 'facelift' the Elise after only a couple of years was a proven mistake as sales plummeted once it became a competitor against the MX5/Z3/SLK etc

xvivalve wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 6:21 pm

cleverusername wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 5:41 pm

xvivalve wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 1:49 pm Lotus Elise: niche & unique became a competitor with the also ran.

To be fair to Lotus, their big problem is they have no money to update their line up properly. So they have little choice but to keep updating an ancient design.

What a load of tosh! The original Elise was a brand new design, ground breaking in several areas that have now become standard for the industry. Since then, they have been owned by General Motors and Proton, both of whom pumped in plenty of development money.

The decision to 'facelift' the Elise after only a couple of years was a proven mistake as sales plummeted once it became a competitor against the MX5/Z3/SLK etc

It was brand new design back in 1997, the series 2 was a modified version of that design to meet cash safety standard but the car is still in production. How many MX5s have we had in that time?

As for being flush with cash, Lotus have always been close to the edge and Proton didn't exactly have a ton of money to put into teh company.

You described it as an 'ancient design', yet it was face lifted just the once in 2001, just five years after its launch.

It was nothing to do with crash safety standards as the structure of the vehicle remains the same underneath the clamshells; it was an ill advised management decision, a new broom sweeping clean.