it's a well known fact and joke that Fiat's are infamous for rusting. I know because I own one and the first question everyone asks is "how's the rust?"

I know people say this all the time, but it's worth repeating that rustproofing was not great on any car back in the 1960s and 1970s. Fiats - and most Italian cars - earned a well-earned reputation for rust and rot perhaps because it was less of a problem in Italy than in rainy Britain. Of course, Vauxhalls of the 1950s and 60s also rotted away before your eyes, and although there were improvements in the 1970s, they didnt kick that reputation until the 1990s! Any of these four cars were pretty much rustboxes

*L U X U R Y*

Static belts on the base model 😁

@@bradlemmond howdy partner

Hahaha, was thinking the same thing “my advice, spring for the breaks...that is not standard on this vehicle...” All these cars looked old the second they rolled off the production line

Yes jerzy bogdan, I thought the same thing. So they are saying that the mandatory safety equipment is standard( plus some carpet, instead of rubber)?

Don't mention the war then!

@@ronaldvermeulen9561 This is typical.... absolutely typical...

😂😂😂

It won’t be long before they’re all beating their new cars with a tree branch to get them started.

I'm not a violent man Mr Fawlty ...

40bhp for driving across Europe. Leisurely progress indeed. At least the Polo engine is very refined.

Hi has his flat cap and pipe for company though.

@@fasthracing Not only that, but cloth trim and a reclining driver's seat. Luxury indeed.

A load of ballyhoo if you ask me.

Or a Granada

Donald Sayers 😂😂😂

With the Allegro it didn't - that's the punch line.

@@becconvideo Wow, I didn't know that! I'm not familiar with the Allegro, but I recall seeing them on TV when I was a kid.

😂 and two 🌟 petrol.

"...Will help Ford overtake Leyland". So it was being eagerly ANTICIPATED that Ford will overtake Leyland as the biggest car sellers in Britain!!!

100%!

Surprised he didn't pat her on the arse as she walked away.

"corpet"!!! Is not that out of Tony Greig's book of pronunciation!!

Woody Eckerslyke Now that would have been so funny!!

Nowadays it'd be straight to HR for a stiff talking to...lol

So you aren't a Supercar Blondie subscriber?

Having cars tested by standard ignorants?

Nothing’s changed since. They’re still rot boxes now 😂

In practise the Polo was totally corroded into car heaven before the Fiat had shown the first rust bubble... but the statement of the FIAT sales guy "thats quite an achievement" was really great... 10 out of 10!!!

The fiat survived longer than the polo

Not sure how the first 127 were when they came in 1971, but this is from 1977 and then Fiat 127 did well from the rust aspect. Better than most cars. So was the Fiesta. Fiat 127 & Ford Fiesta did manage rust quite ok.

Yeah it was rotting beneath the `underseal` as they spoke ! but I do miss those times, what a cracking pice of TV that , now all they have is Love Island :)

Too broad a brush. There are classic cars and then there's this pile of poop - the worst of the the worst - tinny 70s rot boxes!

Not many people dream of owning a base model shopping car anyway.

@@stuartaharris So which cars of the 1970s were made considerably better and lasted a lot longer (unless you never drove them in the rain or outside)? And how few cars of the millions made did really attain classic status? I think the whining about "they don't make them like that anymore" is too broad a brush... and that's all I'm saying.

@Andrew Battersby Many of the 1970 cars were so "meh" nobody actually noticed their rusty disappearance. When did you see a Renault 14, a Peugeot 405 or a 1970s Vauxhall Viva for the last time? They were mass produced to rot away. I give you that the Renault 5 was an interesting car with its plastic bumpers I wish more modern cars have. But any designer with a brain and some imagination should have realized how dangerous this gear lever was in case of an accident...

@@notroll1279 If I think back the Jensen Interceptor was made of fibreglass and looked very cool back in the day. But I guess it had a crash rating of -5 stars :-) The Ford Granada was also a nice car 3000E auto was nice and comfortable and fast for its time.

😂 I read your comment before I got to that bit in the video. I assumed it was going to be one of the husbands.

No

Nothing short of Irish xD

He'd get a knee in the bollocks if he said that today

I’m almost sure she is the pornography actress of the 90s

I was thinking more like 30 years, but otherwise I am in full agreement with you.

Nowadays, we have the Mitsubishi Mirage.

Lol! First thing I thought when watching those full color lollipop lookalikes

Having been a car owner through that era of the mid-late 70’s, I can assure you that these cars were very much up to date back then, bearing in mind that transverse engines and front wheel drive were still fairly new to manufacturers. The Fiesta was the first U.K. Ford with front wheel drive and transverse engine, and the VW Polo likewise for VW. The Fiat 127had been around for a couple years by then and the Renault stuck with a longitudinal engine with front wheel drive. I was a VW Polo man, and owned several during this period.

The engine bay on the Polo looked rusty!! 😂 still love them all though. I’d love a 127!!

Good old 70's fashion, probably lack of makeup and poor living conditions for most of their life. The kids today don't appreciate how good they have it.

Yeah they do as well 🤔

37 years old sir? You'll be wanting a flat cap and a beige overcoat. Can I also suggest the pipe and slippers?

I think people didn't aspire to look younger than their age back then. You entered midlife in your late 20s and stayed there until you turned 65.

@@michaeldawson6309 The people older than this group would have grown up during the war. Very high stress time and that ages people.

more like 55

Wonder if he has a Borat mane down below too :-) That mustache is just a fashion crime along with the clothes. Poor sod I feel sorry for him as he seems so comfortable too with his appearance. I had a mate who also drove a MGBGT and he too smoked a pipe ! Must be a MGBGT thing.

@@AlfaGiuliaQV more like 77

I'm glad you did this and saved me the time. It's the kind of nerdy thing I 'd do.

Extraordinary outcome! The Ford outlasted them all! Well, we don't know how they were treated. 10 years average was normal back then.

That couple; the 39 year old man looked 49. The woman looked at least 45.

It was American TV and films like Grease that scared me. I thought the school leaving age in America was 36 and we in the UK would follow suit ;D

I’m the same age as him and was kinda shocked...he looked about 50 to me on first glance!

@@infrasleep I think you have! Lol :-D

I've seen many 20+ yr olds that look in their 40s and 50s, just with better skin. They have that older mature expression on their faces, and the same vibe coming from them.

I came back from SUVs to a suzuki swift

Excluding the Mustang, 2021 is the last year Ford will be selling sedans in the US. Trucks and SUV's will be your only choice.

Have you noticed the size of family members nowadays? 😂

It was His lost brother, the Beige Panther. :D

From the side, looked like young David Letterman

That’s Shaw Taylor😂 He also used to present Police 5, “keep em peeled” was his catchphrase 😎

Fiesta had 6 yr paint warranty back then I think?? And 1 year unlimited on everything else

Well you must give the later series 127 that they at least did not rust anymore.

@@ronaldderooij1774 not for 2 years anyway.

I bought a Fiesta L in 1980. Underseal was £100 extra but I got it for free because I was paying cash. The underseal had a longer guarantee than 2 years. I think it was 5. I paid £2100 including underseal and mudflaps for free.

@@forresg500 The 1 year was a legal requirement under the Sale of Goods Act so all the cars had that.

Well it is around 40, 45 years old this clip.

ka9radio Or dead...

@@ricomartinez2869 I was going to say that but I wanted to be hopeful. :-)

They weren't far from 80 then! All looking in their late 40s to late 50s.

Even the kids?

The kids will be around 60 years old 😳

we had 2 Passat, 1975 and a 1979 at the same time...the 75 model been sold by my sister after 20 years, the 79 sold after 12 years... i replaced it with a 1982 Santana turbo diesel!

It was when a couple had 2 cars outside their driveway.

Not necessarily - I passed my test and got my first car just under 3 years later...... a 9 year old Avenger I bought for buttons and towed home from an auction ha ha

I'm a carpet fan myself...

If you’re good I’ll let you have a steering wheel….

In 1992, I rode in the front passenger seat of an unmarked Crown Victoria police car in Boston, Massachusetts, after I had become the victim of a crime. The seatbelt had been removed.

Except for the Polo, they all lived up to 10 years; Fiesta 13!

Now stop this it's silly!

I thought it was more like Peter Sutcliffe and Boycie myself!

@@georgejacob3162 Yep that'll do as well !

😆😆

@@georgejacob3162 When I was at college in the early 1980's you know the politically correct era ... our lecturer looked the spit like Sutcliff and got the usual jibe hey 'Sutty' where your hammer :-) Oh those were the days when you could speak your mind and have a chuckle. I bet these days you can't be seen having a good laugh at a poor sod slipping on a banana skin anymore :-)

Actually thought it could have been Noel Edmonds, from Swap Shop to presenting this!

Times Arrow I have totally given up with Top Gear since Clarkson et al left, whilst I think there is a place for things like the Grand Tour as they are quite entertaining and I do like watching the tests on cars I could never afford I would like to see a return of the old fashioned magazine programmes where they test a car in it's intended environment. Most modern motoring journalists seem to think any car that isn't developed on a track and can't go sideways at 300 mph is rubbish. Unfortunately if I'm buying a Volvo V70 as a workhorse I want to know that I can get everything in with ease and that it has a reasonable level of performance, comfort and refinement and that I don't need an engineering degree to roll the seats flat in the load area. The other thing I don't need is the ridiculous under music so loved on modern documentaries that all but drowns out the commentary. Sorry rant over still love these old clips.

It's John Cleese at 10:39. He's going to flog it or flog it.

Just flog it.

I had a Fiat 127 with automatic boot opening too - it was liable to open at any time.

@@bluegtturbo 😂😂😂

@@bluegtturbo similar to the bonnet on my triumph herald 😂

@@DashDrones Not a great feature at 50mph on a narrow bendy road! 😂

I`d love to know how they did that, I mean, was John the sound guy laying in the boot with a piece of string tied to the lock rod, waiting for John the director to yell "OK! NOW John!

There's hardly even a family of four anymore...not if you mean a married man and woman parenting their own issue. Now, the father is booted out of his own house and the state pays the mother to sit on her arse so that she can complain about oppression.

That's £13K in today's money. And you often can't get the cigarette lighter any more!

My first car was a 2 years old Cortina Mk3 1600XL it was £2500 in 1979 I loved that car. The biggest problem for the next 20 years was rust the manufacturers were reluctant to fix that until competition forced them to sort it. It was a commercial decision I would say to make a car that rusts after 2 years ... sell more frequently.

You can have affordable housing, just don’t live in London.

But the morons keep voting Tory

well, at least "diversity is our strenght", thus you have to pay more...

The people?

well?

@@raycroal certainly not the Polo, they were awful things in that original incarnation, especially the dreadful brakes. Not the Fiat either, to noisy and the ones I drove had fairly awful gearshifts, but they did come with a nice tool kit in a little plastic box. In 957 form the Fiesta always seemed a bit wanting in performance, but was let down most by being heavy on fuel if you drove them hard......so, I would still go for a 5. I had a 956 TL, 1300 TS, 1108 GTL 5 door, and a 1400 5 door Auto. the best of the lot was the GTL, but I really liked the little TL. You could drive it flat out for miles on end and it never faltered, and returned good fuel consumption, all of mine could easily manage over 40, which was pretty good for the time.

@@660einzylinder as i looked at the cars i was surprised to find i liked the look of the fiat and renault over the other 2. but my god how much more comfortable cars are now

I came here to comment the same thing about the engine sizes, but you beat me to it!

Yes I noticed that. I have had three Renault 5 and still own one now, although it is the later Super Five. The Renault would certainly be my choice of the four.

Yep, I was a young adult in the 70s. Ghastly decade. Labour governments, suicidal unions, awful, dreary, (socialist) fashions. The eighties was like someone turned on a light.

Don´t forget the purple ;) Even sanitary was in those shades. Apart from the music, it´s an era best to be forgotten. A depressing, 2nd dark age. Heavy wooden furniture, huge masonry fireplaces and fake wooden beams on the ceilings. The roads were getting crowded, and just about every car interior was plastic with black or brown vinyl. And better buy a brown car, because in 7 years they were rusted out. There was the cold war, and there was little respect for pre-war architecture. Stuff from the 50´s & 60´s wasn´t vintage yet; it was just old junk. Indeed, the 80´s were very refreshing. It was more futuristic than today, with a brighter outlook. The 90´s were fine too, but the writing was already on the wall.

Now you cant even get them as option.

I wonder why White the most popular colour now was avoided like the plague? No prize for the correct answer below :-)

And now most cars come with electric windows and air conditioning. How things have changed!

Post Office/GPO as it was before British Telecom. He'll be on a good final salary pension scheme like many employees used to get. Sadly not for us younger ones.

@@18in80 Dave you are about to be shafted again on the pension. if you are a recent joiner your will lucky if you can get a pension at 80 that you can live on. Post office engineers were on a gold plated pension that disappeared in 1979 ish

Pensions are fast becoming, rarer than hen's teeth.

@@insertnamehere5146 At that time the PO pension fund had way more money in it than it was committed to pay out.

We had rubber wings on GPO vans back in the 70's I beleive. Being a kid in the 70's I never got to play bumper cars on the road :-)

That's Basil Fawlty

Now Fiat have been shown how to make cars by Chrysler the rust proofing got better :-) but I think the rust issue is now in the past becasue of better prep and etch primer and full electro panel dipping and maybe better grade steel. They sure knew how to cock up a car in those days but were they smart? They sold a lot more and frequently becasue they usually lasted 2.5 years before rust was showing somewhere. :-) Oh the old days. Crap

@@michaeldawson6309 lancia owned by fiat in the 80's when they had to buy back all the cars sold in the uk because they rotted in no time and thats when lancia stopped being a brand in the uk after that, from what i recall it was from using low quality steel in there production and regular strikes, Some rumours it was russian steel given to fiat for building a factory in russia but no real evidence of that, The last fiat i looked at was a brava, the rear brake pipes corroded and leaked because they were hidden around the fuel tank and having plastic covers that held all the mud and road waste which encased the pipe and degraded it

@@upsidedown4155 Can't agree with you more :-) Your correct. Most cars had inbuilt obsolescence. An example on the Cortina MK3 was mud traps behind the from wing indicators and along the rear panel edges. Ideal rust magnets that ensured the panels would last less than 3 years before rust became a problem. No underseal or protection was also common especially inside doors, wings and sills. I find it a crime to build an exposed brake pipe of unprotected ferrous steel. Still it was the 80's live life fast without a care :-)

@@michaeldawson6309 was it also the mk3 (life on mars car) that had the fuel lines run inside of the car that tended to leak, they tried making that one look american, seemed like they were trying to make a European version of the exploding pinto lol

@@upsidedown4155 Yes that car in Life On Mars was a Cortina Mk3 2000E excellent car for the time. I think if I remember that you accessed the fuel tank by removing the back seat.

From their look, I thought they were second hand at first

These looked as if at least 5 years used. No shine in the paint.

That´s the 70's for ya.. everything looked drab, the weather also. And an explosion of beige.

@@kamrankhan-lj1ng the cars still looked younger than those testers...

And Today's Cars Look Like They Can Be Computer Hacked Every Minute.

That Fiat will be a rotting mess by 1980.

@@mpwheatley That poor girl probably got to see it disappear in front of her eyes.

The Fiat lasted till 1988 apparently. Some else looked the plates up and ranked them. Only the Fiesta lasted longer - 2 years till 1990.

@@DiscoFang At least we then have a winner of this test :)

I had a Mk1 Fiesta in that colour

So funny

Noticed that try that with kids today .. they would kick off

At least the Datsun started every turn of the key because it had electronic ignition. But paper thin metal that rusted badly in the UK's glorious weather :-) But a damd good car for the day pitty about the rust though. At least they were on the right track. p.s I forgot they also came with a nice radio as standard :-)

Of course rust is a no problem in Australia

Not in the western Europe of the 70s!!!

I did have a new Fiesta in 1978. I really liked it and this car still looks very good

They aren't kids.

@@johnnycage3673 They are in their 50's now

@@johnnycage3673 lol yes I know that, it's turn of phrase your kids will always be your kids. - I'm 45 XD

Convenience for the accountants tallying up the profits.

He should have gone for the GTL which had all the extras he wanted as standard. My first car was a V reg GTL.

Lack of SHARP calculators in the sales office.

Sounds like a lady that I used to know last year, in the next town.

😂

I don't think the colour helped

So do the customers, they look miserable and dead inside.

@@PhilOsGarage That's Britain in the 70s for you

Jesus they’re all half dead it’s a wonder they even had children.

@@mikeblatzheim2797 Why was it so bad in the 70's? I don't remember much from the 70's in America since I was only 10 when the decade ended, but when I see old family photos, the clothes and hair stand out the most. I also remember it seemed everyone smoked everywhere when I was a kid.

Yeah nice colors we have old hag diarrhea green ,turd brown , morbid abyss grey and my favorite , fart.

A Civic would be more comparable.

@@gotham61 You're right.

A 323 was a size bigger and it showed.

Yes you're right.@@franzchong4688

@@franzchong4688 Actually you're right and worth shelling out extra coin if it cost more and one could afford it. A Civic would have been pretty close in size I would imagine and superior.

As much as i hated your comment at first, i have to say that you are completely right. Those really are heaps of crap even for the era.

I’ve owned the R5 TL and the 127 and yep! At least Fiat were honest enough to guarantee the car would rust in 2 years!

I have to disagree when it comes to Fiesta; my parents and I toured central Europe in Ford Fiesta in the mid 80s. We avoided Autobahns though.

i dont think they were crap at all

Hold on, love, it’s 2020 and I drive a Fiat 127. Call me old-fashioned, but I am old-fashioned.

😂

Depends on the car. More expensive ones would have been not too bad.

Today, they would scream and annoy everyone else. I prefer the silently annoyed ones ^.^ .

Today those kids would be in their 50s

"That Polo has Jimmy Saville written all over it." Not really. Saville's choice of vehicle was a 1978 Carawagon Range Rover, with a double mattress in the back.

No that would be the Ford molester....sorry fiesta

Transit van seems more like Jimmy Saville's style

If we listen to the Woke Left we will soon be back there with style dictated by Corbynista's. You do realise that Corbyn is only 24 !

Just leave people be instead of micro controlling them. Don't bother replying to comments you do not like.

Keep them peeled....

Yes, and how many more improvements! Unreal just how much cars have changed, and about to change again!

@@joebloggs9392 Computers probably helped a lot. Today, there's no longer a need to add a ton of mechanical gizmos to drive certain components. One computer can take care of everything as well as greatly improve both the engine's reliability and the gas mileage.

But it's just a name. Nothing in common.

I do't know why they don't upload full episodes, shouldn't be any copyright issues as Freemantle/Thames own the rights anyway