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I was reading that the number of Morris Marinas/Itals on the road actually halved last year. Like you Tim I find it a shame when cars such as these seem in danger of extinction, even if their only value is to show how far car design and manufacture have come.
My softspot is for the Opel Manta B (and A to an extent) in GTE form. I had one of these for a couple of years. Mechanically a sound car and a lot of fun to drive, even if it was a Mk1 Cavalier in a party-frock. Not that good with the old tinworm though and getting parts for them is getting progressively harder. Prices in the UK have stayed pretty stable for several years now at around £2,000 for a decent one, which seems to be about average for the 1980's sports hatches that have any level of cult following (eg. Scirocco, Golf GTi, XR3i). What are we to make of those who buy a car like that and then spend thousands of pounds transforming it into a near race-spec. road car though? Whilst there's certainly something to be said for small mods that update a car, perhaps for safety reasons or for that personal stamp of creativity, surely part of the fun of running a car like that is experiencing the character of the decade it was built in.
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