Party like it's 1991

EARLY NINETIES NOSTALGIA-FEST
WORDS Charlie Calderwood PHOTOGRAPHY Stuart Collins
THIS WEEK p2-8 OUT & ABOUT p12-13 LIVING WITH CLASSICS p24-48 BUYING & SELLING p30-42 CLASSIFIEDS p46-67
PARTY
LIKE IT’S
1991
The Cold War is over, Bryan Adams is number
one and Brits have a new generation of family
cars to choose from. So which is it to be?
T
hirty years ago this month,
Volkswagen launched the third
iteration of its class-defining Golf,
the MkIII. Such was the
continent-wide success of the MkII that
most of VW’s competitors timed their direct
equivalent’s replacements similarly – noone
wanted to compete against the allconquering
Golf with an old model. Rover
and Vauxhall both joined VW and the three
released their new offerings within less than
two years of each other, meaning Brits had a
host of flashy new hatchbacks to choose
from heading into the new decade which,
global recession aside, promised a new era
of prosperity as the West ‘won’ the Cold War
and democracy was springing up in new
places like stubborn weeds on an old patio.
Heading into this new era, VW’s priorities
for the new Golf were to make it safer and
greener – thoroughly modern aims. Vauxhall
sort to combat the VW by undercutting it,
on price, but also quality – you’d get more
equipment and even a larger engine in your
Astra for the same money as a Golf. Rover,
which was actually first out with its new
hatch, releasing the 200 right at the end of
1989, took a different approach; their car
cost the same, or even more than the Golf
in some trims, but it’d offer a level of luxury
that the Golf couldn’t match.
So you might say the two British-built
hatches were trying a pincer attack on the
all-conquering Wolfsburg product from two
opposite ends of the market – but how do
they compare against each other today?
Rover’s ‘face’ lacks character
compared to the Golf,
something the firm tried to
address with a facelift in 1993.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
1994 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 1.4 CL 1995 VAUXHALL ASTRA 1.6 16V
1993 ROVER 216GSI
Approaching the trio we’ve got today, the yearand-a-bit
the Rover’s design has on the Astra and
Golf is obvious, with a much straighter-edged
body. It’s conservative in another way too, being
a hatchback – but one that’s trying to look like a
saloon. There was still a strong sense in the early
Nineties that many buyers, particularly older
ones, didn’t regard a hatchback as a ‘proper’ car
like a saloon, and Rover understood the ‘grey
pound’ was a key market for them.
That may sound negative, but it’s the much
more distinctive car today, and that ‘floating
roof’ makes the Rover look visually light – it’s no
wonder that many newer cars have done similar
(though few credit the Rover as their inspiration).
Vauxhall (or, let’s be honest, Opel) was clearly
going for inoffensive with the Astra, but the
lozenge-like shape of the car does look modern
and aerodynamic. Our car here today is a
slighter later version than you’d have found when
the MkIII was launched in 1991, but a slightly
different grille and a black panel on the boot
are the only differences. It’s fair to say Vauxhall
wasn’t aiming at the style-conscious buyer.
With giant slabs of unpainted plastic front
and rear, the VW wastes no time in announcing
a theme that only gets stronger the longer
you spend with the car – you don’t get much
‘as standard’ on the Golf. Painfully humbling
bumpers aside though, the Golf is a great
example in how to draw clear influence from an
old model, without making something pastiche
or painfully derivative. Though it doesn’t have
quite the visual impact of a MkI or MkII Golf
today, there’s no doubting that it’s a crisp design
and it was regarded the most handsome of
the trio in its day. Certainly, compared to the
anonymous Astra and traditional Rover, it would
have won over younger, more fashion-conscious
buyers, at least from the outside.
Bland? Perhaps, but the VW’s interior feels great and doesn’t rattle. Reasonably comfy and well equipped, but it’s hardly pretty in here. Rover offers comfy seats and wood veneer, but some iffy plastics.
British motorists had a
host of fresh offerings in
the early Nineties, from
both home and abroad.
CONTINUED ON P20
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EARLY NINETIES NOSTALGIA-FEST
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Three distinctive and
handsome designs, but
is the favourite shape in
the 1990s the one that’s
aged the best today?
1993 ROVER 216GSI
WHAT TO PAY PROJECT £250-500 // USEABLE £500-
1250 // GOOD £1250-2500 // EXCELLENT £2500+
1994 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 1.4 CL
WHAT TO PAY PROJECT £250-1000 // USEABLE £1000-2000 // GOOD £2000-4000 // EXCELLENT £4000+
HEART OF THE MATTER
It’s the insides of these cars that really set them
apart, and where the character of each family
hatch is made evident. Let’s start with the Golf –
as there’s the least to cover. It’s striking just how
little Volkswagen gave buyers of this 1.4 base
model, particularly when you remember it was
considerably more expensive than a base-spec
Astra, or any number of other rivals like the Ford
Escort or Citroën ZX. Everything is manually
controlled and there are more blanked-out buttons
than working ones. What’s more, there’s not a
single embellishment to be seen – the gear-lever,
handbrake, steering wheel and dashboard are
all just moulded black plastic. There’s simply no
attempt to offer frills here.
But, and it is a big but – everything is of a quality
that none of its rivals match. It’s a cliché, we know,
and one that is still trotted out today despite it no
longer really being the case, but back in the early
Nineties it was true: the Golf was just built to a
better standard and with better materials. That’s
why buyers flocked to it – the fundamentals of the
interior feel like a much pricier car, even if it doesn’t
have the proverbial bells and whistles to match.
Enter: the Vauxhall. The Astra takes the complete
opposite approach to the Golf. Inside we find
electric windows, electrically-operated wing
mirrors, a height-adjustable seat, and an onboard
‘computer’ displaying the time, date and outside
temperature – heady stuff in 1991. Now, this is a
higher-spec model than the Golf, and a slightly
later one too, but that’s the point – you could
buy a mid-spec Astra for the price of a basic Golf.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch though, and
Vauxhall have clearly clawed back the money on
the materials used in the interior, many of which are
just about the worst plastics you could imagine.
The Rover attempts to beat the Astra and Golf at
both of their games simultaneously, but it can only
achieve this in part. The seats are by far the nicest
of the trio in comfort and trim, and the upper level
of the dash is thoroughly pleasant with its grey
rubbery plastic, glossy wood trim and chunky,
embossed Rover logo. But as you move down the
dash to the heater controls and radios, suddenly
we’re looking at a piece pulled out of a mid-Eighties
Honda Civic, and it feels it.
That’s the problem with the 200. The Rover bits
are very nice, but there are plenty of parts where
Rover didn’t have the money or inclination to build
its own pieces, and the borrowed Honda bits jar
with the Rover’s claims to luxury. It does better at
matching the Astra for creature comforts – even
the sunroof is electric – but you’d expect that for
the money Rover was charging for the 200 and it’s
not as impressive as it is in the Astra.
’The Golf was just built to
a better standard, with
better materials. That’s
why buyers flocked to it’
CONTINUED ON P22
Rover runs rings around
the others, especially
the Golf, but the Astra
has laudable flexibility.
1995 VAUXHALL ASTRA 1.6 16V
WHAT TO PAY PROJECT £250-500 // USEABLE £500-
1000 // GOOD £1000-2500 // EXCELLENT £2500+
Honda D-Series powers the Rover, a 16-valve
single-cam engine. It’s a great sounding
unit with strong power output, but is rather
peaky for use with automatic transmission.
1993 ROVER 216GSi
ENGINE 1590cc/4-cyl/OHC POWER 109bhp@63000rpm TORQUE 102lb ft@5200rpm
TOP SPEED 115mph 0-60MPH 11.2sec FUEL CONSUMPTION 30-35mpg
TRANSMISSION FWD, four-speed automatic ENGINE OIL Castrol Edge 5w40 4.5 litres
VW’s engine is a simple OHC
unit that makes for a drastically
slower car than the others here,
but its refined for what it is.
1994 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 1.4 CL
ENGINE 1391cc/4-cyl/OHC POWER 59bhp@5200rpm TORQUE 79lb ft@3000rpm
TOP SPEED 98mph 0-60MPH 16.3sec FUEL CONSUMPTION 35-45mpg
TRANSMISSION FWD, five-speed manual ENGINE OIL Castrol Magnatec 10w40 3.5 litres
Our Astra is a post-1994 car when Vauxhall
began putting its twin-cam Ecotec engines in the
Astra. Despite a lesser peak power figure than
the Rover, it feels more flexible on the road.
1995 VAUXHALL ASTRA 1.6 16V
ENGINE 1598cc/4-cyl/DOHC POWER 99bhp@6200rpm TORQUE 109lb ft@3500rpm
TOP SPEED 115mph 0-60MPH 11.2sec FUEL CONSUMPTION 35-40mpg
TRANSMISSION FWD, five-speed manual ENGINE OIL Castrol Magnatec 5w40 C3 3.25 litres
ON THE ROAD
None of these three were sold on their sporting
ability, though Rover was always quick to point out
the fully-independent suspension setup it’d gained
via its association with Honda – which, it must be
said, British engineers had made even better with
the 200. It’s simply the best of the cars here in
terms of resisting roll, dealing with poor surfaces
and yet providing a good ride. It’s also got the best
steering of the trio, with good weighting, feel and
a decent speed to the rack. It’ll understeer when
pushed, of course, but it’s entirely predictable and
only shows when the driver is being deliberately
brisk. Most of that was probably lost on the Rover’s
target audience to be fair, but it’s much to the
benefit of modern-day enthusiasts.
The Vauxhall isn’t bad, but it isn’t sporty either.
It’s comfortable most of the time but it can’t
escape a sense of top heaviness – felt mainly when
trying to corner with verve, where the car both
rolls and pitches. It also jolts over sharp bumps,
which would be acceptable if it was the cost of
exceptional handling, but with that not the case,
and when paired with a slow steering rack, you’re
left feeling the Astra is just a bit under-engineered
in its chassis. It’s impressively refined in terms of
noise and harshness however, and thanks to its
1.6-litre engine, it’s a relaxed cruiser. It feels the
most flexible of the three, and that’s a big deal
considering it’s the cheapest (then and now).
And then the Golf. It’s clear that VW thought
that driving dynamics weren’t so important in a
family hatch of the early 1990s, as the MkIII was
a huge leap in the wrong direction from the MkII
– essentially no effort was made to adjust for
the large increase in weight. This leaves stupidly
un-checked roll at the rear (where no anti-roll bar
is present), but it’s the lack of grip at the front
that is the most alarming. The understeer even at
moderate speeds is astounding – thank the narrow
tyres as fitted to the 1.4 models, another example
of VW offering very basic equipment. The ride is
good enough however (the reasonably soft springs
see to that), while refinement is of course very
good – but still noisier than the Astra, because
you’ll be wringing that 1.4 to make decent progress.
’Rover was always quick
to point out the fullyindependent
suspension
it had gained via its
association with Honda’
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EARLY NINETIES NOSTALGIA-FEST
THE CCW VIEW
All three of these cars were successful in
their day, but they’ve had hugely different
journeys since becoming ‘old cars’. Thanks to
its immense build quality, desirability and the
high residuals those things provide, the Golf
still survives in good numbers, with many
still in mainstream use. Values are already on
the up, as one of the cheapest ways into the
VW ‘scene’, and while we’d say any driving
enthusiast will probably want to improve the
suspension a bit, it’s not hard to recommend
it as a classic well suited to everyday use.
The Rover has not survived anywhere near
as well, thanks to a slight proclivity to rust,
but the car’s appeal to older drivers has
served it well, with a surprising amount of
good-condition, low-mileage cars still around
today. No doubt there are more enthusiasts
interested in it due to its place in the history
of Austin Rover as well, which has blessed
the car with fantastic club support.
The Astra, meanwhile, has neither
mainstream motorist support nor that of
enthusiasts, and the non-sporty variants like
our 1.6 are becoming very thin on the ground
– their main appeal being as an artefact of
nostalgia. It’s the car of this trio that most
needs help being saved, so if you are looking
for early 1990s nostalgia, and the Astra is
the car you remember, we’d recommend
buying one as soon as you can – they are
disappearing fast!
Astra went all-in on its hatchback design
for the MkIII. The booted Belmont was
discontinued, and although a saloon
Astra was produced, it was rare in the UK.
LOSE YOURSELF IN 1991
DO THE BARTMAN
Bryan Adam’s (Everything I Do) I Do It for You
dominated the 1991 charts, but The Simpsons
achieved three consecutive weeks at number-one
with Do the Bartman – a more pop-oriented song
from the otherwise blues album The Simpsons
Sing the Blues. Michael Jackson provided
backing vocals, but most of it was sung by
Nancy Cartwright, long-serving voice of Bart.
OPERATION DESERT…GRANBY
As Britain pledged its support to the US-led
effort to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi forces
of Saddam Hussein, British military leaders did
what they did best: coming up with an incredibly
boring codename for the operation. While the
US forces engaged in ‘Desert Storm’, the 50,000
British service personnel were taking part in
‘Operation Granby’. First action was on 17 January,
with the RAF joining early air strikes.
HE’S BACK
James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day,
starring Arnold Shwarzenegger as a gun-toting
guardian angel cyborg from the future, hit
screens in the summer of 1991 and proved the
year’s highest grossing film. It was also a seminal
moment in the use of visual effects, being the
first film to have a computer generated main
character. At the time it was the most expensive
film ever made.
22 | CLASSIC CAR WEEKLY Wednesday 11 August 2021