I still have a well worn early 1982 604TD in the USA. I can’t quite bear to send it to the great beyond! Over 600,000 miles. And despite the rust and cracked cylinder head I can put a fresh battery in it and it’ll start right up and want to travel! Too bad it overheats because of the head. The rust keeps me from justifying going over the mechanicals unfortunately but it’s been a wonderful car. The significance of it being an “early” 1982 is that its engine is the 1979-1981 variation on the XD2S turbodiesel. For whatever reasons it breathes much better and feels more energetic than the 1983-5 XD2S. I miss driving it.
This was my dads favorite car! I can’t believe you have this video. I’ve never seen this road test before and I’ve been watching motorweek since it started in the early 80s. Thank you for uploading these videos. They are awesome!
"flex" is not what you want from the side wall of high performance tires. Oh how much we've learned since the making of this ancient relic! 😂 That noted, I still love these videos, and my day gets a little better whenever I see you've posted a new one. The more obscure the car, the better too! Thumbs up for this one for sure.
I have only seen one in the flesh! I was making a delivery to a dilapidated mobile home out in the country and saw it up on blocks with the wheels missing and the windshield cracked. It had the rear passenger door propped open and was being used as a shelter by the dogs roaming around the property.
If the engine was totally cold and he did that shortly after startup, it's actually not that bad on a diesel. Diesel exhaust is usually quite a bit cooler and the manifold doesn't heat up as fast as on a gasoline car.
It's really interesting to see how far diesels have come. Today's turbo diesel engines are generally just as powerful per unit of displacement as gasoline equivalents, while offering more torque. They can also be very quiet, and run clean, while still being more fuel efficient than gasoline engines. I do wonder why they never caught on in the US, when they are so common and popular here in Europe.
Emissions and cost hurt popularity here, and as soon as they were about ready to have a resurgence about 10 years ago with VW TDIs, in 2015 the VW diesel scandal effectively began diesel's death in the US.
the Oldsmobile Diesel from the early '80s was so disastrous and was really the first point of contact for many Americans that it pretty much killed it for passenger use once gas prices edged downwards
True, but that wasn't the point. It had good steering, brakes, and suspension. The seats had good support. It wasn't American nor was it German. It was kind of in the middle.
this would have been Buick territory, not a true luxury car. But honestly french and American cars kind of have the same design philosophy, the primacy of ride comfort, just very different approaches.
