Chris Goffey puts the Talbot Solara through its paces on the Thames TV show 'Wheels' First shown: 1980 If you would like to license a clip from this video please e mail: archive@fremantlemedia.com Quote: VT22633
My family had a Chrysler-badged Alpine hatchback when I was young. We knew Dad was coming home from work when we heard the noise of its tappety engine and trailing throttle backfires. When on family holidays in the country, Dad would drop a gear to pass someone and the racket would frighten my baby sister and make her start crying...
Equipment levels were phenomenal in that up spec model ... cruise , central locking and a fuel computer in 1980 .... well ahead of the competition I'd say,
Cortina Ghia had very little in that respect. No central locking, no electric windows, no rear headrests. Don't even think it had a 5-speed box available on any of its engines.
Director: "Now, Chris. I want you to mention the handling, then drive like a metric fuckstick around these two tight corners. If you can almost bin it due to the chronic understeer there's a beer in it for you."
Jez Stokes hahaha the street where I went to school was full of horizons, 305 and Talbot of various types the noise as the owners went away to work will stay with me forever lol.
Yeah my neighbour owned a Sunbeam. It sounded like a cement mixer kicking over in the morning. This is back when car reviews were ever so respectful. This guy was part of the early Top Gear team in the eighties. The beardy one who always tested diesels. Chris Goffey. Bless him.
I had a Talbot Express as a motorhome just a couple of years ago and was puzzled as to why it took so long to start then the penny dropped and I suddenly remembered you had to pump the accelerator to get it to start then I was down from 20 seconds to 5 😂
@Suq Madiq Funnily enough just the other day i was in my local supermarket car park and some dumb blonde fat woman smashed the bumper on a much more expensive merc as she was leaving. I was going to stop her but she paused for a second and just drove off! She did not give a fuck she just damaged someones car and drove off and i hope Karma pay`s them back!
I'm very happy to own a Talbot Solare GLS with an automatic gearbox for some 15 years now. It's 100% original and has only has some amazing 54.500 Km. on it's clock. It's a fantastic car. It has this great timeless eighties french design. Every once in a while I drive it on sunny day's and When I do I allways I get many thumb's up! FANTASTIQUE!
My father had a small dealership selling Talbots. He had Hunters, Alpines, and then Solaras. First, this type , and later the Series 2, which has, "series 2" on the bootlid. He was a mechanic and I followed in his footsteps, but realised how much of a terrible car a Solara was. By the time the series 2 Solara was on sale, Toyota Honda, and Datsun has proven more reliable, quieter, and easier maintenance. I suppose, the Japaneese cars really showed up the entire European market. But the Series 2 Solara had a lot of the same problems as the series 1; the body roll was terrible; rust was rampant; the rattling from the engine was so distinct you could tell one coming from a mile away. The gearbox. Dear God. Cadbury could make a more reliable one. The CV joints............ well, they were part of the entire driveshaft, and when they gave trouble , it was an expensive change. Without constant maintenance that front suspension woul rattle like an empty spray can. Never mind the torsion bar suspension that pulled down on the bottom balljoints, so that if the said bottom balljoints were worn, the entire front suspension would be pulled apart, even while driving. ( My brother nearly got killed when it happened him with the right hand side joint, and the car went straight across the road, out of control). At least they had sorted the electronic ignition failing by then that used to affect the earlier versions and the older Alpine. The slave cylinder would leak after a while, and it was a disaster to sort out. That previously mentioned rattle in the engine? well, that was easily sorted by adjusting the tappetts. However, don't use a feeler gauge, as the wear between the tappetts and the pushrod would "round", so the only way was to "feel" with a trained hand. Oh, and when that was done, remember that the engine oil would have run down from the engine after removing the rocker cover to adjust the tappetts, onto the exhaust directly underneath. Much smoke after startup. Be caerful when doing anything with the coolant system, because the header tank was a glass bottle held in by a rubber band, so don't drop it :) .The heater would, over time, get more and more ineffective due to the poor design of the heater radiator getting clogged up with crap. And, having said all that, my father kept his 1984, Series2 Solara for about 12 years, before selling it on. It was immaculate even though he put up about 160,000 miles. It had the 5 speed gearbox, ( which was also boasted on the bootlid, a common boast from many manufacturers at the time ) which has reverse beside 1st, which was also a terrible gearbox, but never crunched, because he drove it like a man that appreciated what it took to make it in the first place. It had no rust, ran on gas it's entire life (gas, not petrol/gasoline), and never had rust,rattle, or resale value. I think he sold it for about £300. He bought the car in his dealership in 1984. When he sold the car, 12 years later, a little bit inside him died, because that was the last car he was to sell as a motor trade man. He diied in 2009, and still claimed that it was one of the best cars he ever owned. That, and a Ford Popular that the modified back in the day. I still have some spares, like the glass header tank, and indicator stalks, and electronic ignition modules. But that doesn't take away from how terrible these cars were.
Gerry Egan - So that’s why I had to adjust my tappets on a monthly basis! :-) Mine was a 1980 1.6LS, iirc. Cost 700 quid secondhand in 1987. Red like the one in the video. It was in great condition almost everywhere except for the bottoms of the doors which, well, weren’t there. My biggest hate was the sloppy, horrible gearchange. ‘Like stirring a bowl of porridge’ as a friend remarked. FWD French cars seemed to suffer from this quite a lot. In just about every department these were a million miles behind the Cortina. The Cortina was far from perfect, but it had a quiet, reliable OHC engine. Lovely gearchange, lever straight into the box. A decent ride, more attractive, better suspension, the list goes on. Even the ageing Mk3 Cortina bought secondhand would be a much better buy than a new Solara.
Nice to watch ... even just for the Thames ident intro ! I drove a blue "Y" plate Series 2 1.6GL for years (my first car) in the early 90's. Always hold a soft spot for that car. I did over 100K miles in it. That dashboard was just so tidy and uncluttered. I always liked the ergonomics of the big buttons on the centre console as well. Very underrated car - thaks for uploading ! 😎
A very modern car,compared to other cars of that time. I remember we had the same car and I felt always like inside a plane, caused by the modern interior. My father bought it in 1981 in bright orange. We got it on a Friday from the dealership and the very next morning at 3:00 in the morning we went to Italy. When we came there to the small hotel, the very next car to ours in the car park was a Talbot Solara,too
Talbot Solara was also manufactured in Uusikaupunki, Finland. We had a 1,3 and 1,5 litre petrol engines and 1,9 diesel. GL, GLS and VIP (which was made approximately 200 cars). Headlight washers were standard, better protection against corrosion than French Solaras and later Solaras had different seats than French Solaras. Solara VIP had leather dash board, white painted aluminium wheels, the only available colour option for the Solara VIP was white, fog lights, Mobira car phone and some other gadgets.
The front seats are straight from a Saab 900, Valmet built Talbots and Saabs at their factory. The reason why the Finnish Valmet built Talbots had much better anti corrosion treatment was because they used the methods of painting and sealing Saab did.
As an American Finn, I dreamt of one day getting a 900 Turbo Convertible when I was younger - as much for the fact it was built in Finland, as I just dug the design. I wound up getting a second-hand VW Mk1 Wolfsburg Cabriolet, but still wish I had had a SAAB instead.
I noticed that too, but damn near convinced myself that it was just a car with a similar roof line. Those early Fox mustangs were about as ugly as Mustangs ever got; Ford wisely softened the lines as the years wore on . This apparentlly being on the continent, I assume that it's LHD . Makes me wonder of Ford ever tried to make RHD versions, or just let a few aftermarket hack jobs filter through.
My wife in the 80s was given a Solara by a relative with 7.000 miles on the clock, after 6 yrs with one back half exhaust, and a water pump, but thousands of tappets adjust LOL,she never missed a beat and passed every MOT, we sold it for a good price.
I love it - a time when velour seats were considered a luxury option, squealing tyres, dodgy starting and oh, the sound of the doors on these 70’s videos - they don’t build them like that any more.
Those old Simca OHV engines sounded like a typewriter, but they would always start thanks to electronic ignition and they could easily do 200,000 miles. Unfortunately, body corrosion ate the car around it before it could reach high mileage. The only Talbot that seems to go on forever is the Matra Murena which has been galvanized from the start. Wish I have never sold mine.
Dad came home with one of these in the early 80s as a company car. My 2 memories of it were the huge square buttons on the dashboard (well they seemed huge when you're 8), and the fact that we felt like we had really gone up in the world as we had a modern car with plastic bumpers instead of old rot boxes with chrome bumpers! .
Our family car for a while, a red Solara 1.3 and the car in which I learned to drive. The awful gear-change taught me how to double de-clutch and the noisy tappets played their own melody on every trip. But it was reliable and never let us down. Filmed in and around Stein am Rhein in Switzerland. Thanks for uploading.
The daugther of our local Talbot dealer who I fancied the hell out of, had an SX around 1983. I remember her taking me somewhere in it and I thought it was the height of luxury.
As an American, it’s hard to see these options in 1980 as groundbreaking, having said that, those were different times for the continent.... fuel prices and such... I’m so glad the playing field has evened. ... we can both enjoy each other’s offerings... love my Fiats
My grandparents had 2 of them: First a beige-brown 1980 1510 1.5 GLS hatchback (bought 1985, out of use 1992) , then a blue ‘84 Solara GLS 1.6 (bought 1990, out of use 1996). The 1510 had a (rust)hole in the floor in front of the passenger seat, big enough to put your foot through. My grandfather drove it anyway, the 4 year old me had great fun watching the road go by through the hole as we were driving. Originally he intended to get it repaired, but then one day the timing chain broke and ruined the engine. The car was never repaired, and was eventually scrapped in 2005. That car really was of mixed race: It had a Talbot badge on the front, a Chrysler badge on the steering wheel and a Simca badge on the back, and some of the components under the hood had Citroen and Peugeot badges on them. The ‘84 Solara lasted until 1996, and I belive spare part availability was the main reason for writing it off. It had a pretty well-featured instrument panel, electronic inition, digital clock, 5 speed transmission, electric windows and some odd, manually operated warning system for worn out brake pads; There was a button In the center console with a brake symbol on it. From what I remember, you pushed the button, and if it lit up your brake pads were OK. The engine itself was somewhat old fashioned, with pushrod-operated valves and manual choke. The pushrods made a lot of (very distinctive) noise, at idle the engine rattled like a diesel! To this day i would recognize that sound instantly. By the way, I belive the Solara was based on the Renault 9? Anyone knows?
Parents had a 1982 Solara, engine was clattery at idle and it was cheaply built inside, but it was a reliable car that did what was asked of it. Also being a five speeder, it cut a lot of the engine noise at speed.
ah.. the sweet memories of my youth.. My father had a 1308 GLS (just 1 trim level below the SX), we loved it.. lots of room, comfy seats, and that sound of that engine.. that 1442 cc unit had quite some grunt, wasn't thirsty and always ran. Later in life i bought myself a Matra Murena, from the same era.. engine sounded the same.. seats just as comfy..wish i 'd never sold that car..
I had the solaras big brother, the tagora. They were both really decent cars, with PSA sorting the rootes group quality control in all areas. The only nightmare was the interior heater matrix, which was asthmatic even at full power when new, but clogged up and/ or split the water pipes to and from it, so you either ended up with flooded footwells and an overheating engine, or spending half your trips through the year wiping the windows clear by hand. As a foundation bed for getting the 205,305,405's right for british and european customers, they did a good transitioning effort.
I worked at a Henlys Peugeot/Talbot dealership in the early eighties and can tell you that the Tagora was hated by the workshop, in fact I was told by one of the mechanics when I started there to 'run for the hills' if I saw one coming in. With all respect to you, they all seemed to be owned by 'challenged' individuals. I heard that, before I started there, A Tagora had backfired and burst into flame whilst the carburettors were being adjusted and the delighted mechanic just pushed it outside and let it die in peace.
owned a chrysler alpine back in the day.. was my first buy.. yep.. my first..what did i know then about cars.. i was 18.. just wanted a car.. it was red with a nice light tan coloured interior.. , 4 speed..reg was BET 469T.. 1985 .. so 6 years old.. loved it.. except the noisy tappets..and rust and heavy steering,, but i did have it for 4 years before it kaput on me..oh the memories...
Apparently a Talbot Alpine's engine could be heard from the moon even through the vacuum of space. That was the findings from the Top Gear episode in 1984 when Goffey was sent in a rocket to be the first bearded astronaut.
Let's see how it goes, bag of hammers! Seeing these as a kid I thought this was a longer version of Volvo 340 then I started seeing people in Talbot sacharrini shellsuits or whatever the name was and thought they was linked. Lol
Paris number plates. Brings back memories of the Talbot Horizon GLS my father had. One of the best cars of its time with very good handling and totally reliable.
My Dad had 2 company car Solaras! An orange 1980 and then a 1984 red Solara Minx. I learnt to drive in the Minx. it was a 1.6 with 90bhp Peugeot engine and would keep up with XR2s! It had torsion bar front suspension and power steering. No rear anti roll bar and found it cornered flatter with the handbrake slightly applied. Sold it at over 160k miles on the clock.
Simca engines were tappity but if you heard it's parent company Chryslers slant six you would understand why nothing was done to quiet them down. Clattering like a bunch of bearings loose in the top end.
Nice upload, already back then, the Solara is having a bit of trouble to start, and the engine already is noisy in my opinion. I owe a Solara GLS (and Tagora GLS) but what does make the Solara a little bit less comfortable, is that it doesn't have much support on the front axle, meaning it's very easy to have the car sliding away on the front in the curves, where the Tagora doesn't slide away at all on the front. This is especially the case when it's raining, you really have to drive carefully with it.
Check out my uploads if you want to see it.. I already owe it for over 10 years now. Has 148000 kilometers approx. Bought it with 817.. back in january 2008.
The Talbot Solara was the saloon version of the hatchback Chrysler, later Talbot Alpine that replaced the Hillman Hunter, and there are only about 20 each of the Alpine and Solara still alive in Britan today.
That are the valves I think.. My Solara does the same, but don't worry, as long as it's ticking, the car is still running I can tell from my experience.
At 4:28 the cruse control button or lever looked like a Chrysler unit that was on various mid to late 1970's models lie the Newport , New Yorker, Plymouth Volare etc. I guess these were leftovers from when Chrysler had a share in Simca.
