Rust!
I mentioned this in the other thread on colour, but I don't think that many today appreciate te almost daily fight we used to have with Rust!
The hidden Devil that lurked beneath almost all cars in the 60's and 70's has been almost beaten today by the advanced anti rust coatings applied to all cars at an early stage of manufacture.. But I well remember my neighbours lovely looking Lancia Beta being condemed at a young age in the mid 70's, by its own manufacturer because of faulty design, permitting rapid rusting to take place. But there were many others! Our own British Leyland cars rusted like pigs, so did early Jaguars. Vauxhall gained a dreadful reputation due to the early Victors tendency to rot away!
Many new owners thought they were being very careful for paying for underseal, but I well remember my late father discovering that even that was fraught with danger when a poor application allowed water to get in under the underseal and quietly do its damage until it was nearly too late. Hillman Avengers suffered too! As a young car salesman I was always in trouble if I bought in anything that was suffering from rust.
As I said mainly a problem of the past but we need to be careful that protection standards don't slip!
TF
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I should have added, that it seemed then that a lot of Foreign cars like the early Renault Daphine, suffered especially badly because of our practise of using a lot of salt on our roads in the winter. Much more than hotter countries did!
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On a quiet night you could hear a Ford rusting!! Thank goodness it is no longer a problem.
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Well at the moment Brian we have quite a bit of salt on our roads where i live even though its not been frosty for the last couple of nights which is ok UNTIL it rains then the salt will rot through anything underseal or not once it finds its way in
and once it had got a hold it was very hard too stop but as said things are better now.
peter.
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I should have added, that it seemed then that a lot of Foreign cars like the early Renault Daphine, suffered especially badly because of our practise of using a lot of salt on our roads in the winter. Much more than hotter countries did!
Fiat were just as bad
v9
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Do you remember the Fiat advert where they mounted a 124 body shell onto a rock and let the sea wash over it to show that they no longer rusted?
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I remeber my brother-in-law ( who worked for BL in Speke) telling me that when things were slack they would put to one side any body panels that had rust on them and then when they busy they would use those same panels that had been rejected and just rub
them down with wire wool. They made Triumph Stags , Spitfires, TR7 and towards the end BL Mini's. Probably explains why these cars are a rarity nowadays.0 -
I had a Datsun that left a small brown pile of dust on the road every time you shut the door.
Nice car though. 180B SSS
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Aye, they did rust, but boy were they classier and more interesting than most cars today! Beats me how most people find their silver hatch back in a huge car park these days! And you could hit them with a hammer to mend most things, which was free. £50 a
pop now for computer to tell you a light bulb has gone and that will be £200 at dealers thank you very much!Current MBG owner! ( ex Mini, Austin 1300, Riley Kestral, Austin 1100, P6 Rover 3500, MGB GT, Series 2,2A,3 Defender Land Rovers, Range Rover, Austin A60 Suntor)
Loved everyone of the rust buckets. Well, except the SD1Rover, couldn't give that away!
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My Morris Minor Traveller was waxoiled some years ago. reapplication from time to time seems to have done the trick. No doubt that modern treatments are far superior to what they were. Rust Busters use a German product I believe which is unbelievable stuff!
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