Replacement to the Escort. I bought it on the rebound, because I had actually been touring Opel
garages to buy an Opel Manta (the one before the plastic-body-kit-thing, I wanted a proper Berlinetta).
I had picked a beautiful blue metallic 1.9 automatic, then this plan changed rapidly when I got my
insurance quote.
So a Chevette 1.2 it was, then. It was a nice enough car I suppose, light metallic blue, and it was some kind of special edition, so it had proper Rostyle wheels, and blue tartan upholstery that looked better than it might sound.
Other than that, I don't remember a lot about it. It was the one car I have ever owned that was totally neglected, never serviced, and I only fixed it when it wouldn't go any more. I changed the oil once, I think, and the old oil was like tar, so I had to heat the engine up so that the sludge would flow out of the drain hole. A bit of flushing oil before the new oil and filter and it was as good as new!
I do remember getting fed up that the headlights used to get manky within only a mile or so, and you couldn't see where you were going unless it was daylight. The Chevette's stupid recessed lights just trapped every speck of mank thrown up by cars in front, or going the other way. I devised a solution, starting, as normal, with a visit to a couple of scrap yards. A couple of Viva headlamp washer nozzles, a Volvo washer fluid bag, some plastic tubing and a couple of relays and I was happy. I wired it up so that the headlights would get skooshed with the widscreen washers, if the lights were on, but not if the lights were switched off.
I suppose it's a credit to the Chevette that it kept going for 3 years and about 70,000 miles with next to no maintenance.
The dealer who sold it to me, still trading as a Vauxhall dealer, was no credit at all. But that's
another story.
...