This time for a change, lets talk about an 80’s gentlemen car. A dream car for many people back then. A car my father had once upon a time (his first car). Quite a long car with 4.5 meters in length , weighing about 1.2 tonnes and powered by a 1.6 liter, 4 cylinder-8 valve sedan. Yes , 8 valves. Rear Wheel Driven, equipped with 5-speed manual transmission, to be honest it is quite an under-powered car for today’s requirement, producing merely 70-75 hp. The car could speed up to 160 km/h though, a good thing for an 80’s piece.
Looking at the massive hood , well at least for a Japanese, many would have thought it has a humongous engine. Not at all. As stated, this particular model is a SOHC inline 4 engine, possibly smaller than Myvi’s too. Noting that it is a RWD, car enthusiast specifically drifters would love to modify the diffs for their drifting activities. It has no ABS, EBD or anything such. The standard model comes with 2 front disc brakes and 2 drums at the rear. All the mass is sprung by leaf spring, something you can see in lorries these days.
Now, what is fuel economy to this car back in early 2000’s. I am talking about a 250 km drive consuming almost RM 80 (back then fuel price was below RM 2/liter). These days, a typical 1.6 litre engine could only consume less than RM 25 for such distance, provided you are in the so-called ECO mode. Innovation hit us hard in between, for good sake.
For such small engine, the car was noisy, mainly due to lack of sound proofing in-availability back then. The car kinda roared if revs are high. No CD players or touch-infotainment systems, only cassette player with AM/FM feature available. A long , probably 2 feet in length antenna stood up at the rear or front at A pillar .
These cars are rare but possible to find one on the streets, maybe perfectly maintained or with missing body parts parked under a shady tree covered by fungus or rust. There is a sayings “Old is Gold”. Kind request from me to you, preserve and conserve these kinda cars, for one day, they’ll extinct.
DV-Drives 