Unsung heroes: Jaguar X-type

More than a Mondeo?

It's been more than a year since my last unsung hero, but the series makes its long-overdue return with the most modern choice so far. With Jaguar experiencing a renaissance at the hands of its current Indian owners, the cars built under Ford's ownership are often derided or forgotten, especially the subject of today's piece that is commonly regarded as a low point in the marque's history. Ford-era Jaguars get a bad press, none more so than the X-type thanks to its controversial platform-sharing with the Mondeo that dooms it to be forever classed as not a real Jaguar in the eyes of many. Is that really fair though, or is it so overshadowed by the Mondeo comparisons that it deserves a second chance?

Just a Mondeo pretending to be a Jag, or something more?
(Image: Amazon.com)

Unsung heroes: MG Maestro Turbo

The unsung heroes series seems to have become rather more occasional than I intended, but here at last is a new entry. This one has been on my list of candidates for a long time and I was finally spurred into featuring it by attending an event that celebrated its 30th birthday. Consider the Austin Maestro, a thoroughly uninspiring bread-and-butter car driven mainly by pensioners with nothing for petrolheads to get excited about. However, you may be surprised to learn that 30 years ago at the height of the performance wars, someone at Austin-Rover went berserk and added a large dose of spices to that butter, creating the hottest of all hot hatches...

Doesn't look that special, does it?

Unsung heroes: Rover 600

My intention to profile an unsung hero every month has rather fallen by the wayside this year. I still have plenty of deserving candidates but seem to be short of time to write about them, so better late than never, my first unsung hero of 2018 is a successful British car that celebrated its 25th birthday this month yet is overlooked and almost forgotten compared with the rest of its manufacturer's sometimes inferior products. The Rover 600-series may be dismissed as nothing more than a Honda in a posh frock and doesn't have the following of its successor, but it was actually one of the company's best cars so I think it really deserves better.

Honda in drag or proper Rover?

Unsung heroes: CVE Omni

Travel on any modern low-floor bus and you'll soon notice a fundamental design problem. With the engine mounted at the rear, a flat floor is impossible and while the front half may be nice and low there's always an awkward arrangement of steps or ramps up to the back seats. Wouldn't it make far more sense to put the engine at the front and drive the front wheels so it's completely out of the way of the passenger compartment? Such a vehicle did exist almost thirty years ago and had the potential to revolutionise the minibus industry but sadly turned out to be a bit of a flop that has disappeared into obscurity, so I've nominated it as my final unsung hero of the year.

H389 KPY is the sole surviving Omni in PSV service
(By Pimlico Badger - EMPHAST H389KPY, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25343829)

Unsung heroes: Eagle Premier

This month the unsung heroes series returns to the USA with an especially bizarre choice that non-American readers will probably never have heard of and even Americans are likely to have forgotten. The Eagle Premier is a product of the 1980s, a dark time in US automotive history that created some frankly terrible cars, and if remembered at all is often cited as a perfect example of these with its unreliability and dull-as-ditchwater styling - a site called TheStreet.com even declared it the worst car of all time. I feel that is completely unfair: while the Premier may seem pretty boring it was actually very competent and quite innovative by American standards and I can think of cars that are far, far worse. Read on for the fascinating story behind this Franco-American crossbreed and how it should have shaken up the US motor industry. 

The perfect combination of American and European? It looks a bit like an Audi if you squint
(Image: allpar.com)

Unsung heroes: Suzuki Jimny

It has been quite some time since I wrote anything for this blog due to other things going on - I have plenty of new posts drafted in my head but just haven't had the time to write them down. Today the unsung heroes series makes its overdue return with an especially unusual and largely overlooked choice. Here is a car that wasn't even remotely advanced when it first appeared, yet has now been produced for two whole decades with no major changes. In this modern world of fickle consumers demanding new models every few years, that is really quite a remarkable achievement but has gone virtually unnoticed and totally uncelebrated. I'm talking about the Suzuki Jimny - many of you have almost certainly forgotten this ever existed so it may amaze you that at the time of writing UK customers can still buy a brand new one in basically the same form as the 1997 original!

The Jimny was nothing special back in 1997
(By Mytho88 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Unsung heroes: Triumph TR7

British Leyland have far more than their fair share of unsung heroes, being the car company everyone loves to hate, and today's subject is the second Triumph-badged car to feature in this series. The Triumph TR7 is practically guaranteed to feature in all those lists of the world's worst cars that keep appearing, especially those compiled by Americans, who really seem to hate it with a passion. That's quite ironic really as it was designed specifically to appeal to the US market and the Americans mostly have themselves to blame for the way it turned out. Was it really that bad though? Yes, it suffered its share of issues and its story is one of missed opportunities and unrealised potential, but it's a surprisingly contradictory yet true fact that the TR7 is somehow both the least loved and simultaneously also the most successful member of the TR series.

Is it really fair to class this as one of the world's worst cars?

Unsung heroes: Volvo F86

So far this series has mainly profiled cars, plus a couple of buses and a taxi, but I have never yet looked at the unsung heroes of the trucking world. Today that changes as I pay tribute to a pioneer that made a huge impact on the British haulage industry but lives in the shadow of its more glamorous sister model. Spend just a few minutes watching the traffic on any trunk road and chances are the majority of the many trucks that pass by will be Volvos, such is the marque's dominance nowadays. It all started from humble beginnings half a century ago when a small Scottish dealership called Ailsa Trucks imported their first Volvo F86.

Where it all began - the very first F86 in the UK

Unsung heroes: Metrocab

Along with the red Routemaster bus, the other instantly recognisable symbol of London and British public transport is the black cab. I can practically guarantee what you're now thinking of will inevitably be the Austin FX4 or Carbodies Fairway as it later became, a classic design that roamed the streets of the capital and many other areas in huge numbers for decades.

The FX4 wasn't the only bespoke taxi designed specifically to meet London's peculiar requirements though; its main rival may be much less famous and doesn't have the same quintessentially British image but carved out a formidable reputation among cabbies and gave many years of reliable service so I have nominated it as this month's unsung hero. I'm talking about the Metrocab, a vehicle that was an excellent taxi in own right but is very much overshadowed by the iconic nature of the FX4 so it rarely gets the recognition it deserves.

Looks like the offspring of a Granada and a Range Rover but much more modern than the FX4
(By Mic from Reading - Berkshire, United Kingdom - Reading, Berkshire - UK, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38713195)

Unsung heroes: Chevrolet Corvair

Unsafe at any speed?

Today's unsung hero is the first American car in the series and another controversial choice. The Chevrolet Corvair is often cited as one of the worst cars of all time and ranked alongside such other disasters as the Edsel and the AMC Pacer, but was it really that bad? Yes, its reputation was ruined (unfairly as it turned out) by a best-selling book that condemned it as an inherently dangerous car, but the Corvair was actually very revolutionary for an automotive industry that had become set in its ways and reluctant to innovate, and inadvertently created a whole new market sector that was keenly exploited by other manufacturers. I think it deserves a reappraisal and here I present the case for the defence...

Is it really fair to call this one of the world's worst cars?
(By Charles01 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27794784)

Unsung heroes: Nissan March Super Turbo

For the month of March, what could be more appropriate than a car called March? Everyone must know the Nissan Micra (or March as it's named in Japan) and it's definitely not an obscure car, but I must admit to being totally unaware of this particular version and have my friend Matt to thank for telling me about it. As soon as he mentioned what was under the bonnet, something you really wouldn't expect from such a car, I knew it was worthy of inclusion in the unsung heroes series, so here's the story.

It may look like a barried up Micra but there's something very unusual under the bonnet (image: Nissan)

The Volkswagen Group may be making headlines with their twincharged TSI engine range featuring both a turbocharger and a supercharger and claiming this to be a 21st century innovation, but this technology's first use in a production car was actually three decades ago in a limited-run and largely unknown high-performance version of the Nissan March. Here in the UK the Micra has an unglamorous reputation as the car of choice for pensioners, driving instructors and pizza delivery boys, so the Super Turbo will make you look at it in a more exciting way, but sadly it was sold only on the Japanese domestic market and is virtually unheard of in Europe.

Unsung heroes: Bedford JJL

Most of the unsung heroes I have featured so far are cars, but the very first one was a bus and today I return to that theme. It's fair to say the Dennis Dart is one of the major success stories of the bus industry, bridging the gap between minibuses and full-size single-deckers and creating a whole new class of vehicle, but a similar bus could have appeared on the market over a decade before the Dart's 1989 launch. This was the Bedford JJL, an innovative rear-engined purpose-built minibus that was first revealed in prototype form back in 1976 but never reached production, and in many ways was a Dart before its time.

Bedford's biggest missed opportunity or the right product at the wrong time?

Unsung heroes: Jensen FF

Four-wheel-drive isn't just for off-roaders anymore and its use in road cars is now commonplace.
Everybody knows this idea began in 1980 with the Audi Quattro, which was the world's first four-wheel-drive performance car and is hailed as one of the biggest revolutions in automotive history, right? Wrong! That honour actually belongs to something rather less famous that was introduced some fourteen years earlier by a small-scale British manufacturer and is both an unsung hero and a dream car to me.

I'm talking about the Jensen FF, which was not only the first four-wheel-drive production road car but also the first to be fitted with anti-lock brakes and traction control, and introduced all this technology more than fifty years ago. If it was so impressively innovative, why isn't the FF better known and more revered in the annals of history? Read on to find out why this remarkable car just didn't make the impact it deserved and left Audi to lap up the applause over a decade later...

An all-wheel-drive performance car 14 years before the Quattro

Unsung heroes: Skoda Favorit

Nobody laughs at Skoda nowadays. Thanks to the influence of parent company Volkswagen, the brand has become an award-winning mainstream producer of appealing, well-built and highly-regarded cars, and choosing to buy one is a perfectly sensible decision that won't make you the butt of any jokes. Things weren't always like this though and such a remarkable change has come about in less than thirty years. Although they had a small loyal following in the UK, until the 1990s Skodas were generally considered to be crude bargain-basement transport and objects of derision in popular culture. While Volkswagen must take a lot of the credit for Skoda's transformation, it actually began some years before the takeover with the Favorit, the car that marks the start of the transition from the much-derided rear-engined Skodas of old to today's smart modern range and a worthy choice of unsung hero.

A typical early-90s supermini and not something to joke about
(from http://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/reviews/skoda/favorit/)

Unsung heroes: Volkswagen K70

If I was to mention the name Volkswagen, there are certain iconic cars everyone will immediately think of: the legendary Beetle, the trendy Type 2 camper and the game-changing Golf GTI. All of those are very much 'sung heroes' though and so much has been written about them that there really isn't anything new to add, so instead I'm going to turn my attention to something a little more left-field that may seem a strange choice to nominate as Volkswagen's unsung hero. This is a pretty obscure car so I guess a lot of you are now wondering just what a K70 actually is, but its rarity belies its great significance as the first front-engined and water-cooled Volkswagen.

Unsung heroes: Triumph Acclaim

It's fair to say the dawn of the 1980s was not a great time for British Leyland. The company had managed to survive the turmoil of the seventies but not without gaining a very poor reputation, and their well-documented financial problems meant the product range was not in the best of health. The evergreen Land Rover and Mini were still selling well and the Metro was the great new hope for the future, but new legislation in the USA had killed off their popular sports roadsters and caused the closure of the Canley and Abingdon factories, and the mainstream family car lineup was looking very much past its best.

The Allegro 3, Maxi 2, Ital and Ambassador were all crude facelifts of ageing and unpopular designs that were long past their sell-by date and had bad reputations and very little appeal, so something new and better was urgently needed. Salvation was to come in the form of a joint venture with Honda, the first fruit of which would be the Triumph Acclaim, an underrated car that I think is deserving of greater accolades for being the first in a long line of successful Anglo-Japanese collaborations. I could easily have written 'greater acclaim' there but such puns are cliched and everyone uses them when talking about this car. 

Unsung heroes: Matra Rancho

Walk down any street in the UK nowadays and there is one type of car you're pretty much guaranteed to see: the crossover, combining the chunky looks of an off-roader with conventional two-wheel-drive underpinnings and exemplified by the best-selling Nissan Qashqai. You may think crossovers are a 21st century phenomenon, yet there is a car that could lay claim to pioneering this market sector way back in the late seventies, long before the term 'crossover' had even been invented. I'm talking about the Talbot Matra Rancho, a vehicle derided in its day for having the looks of a 4x4 without the off-road ability but arguably just too far ahead of its time, which had it appeared thirty years later could have been a great success.

The first crossover, thirty years before its time?

Unsung heroes: Austin Maxi

I haven't championed an unsung hero for a very long time so a new entry is well overdue but this one may seem an odd choice: the Austin Maxi. Have I lost my mind? Surely everyone agrees the Maxi was a terrible car that epitomises everything wrong with British Leyland? Well no actually, I think that reputation is rather unfair and the poor old Maxi deserves a lot more credit than it's given. I've been seeing a few Maxis at shows recently and become quite fond of them, so let me justify myself...

The much maligned Maxi. Pile of crap or unsung hero?

Unsung heroes: the Invacar

Today's unsung hero was a common (if not universally popular) sight but has been gone from Britain's roads for over a decade: the Invacar Model 70 invalid carriage that was once the government's preferred option for the provision of motoring to the disabled and seemed to be a fixture pretty much everywhere. While most older vehicles have disappeared gradually due to natural attrition, the Invacar's demise was much more sudden and literally a case of "here today, gone tomorrow", having been outlawed overnight and quickly scrapped almost to the point of extinction. It arguably outlived its usefulness and was no longer appropriate, and was killed off in favour of much better options, but the country's roads just aren't the same without its distinctive presence.

Any colour you like as long as it's blue. Who remembers these buzzing around?
(By Charles01 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Unsung heroes: Nissan Bluebird

The unsung heroes series today turns its attention to another car from a Japanese manufacturer, although in reality it was actually a product of home-grown British industry. This was the car with which Nissan established themselves as a major player in Europe and that laid the foundations for the Japanese marques' dominance of UK car production. Cars from Japan may have started to gain a substantial foothold in the 1970s, but it was in the eighties with models like the T12/T72 Nissan Bluebird that they really became a mainstream choice. It may have had a Japanese badge but the Bluebird was essentially a British car, more so than many of the contemporary Fords and Vauxhalls that despite being thought of as British were actually built elsewhere in mainland Europe. The earliest Bluebirds are now thirty years old but survival rates are higher than many of their contemporaries, a testament to their durability and the large quantities in which they were sold.

An early Washington-built Bluebird, still giving good service to its ninth owner.