[ THE INSIDERS ]
In the wake of the Eighties performance car party, we had to navigate a sobering world filled with warm hatches. But there was still some fun to be had
Alex landed his first television job in 1998, working behind the scenes on Top Gear. He’s made several classic car TV series since, and currently writes and presents The Car Years on ITV4. PHOTO: JOHN LAKEY
In the early Nineties I had a friend with a Sierra Sapphire Cosworth. One morning as he tried to pull away, the revs spiked but the car didn’t move. Only when he got out did he realise the wheels were missing, and it was on bricks. In that period, if people weren’t nicking your wheels they were stealing your stereo, or even your bumpers. Add in joyriding and ram-raiding and there was a sense that if you had any kind of fast car there was a target on your back. After a while the insurance industry had had enough. Premiums shot up and certain cars like the Sierra Cosworth became almost impossible to insure.
The same thing had happened in America in the early Seventies. The insurance industry had noticed that thefts, accidents and repair costs were way higher on muscle cars. Given a lot of them came with nine or ten-inch drum brakes and similarly primitive suspension, it’s not surprising that quite a few got totalled.
The insurance industry then decided to act and actually stated that ‘standard-powered cars’ were perfectly adequate and ‘No-one really needs to accelerate from 0 to 60 in under 12 seconds, except on a drag strip.’ It slapped a 30 percent surcharge on anything with a power to weight ratio of 10.5 or less – pounds in weight divided by gross horsepower – and even added a 15 percent surcharge on imported sports cars.
The upshot was that a muscle car costing less than $4000 could attract an annual insurance premium of over $1000. Add in a hefty surcharge on drivers under 25 and a large part of the market disappeared overnight.
‘The exterior was bland to the point of invisibility, and the cabin was like driving in the abyss’
In the UK the insurance squeeze led to a new breed of sporty cars with rather more modest looks and power outputs that would hopefully appeal less to thieves and be cheaper to insure.
In 1996 I landed a job that came with a modest company car allowance which was barely enough for a supermini. By adding in some of my own money I could afford something a bit more interesting, which meant one of the new insurance-friendly ‘warm hatches’.
The Honda Civic Coupé was well reviewed in the magazines, but it looked so pedestrian inside and out that it was probably for the best that the dealer ignored me. I briefly considered a non-turbo Subaru Impreza, but it was very slow and looked like a mini-cab.
A test drive in a Golf GTI MkIII was a major disappointment. It felt gutless – 0-62 arrived in 10.9 seconds – the black exterior and steel wheels were bland to the point of invisibility, and the cabin was so black and depressing it was like driving in the abyss. I’d really like to have tried a Citroën ZX Furio, which I’d read had an outstanding chassis, but the Citroën dealer didn’t have one so in the end I went for a Fiat Bravo 1.8 HLX.
I thought it looked gorgeous in black with 15in five-spoke alloy wheels, and the view in the door mirrors of the gently swelling rear haunches made every lane change a pleasure. It only had 113bhp and needed plenty of revs, but it still got to 60 in a little under ten seconds and was a lot of fun. As was the cassette lid, which glided upwards, then sat horizontally above the stereo. It was just a shame it was called HLX in the UK to keep the insurers happy – in the rest of Europe it was called the 1.8 GT which suited it much better.
I hated the job, but I loved the car, and undoubtedly the biggest downside of leaving to join Top Gear in 1998 was having to hand it back.
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