A couple of links to some amusing clips:-
A company car driver who has had to swap his Cavalier for a Maestro Clubman diesel and can't stand the shame!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMCFeoR9oSg
A driver of a Cavalier GLi who won't let 'lesser' Cavalier drivers (base models and L spec cars) to overtake, but will let SRi and CD drivers past! Turns up for an interview in his previous Escort diesel estate and parks round the back, so that the prospective new employer can't see what he's been forced to drive!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEGNclTEcFs
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I thought these were a wind up to start with, a subtle form of humour...but they're not are they. Do these sorts of people still exist?
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>> I thought these were a wind up to start with, a subtle form of
>> humour...but they're not are they. Do these sorts of people still exist?
>>
Yes they do.
Some of our customers throw a major paddy if the courtesy car they are given isn't at least the same model and spec as 'their' car (most often a lease car!)
We let them have use of the courtesy car FOC, and then they moan if they have to refuel our car during their use of it... their car doesn't use fuel then??
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The young lads and lasses who work for us and whose jobs come with a car seem much more relaxed about these things these days. Most of them claim to be just happy to have a job in our industry the way things are.
The entry level cars in our company are BMW 116ds or Golf diesels. They seem to to like them well enough. I've driven examples of both. The little BMWs are a bit athsmatic but handle well. The Golfs feel solid and yet are fun and go like something off a warm shovel round town !
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There must have been a rather large job lot of those Maestros (Maestri?), I remember returning to head office in UK for a period in 1995 and one of those estates was the only car available. It's best feature was when you put your foot down, following drivers were enveloped in a cloud of soot and smoke. They could shift though because they were so light; think they were made of recycled tin cans.
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I remember borrowing a friends (company car) MG Turbo Maestro (or was it a Montego?). That was quick in the dry, I just wonder what it was like in the wet?
That was the last time that I did 70 away from traffic lights in a 30 mph zone.
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The Traffic Police around here had a beige 2.0 Montego - apparently it had been "breathed on" and had uprated brakes and better suspension....the only car that was viewed as being worse was a Talbot Tagora
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A close relative of mine spent the few couple of years of his police career as a driving instructor at Hendon. Teaching the finer points of driving cars and bikes awfully fast while avoiding bad guys apparently.
He used to speak of cars they got to test which manufacturers had interfered with to make them very quick.
One sticks in my mind which he took me out in. It was an apparently base model dark green unmarked Rover 800.
He reckoned it was good for outrunning supercars. No idea what the oily bits were. It was certainly fast... Mind you, he could make a base Metro dance when he took the notion.
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I remember my first ever company car - a new Mondeo 2.0 Si hatch. The mondeo had been launched about 9 months earlier, and the Si had alloys, sporty gearbox ratios, stiffer suspension. I got through the front tyres in about 8,000 miles as I recall. Fortunately the spare was a matching alloy (wouldn't get that today), so I was able to get away with one new tyre. At least for a while.
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>> He used to speak of cars they got to test which manufacturers had interfered with
>> to make them very quick.
Not necessarily interfered with . .
You could buy a Sherpa with a Rover v8 - some police forces did, similrly you could get 3.0 V6 Petrol Transits - who would buy one but a police force.
Edit - Odd place to put the post . . .
Last edited by: IJWS14 on Tue 19 Jun 12 at 12:33
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>> Edit - Odd place to put the post . . .
Make sense in threaded view?
www.car4play.com/forum/post/index.htm?t=10925&v=t
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>> You could buy a Sherpa with a Rover v8 - some police forces did,
I've driven some of them. The Met Police had them.
Automatic gearbox and Rover V8 in large minibus, with armour, perspex windows and front lights, metal grill that you could pull down over the windscreen.
They never did more than 4mpg either.
When fully laden with 12 hefty cops and all their riot equipment, inc fire extinguishers and shields....they took some stopping.
They shifted though.
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>>
>> They shifted though.
>>
Didn't the police have 2 or 3 of them with 4 wheel drive & antilock brakes a la Jensen FF? Seem to remember a Practical Classics article a year or two back.
Last edited by: commerdriver on Tue 19 Jun 12 at 14:36
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>> Didn't the police have 2 or 3 of them with 4 wheel drive & antilock
>> brakes a la Jensen FF? Seem to remember a Practical Classics article a year or
>> two back.
>>
Never saw a Sherpa like that, although I did see a counties Transit that was 4x4.
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... 3.0 V6 Petrol Transits - who would buy one but a police force?
My school had one as a minibus in about 1984. It was blue with big, squashy seats upholstered in brown vinyl and was surprisingly comfortable to travel in - perhaps because it had double rear wheels to absorb the bumps. It once took me from Oxfordshire to Blackpool and back in a day.
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>> The Traffic Police around here had a beige 2.0 Montego - apparently it had been
>> "breathed on" and had uprated brakes and better suspension....the only car that was viewed as
>> being worse was a Talbot Tagora
>>
In its day, the 2 litre (petrol) turbo Montego was the fastest 4 door production car in the world.
One of our regional managers was all set to get one "off policy" but a new MD arrived and insisted the car polcy was followed which put the kibosh on it.
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>> In its day, the 2 litre (petrol) turbo Montego was the fastest 4 door production
>> car in the world.
>>
Surely an XJ12/Daimler double six would see one of those off?
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>> Surely an XJ12/Daimler double six would see one of those off?
>>
Sorry - the fastest 2 litre production car.....etc
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I've not had a company car since opting out 1998, and I don't suppose I'll ever have another, but how well I remember the lengths people went to in exploiting the "policy" or bending it.
In IIRC 1993 I discovered that a Subaru Legacy 4 cam turbo estate had about 200bhp and met all the criteria, so I put my order in. The company immediately changed the policy to exclude anything "deemed by the fleet manager to be high risk". I was mightily peed off with that.
I got an Audi 80 2.0 instead, with, wait for it, a Pioneer 6 stack CD player, lovely upgraded seat fabric, map reading lights and aftermarket alloy wheels as the budget didn't run to the Audi ones ;-)
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>> A company car driver who has had to swap his Cavalier for a Maestro Clubman
>> diesel and can't stand the shame!
I haven't watched the clip right through but I recall a version of that story (definitely the same car) but told by the bloke's wife who said they both sat on the settee and cried when he came home in the Maestro Clubman diesel! He left the job shortly afterwards.
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I think the Cav driver was a saddo, but I felt the Maestro driver's pain though !
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>> I think the Cav driver was a saddo, but I felt the Maestro driver's pain
>> though !
>>
And no doubt a two foot off your back bumper, flashing lights and finger "above average driver" too.
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>> but I felt the Maestro driver's
>> pain
>> >> though !
>> >>
Any sympathy I might have had for him went out the window when he moaned about lorries overtaking him.
That Maestro would have done 80mph.....eventually. What a ridiculous thing to say....on tv.
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The wacky world of company cars drivers eh ? ;) I'm not sure there's any bad cars out there now. I've never had one nor ever likely to, but I think most are ok these days I don't think anyone would be that fussy about having a very cheap new car.
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Good 90's spoof clips. Humorous and well-acted.
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You mean he didn't cry when he got home and take his tie off in mway services? :(
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>> Good 90's spoof clips. Humorous and well-acted.
>>
I've never seen the company car clips before, but I remember the series when it was on TV and I recall this episode among others -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqzte6n67Kw&feature=relmfu
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>>I remember the series when it was on TV and I recall this episode
I liked the bit about his friends being embarrassed to be seen in his car. I'm sure a few of mine felt the same a lifetime ago when I owned an Austin A40!
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I remember watching the Meastro one when it was on TV the first time, must have been around 1994. I remember getting very annoyed with them because my dad drove a 7 year old Lada at the time and we were more than pleased with it. It was a car with four wheels, it was a lot more than many people had at the time.
Slightly off topic but some of my family used to be well off, my uncle had two cars, a BMW 750i (1988 model) and a Montego estate. The story is that my cousin who was about 10 at the time (this must have been circa 1990) said as they were at the reception of a caravan park where they were going to buy a new holiday home - "daddy why didn't we take the BMW 7 series?"
His parents were livid at the time.
And of course they were both company cars which were leased anyway.
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It is not a spoof, well at least I remember watching it when it was first on around 1994, I was only 12 then. But the snobbery behind that Maestro is something I will never ever forget.
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That L Series diesel was almost bombproof. Body work very poor on those Austins though.
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>> I felt the Maestro driver's pain
I worked for a chap in the 90s who'd been given an E-reg Maestro 1.3 City X* on 1st August 1987 when he was a sales rep. That very afternoon, whilst parked on an industrial estate catching up with his paperwork, the brand new car was rear-ended by a truck. At the time the Maestro was parked in gear, engine off but ignition on. The driver's seat backrest adjustment mechanism promptly snapped, leaving my friend laying flat on his back looking out of the sunroof whilst travelling forwards at idling speed with the back of the car virtually destroyed.
It was a write-off, and he got a Cavalier like everyone else's shortly afterwards.
*Naughty sales reps' car
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Some sort of rough justice !
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I remember a conversation with a new sales rep. in the early 90's or so, who was choosing his company car.
He was entitled to a fully loaded Cavalier CDi, Sierra Ghia or a poverty-spec 3-series to the same lease cost.
The 'FM Radio' and no-cost 'de-badge' option for his 316 had almost maxed out his allowance but he was having real difficulty deciding how to spend the remaining £150. It was either front fog lights or heated washer nozzles and door mirrors.
No prizes for guessing.
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Must have been the fog lights :D
If that was my choice I would have chosen the Cavvy, the bog spec 316s didn't even have central locking or electric windows did they? The Sierra was too long in the tooth even by 1990, but if I could have a Mondeo on the other hand I would do. I remember me and my mate getting to exciting as 10 years old visiting Quicks for the launch of the Mondeo. We were staggered by the fact it had airbags.
The CDI may not have lasted as long but if its a company car who gives a toss if it only lasts 15 years and not 20?
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>> If that was my choice I would have chosen the Cavvy, the bog spec 316s didn't even have...
It's not about what it does Rats, it's about what it looks like.
Given the choice of an Insignia or a 318d today, most sales reps would still pick the BMW.
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We had two company car drivers about 1996 who felt they'd gone up the ladder in Hyundai Lantras because they had leather trim and four electric windows!!
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I remember watching this when it was originally shown. The guy with the Cavalier came across as a muppet even then, and time hasn't helped. :-)
I can't imagine enything worse than covering big miles in a diesel Maestro though. I did feel for that guy.
I remember having a 306XSI swapped for a Daewoo Nubira. That was hard, but given a third of the company had been made redundant that year, I just considered myself lucky to still have a job.
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Clearly the guy who got the clubman was unloved and unappreciated by his company and they were an appalling bunch of cheapskates. I was a company car driver for 31 years, and had they foisted that car on me, I would have walked. ( and cried )
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I guess you would call that a company car flounce...
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can someone explain what was wrong with the clubman diesel?
they were on the road before i had my driving license.
hence never got to drive one.
they should have been a good diesel engine since perkins of peterborough dieselised a L series leyland engine. plus it had a turbo.
was it slow and noisy?
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It was a stout yeoman of an engine....so to speak.
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>> was it slow and noisy?
Very and very. The clubman was fitted with the non turbo 62hp Perkins Prima. An engine that barely sipped diesel with fabulous MPG, mostly because it was prodigiously unable to summon up any urgency.
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ah yes 62bhp in a car that size would be terrible. unless the car had an 8 speed gear box. he he
one of my friends had a rover 2 series something with a diesel engine and that was suprisingly quick on the welsh back roads.
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i just checked here :-
www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/2011/12/01/unsung-heroes-montego-turbo-diesel/
and the article said that the revised engine with a turbo was a completly different car and had a more liveable 80bhp.
so i wonder if the original posters video had the standard 62bhp version.
i dont think i would be happy driving a diesel without a turbo in todays world.
turbo units work so well with diesel engines
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I can't decide whether it's a culture shift or an ages of man thing. I and many of my contemporaries had company cars back then and indeed I can remember some of those people agonising over whether Ls or GLs or Ghias etc were the thing. Being "allowed" metallic paint was another big deal I seem to recall. I don't really remember personally being all that bothered other than a constant yearning for the next engine size up. After a couple of 1600s, being honoured with a 2000 was a royal treat !
Nowadays I really couldn't care less. Most modern cars are pretty OK and I measure them by practicality, driveability and comfort mainly.The badge or sub-model doesn't really bother me although I won't deny that it is nice when you are given or allowed to choose a good one.
The younger generation seem much less excercised by such things or maybe that's just my selective perception.
My employers give me a Merc E class estate at the moment but if next time they wanted to give me something cheaper but as useful to use I couldn't give a fig frankly. In some ways it might even be advantageous (on tax for example).
One of my first posts on a certain other motoring website discussed one's relationship with one's car's supposed "image". I haven't really changed my views since. Of course I have a view of my own cars in terms of how well they suit my requirements at the time, but I really don't care what anyone else thinks of them nor indeed do I waste any mental energy in concerning myself with whatever anyone else drives. That's sort of up to them and all I really ask is that they don't drive them into me !
That's not to say that it's not also fun to wind up those who clearly are unreasonably sensitive or insecure about their car choice at any and every given opportunity ! That bit is just sport but not to be taken seriously.
:-))
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Quite right Humph. I mean one wouldn't want to associate with those who get "mercedes e-class" in every post, or harp on about a westfield would one.
One really shouldnt wind people up you know.....
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It was certainly no worse than the awful Ford 1.6 diesel fitted to the Fiesta, Escort & Orion in the mid to late 80's. I drove an Orion blessed with one of these dire excuses for an engine and it was hard to tell if it was accelerating at all !
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>>I mean one wouldn't want to associate with those who get "mercedes e-class" in every post,<<
That's a tad harsh. There was a post about a month ago...
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I'm a sensitive soul you know. Bottom lip quivering as I type ! I may have to flounce a bit if you big bullys carry on....
In future I shall only make reference to it ( the car ) if asked directly and nicely.
Sniffs in a self-righteous and slightly put out sort of way..... !
Been driving the Qashqai today anyway in an attempt to re-connect with the masses...It was remarkably acceptable and cathartic truth be told.
:-)
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Just been to the shops in the MX5. After 20 minutes outside Aldi (nice E class estate parked outside BTW, times are hard) it wouldn't start, having done its heat soak trick. Waited 10 minutes with the bonnet up and off it went.
There's something quite nostalgia-inducing about having a temperamental car.
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i remembred watching this series, especially the sales rep of the maestro, he was saying he had a rover before and when the company gave him the key it said rover was imagining it be the 416 or something like that when he went to the car park it was a maestro oh the shame he cried!
felt sorry for him, i was in my 20s when i passed the test and got a honda civic 1985 model, the insurance was £800 for it
great times!
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Vaguely remember watching the programme with the Maestro guy in the mid 90s. At the company I worked at at the time there were people like both of those characters in the video.
I used to regularly car share with an Orion driving sales guy around 1990. He also knew how to spot an inferior Orion (his was a Ghia) by the various external trim differences. He knew which ones had electric windows, velours seats, etc.
This was around the time when diesels were starting to become popular, if not particularly pleasant. I remember this guy telling me if the company made him change to a diesel, he would leave.
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In the late 80's/early 90's when i was a rep if you were given a Ford diesel you were the lowest of the low in the eyes of other reps !
In those days when carbs were still the norm everyone I worked with aspired to a car with fuel injection as that i on the bootlid stood for important !
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Appears that the maestro in the first link didnt last long.
According to DVLA it was registered 25th March 1992 and has not been taxed since 24th October 1994 - written off I guess?
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>> According to DVLA it was registered 25th March 1992 and has not been taxed since
>> 24th October 1994 - written off I guess?
>>
Mystery fire.
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It still happens today, that is why you see more BMW 3 series being sold than better specified and cheaper Ford Mondeos.
I know my company has downgraded the choice list to Corsas and Megans to save shed loads of money under the excuse of being environmentally friendly.
Of course the staff that are getting them are totally hacked off and looking for any excuse even H&S on the grounds of doing 25k miles a year in a Corsa is not going to do the back much good.
I suspect companies give a choice of cars within a budget to get around some of the potential claims as the user choose that car, it is not our fault that he can no longer walk upright.
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>> Appears that the maestro in the first link didnt last long.
>>
>> According to DVLA it was registered 25th March 1992 and has not been taxed since
>> 24th October 1994 - written off I guess?
Failed its first MOT on terminal rust.
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>> Just been to the shops in the MX5. After 20 minutes outside Aldi (nice E
>> class estate parked outside BTW, times are hard) it wouldn't start, having done its heat
>> soak trick. Waited 10 minutes with the bonnet up and off it went.
>>
>> There's something quite nostalgia-inducing about having a temperamental car.
A feeling of deja vu perhaps?
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>> >> Just been to the shops in the MX5. After 20 minutes outside Aldi (nice
>> E
>> >> class estate parked outside BTW, times are hard) it wouldn't start, having done its
>> heat
>> >> soak trick. Waited 10 minutes with the bonnet up and off it went.
>> >>
>> >> There's something quite nostalgia-inducing about having a temperamental car.
No there isn't, thats just a PITA what ever way you look at it. I would get it fixed or get rid. Its only an MX5, they are not rare, plenty out there that work.
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>> one of my friends had a rover 2 series something with a diesel engine and
>> that was suprisingly quick on the welsh back roads.
>>
A Friends mum had a 220 diesel in 96 - it was the new model (the rounded one) that had just come out. Was very quick, and could give hot hatches a fair run for their money.
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>>>A Friends mum had a 220 diesel in 96
I had one for a while. You had to be very careful in the wet. It didn't have ABS and if you slammed the brakes going down hill the back would slide out really quickly.
(Did it have disks on the front and drums on the back?)
Great car though!
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>> the non turbo 62hp Perkins Prima. An engine that barely sipped diesel with fabulous MPG, mostly because
>> it was prodigiously unable to summon up any urgency
>> ah yes 62bhp in a car that size would be terrible. unless the car had an 8 speed gear box. he he
The Maestro van had such a tall 5th gear that when it was engaged at 50mph the engine was barely more than idling. I once had to drive one of those to Swansea and back. It had a badly rumbling wheel bearing and I was instructed not to exceed 50mph until I got back and they could change it... End result was ninety-one miles per gallon.
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The first diesel I bought was a Maestro Clubman.
It did its job excellently, but it's the only car I've ever had where you changed up to overtake.
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My corporate days were in the sixties and very early seventies, but it's obvious that little changed between then and the 90s: the car people got was a sign of their seniority and the favour with which their immediate bosses regarded them. I didn't get one because people on my level in my department didn't, although lowly brand managers in marketing did get them. What I got to use were pool cars, which provided a bit of fairly boring variety. The cars were always spotless and in fine mechanical fettle.
I must say these stories about people being humiliated with slow or plebeian cars, and bursting into tears, make me laugh... how can an adult man give a tuppenny damn about something like that, their ranking in a scrum of twerps or their non-favoured status in the eyes of some pretentious bounder and con artist of a manager? I can remember very few genuinely admirable characters from that setting, and a fair number of despicable carphounds.
In any case, my own attitude to cars is highly critical, but I can't help liking all of them. Any new car always feels good to me. It's the way they're driven that counts.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXdaUBSgsVU
Alan Partridge is told by Lynn that he must downgrade his Rover 800 to a Rover Metro.
"They've rebadged it you fool!"
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When I worked for Norwich Union back in the 80s and early 90s , the "inspectors" as they were then called, all had company cars.
Majority of them were either Maestros or base 3 door Astras. E & F plates if I remember correctly.
What I do remember is the inspector who covered Ayrshire got a casrphone installed in his Maestro, think that was an H Reg!!
Think it was at the time that the Maestros went with the two tone bodywork!
Edit: whilst typing this I have just realised that I can remember the phone number of that phone - 0860441320 !! Blimey!!, that must be about 30 years ago since I last called it!!
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 20 Jun 12 at 01:19
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I had the same work mobile phone number for 25 years.
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Didn't you and Mr Ayrshire Maestro get tired of getting each other's calls?
Oh, I see.
I still have the number I was issued by BT Cellnet in 1996, although it's gained a 7 since then.
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>> I had the same work mobile phone number for 25 years.
I've had 5 different jobs in 20 years, so not much hope of that :-)
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>> I've had 5 different jobs in 20 years, so not much hope of that :-)
>>
So have I, but I've always taken my mobile number with me. It started off as a company number in '95 and has followed me ever since. Never wanted the hassle of multiple numbers...
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>> So have I, but I've always taken my mobile number with me. It started off
>> as a company number in '95 and has followed me ever since. Never wanted the
>> hassle of multiple numbers...
I don't have enough friends for that to be a problem ;-)
Seriously though, with the advent of Facebook and LinkedIn, I find I use the "personal" aspect of my mobile less and less. The odd text, perhaps a call to SWMBO if I'm running late. That's pretty much it. It's a minimal hassle to change numbers for me.
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>> I had the same work mobile phone number for 25 years.
No you didn't. In that time they changed all mobiles to be prefixed with a 7.
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I've had the same number for twenty years, apart from the introduction of the '7' which doesn't really count.
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Try dialling it without the 7 to see if it counts ;-)
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I wonder how long it will be before no one "dials" numbers anymore? I don't think I've dialled one for about 30 years or maybe more. I've keyed in a lot since then, although I still claim to have dialled them. Bit like "blowing" a horn. Or "winding" a window. Or listening to the "wireless" I suppose...Words, like people, have their time.
As you were, carry on...company cars and so on...drift over.
:-)
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>>...drift over
drifting is usually done better in big rear wheel drive cars............ if only we knew someone who had one to give it a try......
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Company car drivers in the 1990's - Westpig
