Owned 2 of those BITD, possibly my favourite car. Mine first had the full Irmischer body kit, was an absolute blast to drive. Pity they were prone to rotting around the front suspension mounting points on the chassis, both mine met their doom from the tin maggot.
Last car I owned in the UK prior to moving down to this end of the world was a black Mk1 Astra GTE - A232MEX.
£20k for an Astra? Jeez you would have to be insane. I had one after my 3.0s Capri and regretted it about a day in. It was a grim old place to be. The Capri was very old tech by the 80s when I owned mine but made you feel special. The GTE felt like someone had been given a budget of a tenner to tart it up from the base model. It was the first, and last, Vauxhaul I ever owned. Almost makes the escort look cheap
£20k!? Pah. Cheapskate. I watched this video yesterday where a guy had sunk £50k into a Mk2 Astra. Tbf, it was immaculate and had 460bhp fighting its way to the tarmac through the 1980s tech FWD system, but it was still a bloody Astra!
Just why? I appreciate an attraction for older stuff, I have had tarted up minis, MGBs, Capris, TVRs, Porsches and more bikes than I can remember. But at Astra? And £50k? Wow! Each to their own I guess, so as long as they are happy I guess that’s what counts, but will never make sense to me.
You’d have to genuinely be off your meds to buy any of the shite in this thread for anything more than about £3.50.
Mine had the twin headlight/grill kit, also succumbed to the tin maggot, which I think is why these 80’s cars are so prized…….they just didn’t survive, so even if they are shit, they are just so rare now. Loved mine, went so well, probably because it was getting lighter every year
I bought a Modena Green/black stripes Mk1 Mexico 2 weeks after passing my driving test back in '83! (just like the one in the pic - do not have any pics of mine) Sold it to a friend of my brother in '85 to finance my first Mk2 RS2000. The guy that bought it said he would never sell it, and true to his word still owns it - these things with matching chassis/engine numbers etc seem to be worth a LOT of money these days ...............
