A classic survivor.

[pete376403]

You got some pretty good rose tints there man.

Early 70s Hunters and Avengers were really shitty cars. Samoan assembled (ie todd motors, Porirua) Valiants were not a hell of a lot better. My days were spent trying to plug water leaks.
On the other hand, one of the directors had a E49. That was really fun to "test drive". Then he sold that and got a 340 manual Challenger. That was even more fun. But the base Todd motors cars were still shitboxes.

[fliplid]

"Valiant", "Challenger"? We talking tanks here?

[Motu]

Early 70s Hunters and Avengers were really shitty cars. Samoan assembled (ie todd motors, Porirua) Valiants were not a hell of a lot better.

So the Mitsubishi's were imported fully built up? If so then I'm even less impressed!

[pete376403]

The very first 16Ls, were imported built up, as were the GS and GTO models. the later 16L and 1850s were locally assembled, but they were still (IMHO) better than the Hunters/Avengers, possibly because the assemblers were starting with better basics
The Todd assembly plant at petone was pretty crude, when they moved to porirua things got (a bit) better.

Not long after that I gave up on cars and went to work for IBM, so I can't say how much better (or worse the todd cars got by the time porirua closed

[Motu]

ALL NZ assembled cars were rust buckets....but so were cars assembled in other countries too.They were only painted on the outside - whatever could be done with the gun when the body shell was complete.After the scab rust drama of the '80's local assembly started to do a full body dip - Phosphoric acid first I think,then etching primer dip.I went on a tour of the Nissan plant and saw it in action.All just in time for the imports to kill local assembly.I'm not saying the Jap cars were crap,just not as good as everyone today thinks they were.If they were that much better than the British crap then buyers would have dropped the Hunters and Cortinas and went Japanese much earlier.Where are they all now? Same place as the Hunters and Cortinas.

Dealerships didn't see the real world - by the time they were out of dealer servicing and having problems the local garages were having to repair them.I've been riding bikes for 40 years,never a born again - and I've been a mechanic for 40 years too,never left the game.Seen them all come and go.Working at a Mitsi dealer now,part of the old Todd family.....we have stuff in back rooms going back beyond Mitsi,hunters and Valiants.Found an old workshop manual a couple of weeks ago for Dodge....all about the Hemi V8,now that's going back a bit for a dealership!