Retro Cars | Small Cars | Citroën Diane | Honda N600 | Fiat 126 | Drive in | 1970s
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- Опубликовано: 29 май 2021
- 'Drive in' Presenter 'Tony Bastable take a look at some new 'Baby Cars' that are hitting Britain's Roads:
Citroën DIANE 6, HONDA N600 & FIAT 126.
If you would like to license a clip from this video please e mail:
archive@fremantle.com
Quote: VT8215 
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"Don't be fooled by the glamorous exterior" - maybe the definition of glamorous was different in the 70's!
@Pollywog the 70s also gave us the Trans Am, 'Cuda, Challenger, Camaro, Mustang, GTO, Charger, Chevelle, Cutlass, GSX, Javelin, Torino, Nova etc...glamorous indeed
"...you're able to use parking spaces you wouldn't have even considered before"
Reverse parks into a MASSIVE gap
And makes a hash of it. I can't even drive and I'm sure I could have done a better job than that.
I could park my 22 ft relay van in there fucking massive
LOL!
right, I could have parked a 1975 Cadillac in that gap
😂😂😂😂
‘The legendary French peasant’s transport’.
Wow, no beating round the bush there.
Rustic delights.
The original brief for the CV was that it had to be able to carry a farmer and his wife, carry a basket of eggs, over a ploughed field. It was official recognition that rural France needed mobility
@@Harrylechat01 "Official peasants' transport."
In French, 'peasant' isn't derogatory. It just means 'farmer'.
😂😂😂😂
Note to Thames TV....PLEASE show ALL of the Drive In series!
Yes. Please.
On the vociferous urge of the viewers.
My green 'bamboo' 2cv in 1997-8 was a lot of fun. I miss its character, that is lost from new cars of today.
I've still got a Bamboo now 😁
Bet you don't miss the rust!
The flying banana was the best version.
In the Netherlands, as kids in the back we had a game to pinch the other whenever you saw a green 2CV.
I loved my Fiat 126, the most fun I had with a car till now!
I remember driving around with a couple of friends in the 126 of one of them. After changing a flat tyre one friend fastened a hubnut... and broke it. The owner cursed and said he'd do it himself and.....broke another one after which we limped homeward slowly on the two remaining hub nuts.
The squeaky door on a brand new car 😂
What fantastic picture quality for old TV footage. These old reviews really are quite fantastic and it's great to hear what contemporary reviewers thought of what are now regarded as classics.
Love the way they left the huge radio transmitter on the 126 at the end, hilarious!
One of my first cars was a 2cv special in red in 1983 - I paid £2399 brand new - loved it and only car I wish I kept!
You could almost hear it rusting away though...
@@bigjd2k Not a real problem, all the parts are still available today.
Tony was an unbelievable orator. So much information without stopping at all. Wonder if he was reading any of it. It didn't look like it.
Who would check the oil level when an engine was hot Tony? Doh!
The lesson was clearly learnt with a kiss from the manifold 😂
Fiat 126 was produced in Poland until year 2000.
It means, it was in production for 28 years, with very little changes.
Models from '77 and up had 650 ccm engines, later they used also water cooled 700 ccm.
It cost half the price of second cheapest car.
In every Polish family there was at least one such car, not joking.
Good your known for one thing
@@oliveroneill1388Ever heard of Chopin and Copernicus?
@@oliveroneill1388BTW *you're
Citroen Dyane, Honda N600, Fiat 126: Hubnut has entered the chat.
Ian's just done possibly the only surviving N600 in the UK...and what a great little RUclips it was too!
@@ianmax69 That's what I was thinking of to be honest, a great video, on a great channel!
Can't wait for the triangle of doom comment 😄
My first car was a Fiat 126 De Ville. THS 124W. loved it! Just noticed it was taxed until November 1988 - so it lasted 7 years. Although noisy it was fun to drive and the road holding was insane. Great economy and the opening fabric sunroof was such a joy on a summer's day.
Yes, I would never consider the 126's road holding as 'safe'. Mine ended up in a ditch at a quite a moderate speed. Fun to drive around town, though.
You started Your adventure with the automotive world just like the 90% of Poles :)
Not joking.
The Dyane, the 2CV, and the Ami were great cars. Full of character, great fun, and would always get you there. Simple, sensible fun.
I remember Tony Bastable when he was one of the presenters on Magpie!
Well that was a little gem.
U mean the show or some baby car?
@@kamrankhan-lj1ng The clip, though maybe it could apply to all the cars too.
The presenters voice was so authoritative and none of this “ I am stood here next to the Fiat” or “it’s not fit for purpose” rubbish just clear well thought out diction.More please!
The presenter was a 'Posh Boy' who went to a school your parents couldn't afford to send you.
@Zockblatt Shickleblender Yes but it was the way he served it down to us 'Proles' that gets my goat..and there were others...even Custom Car was run by public schoolboys.
Two things: yes I went to a state school….so? Also you see yourself as a member of the proletariat? Strikes me you have a chip on your shoulder .
Dont be fooled by the "Glamourous 126" ? - I'm not fooled ....
If those two hippies had come any closer Tony would have given em a clout
The male hippie was bold enough to cross the wire 😄
I ran a Polish-built 1989 Fiat 126 BIS (700cc watercooled version) in the mid 90s, they hadn't improved the brakes by then either, still no servo assistance. I used it to commute into London from Kent for a few months & doing an indicated 80 mph I had to brake sharply as the traffic had come to a stop on the motorway. I had to exert that much effort on the brake pedal that it broke the pedal box & I had to get it welded lol,
Tell me about the brakes....I've got two bis' they are such fun to drive but stopping.....aaargh!
I always wondered why British reviewers couldn't understand how millions of motorists on the continent had zero issues with the generic FIAT lights operations at the time yet they thought it was so hard to grasp?
Sunday morning - coffee - Thames TV's "Drive In" - fabulous! Thanks for posting as I am sure I am not the only person who has been missing this content. BUT why not show all the series? OR at least more of this content? I would like to know why we get at best 8 or so minutes of this show. I am certain many other RUclips viewers feel exactly like I do and would love to view complete shows placed every Sunday morning.
I would love even 2 or 3 full episodes every Sunday.
I believe that Thames TV (Fremantle) want you to license their content so you only get clips.
@@dcanmore If that isn't the definition of optimism, I don't know what is!
I think because these episodes were recorded on Video tape nearly 50 years ago, the complete programmes don't exist anymore,& only snippets survive. A Thames light entertainment show or drama series woul have more of a chance to survive, than say shows from the smaller regional companies.
@@smorris12 this channel is basically advertising their archive.
My mum had a Honda N600. It was a mustard yellow colour. When you flipped the driver's seat to let someone out of the back the horn beeped. The horn was in the centre of the steering wheel and protruded quite a lot.
Think it would have to be the Honda for me - my mother in law had one back in the day - that engine makes a great noise. I love Tony Bastable - a real grumpy old man after my own heart :-)
"A car for the wife..." Don't you just love the seventies? 😀
Yes, it's for the husband nowadays.
Women drivers might struggle with the 126 brakes.
Oi! My mum drove a Ford D series part-time, not everyone was born middle class.
Still relevant though!
@@therealbettyswollocks At least it didn't have five gears, that would have put the final nail in the coffin.
Fiat 126 brakes: bad brakes were not unknown in small 1970s ( non-servo assisted drums) cars. The 1st gen VW Polo was also infamous - PS I love how Tony demos the easy parking in a space big enough for a London bus....lol
Yep we had an 80s polo breaks were awfull when they converted them to right hand drive there was no room for a servo so they just did without
I owned a Fiat 126 FSM in the early 90s and my opinions about the car are somewhat different from Mr Bastable's.
Extremely safe around the corners? The 126 is by far the most twitchy and unpredictable car I have ever driven, and at any speed much above 50mph, it had the feeling of wanting to put you in a ditch, which mine did at a speed which wouldn't bother most cars.
On the other hand, the choke on the floor never gave issues and was easy to use, and the brakes were perfectly up to the job of stopping a car which weighed about as much as a bag of crisps. And Considering you only check the oil level when the engine is COLD, I can't remember burning myself on the exhaust!
My car had the later dash, starter and controls used in the 126 BIS, and were easy to use, although the light switch did melt...
I think the biggest issue with the 126 was the positive rear camber and soft rear suspension. If Fiat had given it negative camber, and suspension with the hardness of the front leaf spring, the handling would most likely have been transformed.
Ironically, my next car was a Skoda 120LSE, a car criticised for it's handling by the media, but was, in fact, a revelation as to how well a rear engine car could handle.
I have same, very positive, experience with the Skoda Eastelle, 105 S in my case.
@Zockblatt Shickleblender I think that there are a few factors. 1st being that it was a very cheep car, and car snobs will always look down on such cars (and there have been many). 2nd, we like to think that the motoring press is all above board and honest - unfortunately it isn't. Some manufacturers wouldn't be very unhappy if journalists declared that a budget car might actually be better that their own! Am I suggesting that a some money might have been changing hands? Surely not...
I've recently been going through some old rallying videos on RUclips featuring the Skodas.
My Dads first, own car was 126p, and Skoda 120L (5 speed) was His second.
So, Im not sure if You are not my Dad :)
- Skoda's bad reputation was partly due to the fact that it was judged by journalists from democratic countries and was a product of a communist country.
- At that time, many drivers were already used to front-engine cars, which had different handling characteristics.
- Skoda was the first car to have an accident (rollover in a curve) during testing in the Swedish automotive program "Trafikmagasinet" (Interestingly, this exact car was later used in sport). Same as later A-klass Mercedes failed in also Swedish "Teknikes Varld" moose-test, which was also a well known case.
Exactly the same thing happened in the US with the Chevy Corvair, which was also a rear-engine car. IIRC, even a book was written about his case.
Few know, that Skoda was fighting with the balance of the car using an aluminum engine block, which was at that time a very rare thing.
However, nothing does change the fact, that Skoda was successful in sport with this series.
I love rear-engine Skodas! We had ours for 18 years, since She was new.
Excuse my English.
@Zockblatt Shickleblender Czechoslovakia was under Communist rule at the time. That was enough for journalists from Western Europe to mock at any car made by them.
@@jareknowak8712 Yeah, those early, they are called "narrow" models in Czechia, had a very distinctive suspension tuning and a tendency to be unpredictable at the limit. However after the 1984 modernisation when Škoda fitted softer springs and widened front axle it became much more stable. And when the semi-trailing arm suspension was fitted to the higher models that almost completely eliminated these handling characteristics.
My First car was A 112 , second hand 10 years old ,buyit in 1990 . Hello from Pisa Italy 🌺
Ciao! We didn't have Autobianchi in the UK!
I drove a Fiat 126 onc whilst on holiday, you have more room in a straight jacket.
My wife had a Duane like that.434 cc engine and bounced along nicely once you’d mastered the gearbox.
I don't know what he's talking about. It's all electric now mate. But the Fiat mice can still be seen here in Rome. Tony clearly hated foreign cars. Archaic 70's man.
Flipping ‘eck - I wish I had parking spaces that big to parallel park in!
I had a Citröen DYANE with the 435cc engine many years ago. It was hand-built, hence the price. With it's stablemate, the 2CV (and Ami) it still constitutes today, a better car than the others here.
We had a two week tour of northern France with 4 adults and towing our accommodation, a trailer tent. Great fun although not always in top gear :-)
0:30 " The legendary peasant transport " ?
That is definitely the 2CV , and not the Dyane ! Damn stupid remark , the 2CV is from '49 onwards , the Ami 6 from '61 , and the Dyane only from '67.....
The Dyane has nothing to do with peasant transport , it has always been a ladies 2CV , I don't know any guy who preferred a Dyane above a 2CV or Ami . Here in A'dam we have a 2CV/Ami garage , a Dyane is a rarity there , not very popular , although rare nowadays .
Regularly drove a 2cv 6 years ago...loved it. You'd come up to a corner at what you thought was a too high speed, commit to your line and roll over hard - _zero loss of adhesion-_ cat-like handling.
I love these old car reviews. 💖 the funniest to drive is the Citroen Dyane 6
The “very old” Citroen Dyane ran for another ten years after this clip.
...because it was _good!_
Love the 2 cylinder purr
The Citroen Dyane was a rebodied 2CV but was discontinued about 1983 and the 2CV was still around until 1990. The Honda N600 looks very like a Mini. There was also the Daf 33, automatic transmission only. In 1973 the angular three wheel Reliant Regal was replaced with the more curvy Robin. The Imp by then was Hillman only, the Singer Chamois, coupes and Husky estate no longer available. Note at 6:07 a Fiat 500 with its 126 replacement, and a Triumph Toledo.
The Hond N600 was a cute little car.
Interesting point made at the end about costs. I remember a What Car? review of Japanese micro-cars in the early 1990s and they commented they weren't any cheaper to buy or to run than a small hatchback such as a Fiesta or a 205.
Ah, no mention of Reliant's products...
The Reliant Rebel was just getting its own dedicated production line and judging by Tony mentioning the 126 as a recent launch, the Kitten was less than two years away from its release.
All of these criticisms made by Tony Bastable of the Fiat 126 were later put to Fiat.
Their response was "Aeyyyyyy !!!"
Small car early 70's the Renault 5 was the obvious choice .
That was a size or two bigger, competed against the gen 1 Honda Civic, the Fiat 127/128 and the Citroen Visa.
Renault 4 would have been mine.
Early 5 didn't go on sale till M reg 1974 so probably after this clip was shown.
One size larger, but yes I agree with you. If this clip was from 1972/3 then a Renault 5 would have been brand new and lovely cars they were too.
@@mikemartin2957 The first Renault 5s were sold in the UK in late 1972. One of my teachers at school had an L-reg one which she said was one of the first in the country. I only know it was an L-reg because it is in the background of an old class photo. You can just discern the gaffer tape holding in one of the rear windows .......... the joys of growing up in an era when computers only had 8 bits in them.
Dear god, people in the 70s really did have a dreadful selection of dreadful cars to spend their hard earned money on.
Same money today - Dacia Sandero with a/c, electric windows, air bags, ABS, etc etc etc. What a world we live in!
These wee cars have character, a Dacia interior is a dull place to be , a full of dull grey , cheaply made plastics & dreadful electronics.
I think you should wonder how many work hours it takes to buy a car back then and how the whole system has changed into RENTING you cars (leasing) that you couldn't afford otherwise. Its the ONLY reason all these twats drive around in black Audis and BMWs.
How about the honda n600s successer instead
The new honda N one
Character with tech
Especially the new rs version with dash mount 6 speed manuel with manuel hand brake with turbo
My first car was this lovely Citroen Diane.
The Citroen is spelled Dyane not Diane
Probably a safe bet the person who typed it in has never even seen one and thought it must be a spelling mistake.
And its Citroën not Citroen ;)
@@martinbitter4162 ëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëë😉
@@martinbitter4162 I'm in the US.
I grew very fond of my Citroën Dyane. With the exhaust silencer rusted away I got clocked at 85 mph on the motorway. Not bad for 29 hp!
My best friend’s dad had a limited edition Dyane ‘Cabine’. I thought it was dead posh!
When you look at cars now with outrageous horsepower numbers, we need a government mandate to put all cars back to this level.
Always check the oil when the engine is cold Tony.
I drove a Fiat 126, the gear knob came off in my hand.
"Let's just film the cars from half a mile away!" ;)
The only quick and economical way to do it back in 1973. Thus was filmed on outside broadcast cameras. Effectively standard studios cameras and they weren't lightweight! They didn't have the luxury of smaller hand held video cameras as they hadn't been developed for use yet.
@@Rassilon72 they did have /one/ handheld but it was on a long cable going to an entire Thames scanner truck with on-board VTR. If you look on the website of the Broadcast Engineering Conservation Group you can read about the entire Thames OB fleet (I did post a link in a reply but YT comment moderation doesn't like links due to spam issues)
So assuming these are brand new cars for that year, this is 1973?
Gosh.... A slightly dated presentation style, but not unusual for its time... or necessarily inaccurate. All very June & Terry. Or was it Terry & June?
The Honda is now largely forgotten, along with its sibling the Z. An early warning of what Japan could do and has since done.
The Fiat, for all its ubiquity in Rome, Warsaw, Belgrade and elsewhere, never really lit a fuse in the UK and became an engine donor for 500s.
The Dyane lives on in hearts. Some live on in the metal. Somehow, like the brave but forlorn Visa, it was much, much better as a van than as a car. That was a slightly Citroen thing....
And as to the slightly jingoistic "only choice is an Imp or a Mini", well that has dated a little. Both cracking designs in their day, neither was really a competitor for these three at the time. That was just home-market hubris and salesmanship....
I would let the oil settle before checking the oil level. That would give time for the exhaust manifold to cool. No burns!!
Who were them two herberts that just rocked into shot at 3min 50?
No problem Tony, just check the oil when it's cold.
😂😂😂😂
what would you be doing to get your trouser turn up caught in the choke, lol
My thought exactly.
presumably climbing into the back seat to find some misplaced lira....
Exactly, I know flares were big back then, but still.. That said, they were still getting bigger at that point, so maybe he was predicting they were going to get as big as a pair of parachutes within a few years...
Buon weekend alla famiglia Crocetta
The Dyane had been launched in 1967 - these are plated 73 or 74..................yet it is a shape that has been around a long. long time? At 800 quid I'll take a dozen btw
"Parkability...fantastic", he says, making a pretty crap attempt at parking.
The 2cc was way bigger than the other two. It's a good thing he didn't have a mini, after it nearly as old as the Diane
For anyone wondering, 816£ is worth around 8,100£ today, or around 9700$. Not bad, but if I was a buyer back then I'd probably buy fiat or the Honda for mow much cheaper they were, and the fact that the Honda could go slightly faster doesn't help either.
I want my next car to have a 'sunshine roof'
The opening presenter is a dead ringer for Peter Sellers !!
It's Shaw Taylor who used to present Police 5. My dad used to work at Thames TV and I met him many years ago.
👍
I had a Citroen Dyane until 2002, I think. But this car was - apart from the
engine - more a compact car, and it was even longer than the VW Golf at the time. It's a pity the man in the report didn't drive the Dyane at all.
Was this filmed on Wimbledon common?
The Honda is the best looking car,by far!😍😍 More than likely more reliable,too! I always thought Dyanes & 2CVs & so many Citröens from back in the day were actually ugly!! Interesting looking,& uniquely ugly! 😂😂
The Fiat dipstick is intelligent, remove the dipstick while the engine is hot is a dumb thing, because when there is not at least 10 min that the engine has been stopped, the entire oil will not be on the oil pan, will be on the engine.
I bet Tony is turning in his grave at todays car prices! 😂
car prices are mere figures. What you do is RENT/LEASE cars from the maker/bank now. THAT is the reason cars prices have shot up tripled over the past 25 years.
Much easier to part with 250/300 quid a month for a brand new model car in your front drive than actually buy one !!!
Plus you get to drive the enw model every 3 to 4 years.
why - when he reverse parked - was the sound from the Dyane engine and not that of the 126 engine?
Sounds like a 126 to me?
@@MrPabsUk nope - re listened and as a former 2cv and Dyane owner that sounds like a Citroen aircooled engine to me
Give me the Honda any day!!!
It is sad that fiat cinquecento is now 1.3 liter and on the market(Italy) no more small engine cars cheap and easy to be fixed!
Cars are no onger made to be affordable. They are aimed at market segments and are all about squeezing the maximum amount of money out of your wallet without you noticing. Leasing has turned up.
Um.. The 900cc Twinair?
A trouser turnup!...
Compare this to today’s /modern car programmes. Dead serious, completely humourless presentation. Early Top Gear used to be like this too.
Yes, presenters not trying to act like absolute arseholes! Bring it back!
BBC ended up with the three twits presenting it.
Should be checking your oil as a pre-start anyway, so the engine wouldn't be warm and you won't be burning your hand on the exhaust!
God!
Why i wasn't born earlier...
A much English inevitability of sneering at the French car.
The Fiat sounds like the golf cart I rented in Myrtle Beach two years ago... the cart may have been faster too.
Remember buying a flat for my ex to lern to drive in, me dad ended up using it for work
He painted it in camo and when it was parked on my Grandads little kid said, look mum Action man car lol
Citroën Dyane, with a Y. Please!
They sure don't make em like they used to.. its a world of use and throw products now..
Thank goodness they don't make them like that nowadays. The Fiat and Honda would generally rust into oblivion within a few short years. My mum's Fiat 128 of the 70's had holes in the sills when it was 2 years old!
@@Allan9966 Depended on how they were maintained too i beleive..our Honda N600 lasted a solid 20 years before developing rust on the underbody. It went a good 200000 plus kilometres too i remember..
@@Allan9966 Most cars did back then, including most of our home products. Wasn't unusual to have fist sized holes in sills/front wings within 3 years in those days.
I think I have enough rocks & bricks around here to make the 719 pounds to buy that Honda 600
3:30 who is checking oil level on hot engine...????
How many 600cc cars do you get nowadays?
Hardly any. And none by the mainstream car makers.
Lots of choice with Kei cars in Japanese domestic market.
We do not have so extremly light cars also.
Ppl want safety and comfort.
Litterly 40% of cars in japan are 660cc
Still to this day
The "baby cars" looks like Mr Bean's dreams have become reality.🚙😁🚗
The presenter looks like Mr. Bean's long lost cousin
Listening to the "baby car" engines, particularly that Fiat, reminded me of mum's Brother sewing machine.
Which was more powerful, I wonder - the Baby or the Brother?! 😁
@@johnmiller9024
Lol, there are similarities. 😉👍
@@jasonayres
Ah, yes "sounds" like the little packages bring back "powerful" memories and secrets of your youth, indeed that is impressive. 😄👍
1:58 a Scania battery in a 600cc Honda 🤣
1973
WHere is the Trabant?
We never had Trabants in the UK, the closest available equivalent back then would have been Skoda or Wartburg.
Demonstrates how the 126 can get into tiny parking spaces by using one big enough for a current S Class lol.
i think the british leyland mini is better
It's DYane
Honda! Pass it... Today.. Honda! Ok, ok!
Who is checking oil with a hot engine?
They all look supremely uncomfortable.
They are
@@kamrankhan-lj1ng The Dyane would have been supremely comfortable for its time. Still is today. Up until last year when I moved house, I made a couple of trips each year between Aberdeen, in the north-east of Scotland, and the south Midlands of England (450+miles) in my 2CV. Would leave Aberdeen at 7am and reach my destination anywhere from 2.30pm-5pm depending on how busy the roads were and how often I stopped at a motorway services. The 2CV was designed around the occupants so there is plenty of legroom and lots of foot space around the pedals for the driver.
@@crashbox7130 So right. Let the "retards" to themselves. They drive Audis and the like. Preferably black and fitted with dust bin exhaust exits on the rear bumper.
Back when car shows were about the cars snd not the presenters ego.
My pick: Dyane by a good margin, then Scamp, and at the very bottom...FIAT - yuck!
He says "jende" instead "honda" 😂
693 pounds, damn.