I used to have one of these

Viva

That's very tempting.

That is very cool, if I was 22 again i'd buy that tomorrow.

I don't like the way the digits on the odometer don't line up..........

I occasionally used to have to drive one of them when they were current production.

It was bloody horrible.

It may be old. It may be mint. But it's still a minger and I like vauxhalls!

You can't polish a turd.

Well, you can but you end up covered in sh$€

Lol, my parents used to have one of these when I was younger.

My Mum hated the car and she's never owned a Vauxhall since

I always thought the older HB was a much neater looking car.


Used to go to school in one.
I can still remember the whine it made as soon as it hit any kind of gradient.

I laughed when I found this well stored, Barn find!

Leather upholstery? Really?

Chrissy, that's a shocker. You'd think they'd rinse it down before taking photos. Whole point of a barn find is it should be in a condition better than its age would suggest.

I had my driving lessons in a metro, it had the heaviest steering in the world, it felt like the front tyres were completely flat.

Yep - you must have learned in the late 80's or early 90s like me. I learned in a 1.3L metro which must have had 2bhp, then my folks bought a D-Reg 1.0L one which was even slower, but it eventually became my first car and I loved it.

The handling was go-kart like, but the performance was terrible. Sometimes first gear needed to go up hill. Oh, and the classic A-series gearbox whine !

The hillarious thing was, it that it was stolen and used as a get away car by burglars ! Found burned out on top of a hill.

I passed my test in a bright yellow Dolly Sprint - loved it.

I learned in a Metro too. A 1.3 I think.

I liked the bit of the lesson where he'd say "give it a bit of gas" I'd hit speeds as high as 32 mph sometimes.

Visibility for reversing round a corner was good.


A Dolly Sprint to learn in must've been very nice. Always wanted a set of those wheels to go on my Spitfire.

My first car was an 'A' reg Metro 1.0, resplendent in denim blue/silver/rust. I scrapped it when I got a pre-mot garage bill for £230, £30 more than I bought the car for.

Passed my test in a Dolly Sprint but my first car was an Austin A40 Farina.

When you put your foot down, it got louder but not faster.

Bless the little thing.

My first car was a piss yellow Citroen Dyane.... Probably helps explain my lifelong fascination with eccentric cars...never had a viva...had various vauxhalls and opels over the years though..always fancied the droopsnoot Firenza or even the flat front Firenza coupe..., even with the piddly wee engine they are pretty rwd fun...had an old rwd kadette and it was a hoot..went to Ireland to become a rally car...

I lust after a Dyane - a car that demands driving skill - whether it is slipstreaming, anticipating a change of the lights the lack of power and the ability to go round corners at full tilt, and the simplicity / practicality of it are compelling.

Actually give me any Citroen pre-BX and I'll be happy.

Ooooh what have you got against the BX? My neighbour has 3 including a rare 16V and two diesels.

He loves them.

Nothing against them at all, but they lost the beautiful styling and quirkiness of the GS / CX. (okay and some unreliability and some rust too)

Yes, fair comment mate. The old 1980's wedgyness !

Had a series one cx2400 gti as one of my first cars after the Dyane...it was a blast...brace of bx tzd estates, a few visas and my highest mileage car ever, an xm turbo diesel estate with 340k miles, one owner and full history...I likes a Citroen....oh, and a zx volcane, an ax diesel and a c5 v6 estate with all the bells and whistles...

Our family car was a GS 1220 Club Estate.
The most sophisticated car we owned by a long way.
97 mph, beautiful Jaeger dashboard, massive load space with a totally flat floor, low CD, shame the rust was so chronic, but the GTI and Turbo2 CX are just awesome.

I had a GS 1220 estate for 8 years, a French home market one, so it didn't have the Jaeger dashboard.

It didn't rust either, even after more than 300K kilometres. For the first 3 years I had it, living in southwest France it didn't get salt from the roads which probably helped.

That said, out of 8 Citroens I owned and around 500K miles driven in total, the only one that rusted was a Dyane which originally came from Glasgow.

I read somewhere that Citroen had an assembly plant in Slough for the 2CV / Dyane.
Ours was an N reg (about 1974/'75) and the rust holes formed above all 4 wheelarches.

They made a few early 2CVs in Slough and the Bijou version of it was unique to Slough but that was back in the 1950s.

My rusty Dyane was an N reg one too. It rusted everywhere.