Motoring: A lead-free lover's guide to used cars: Drivers with a tight budget and an environmental conscience can buy second-hand without losing principles, says James Ruppert
By JAMES RUPPERT
FROM this month, all new cars submitted for British type approval, the test which allows them to be legally sold in the UK, must be able to run on lead-free petrol.
As a result of this rule, and many carefully orchestrated publicity campaigns, the motor industry's image has now changed from polluter to pal of the earth.
If you can afford an environmentally friendly G-registered runabout, then the flora, fauna and children of the British Isles will have a lot to thank you for.
But if you have a tight budget and a conscience, running older cars on lead-free fuel becomes a much more complicated issue.
Without the presence of a lead compound, an engine's valve seats go unprotected.
This leads to premature wear and plumes of blue smoke spewing from the exhaust.
The only effective remedy is to install hardened valve seats or a replacement cylinder head, both expensive options.
Less costly, but not entirely satisfactory, is the practice of making every fourth tankful leaded petrol, which protects the valve seats but rather defeats the object.
Alternatively there are several chemical additives on the market which aim to provide a substitute for lead, although the case for these products has yet to be proved.
However, many cars built within the last few years have hardened valve seats, or alloy cylinder heads that need little (simply a retune) or no modification to use unleaded petrol.
Finding out which cars can and which can not is not difficult.
Esso filling stations have a free booklet listing most models produced since 1980, as does the charity Clear (01-387 4970), with more detail available in the Unleaded Petrol Guide (Autodale, 2.99).
Looking at those lists provides interesting reading and bears out the used-car trade's view that having a lead-only car could prove to be a liability.
It is not as if four-star leaded fuel is going to be phased out tomorrow, but more and more buyers are asking: ' Does it take unleaded? '
What is certain is that the pre-1989 Austin/MG range, all Skodas, Yugos and quite a few Lancias do not, which does not help already depressed resale prices.
A 1985 Lancia Y10 (lead only) sells for around 2,000 whereas the similar Fiat Uno 55 from the same year, converted to run on unleaded, is worth around 500 more.
A lead-only second-hand car is now worth about 10 per cent less than an unleaded equivalent.
In years to come the percentage difference is likely to be much larger.
Even so, exotica such as lead-only Porsche 911s and Ferraris are unlikely to be part of this trend, so no bargains there I 'm afraid.
More impressive are the Japanese manufacturers whose cars dating from the early Eighties can run on unleaded without adjustment.
Find a 1980 Toyota Corolla or 1982 Nissan Sunny that has not succumbed to rust, and you can buy with confidence.
On the home front, most Fords and Vauxhalls from at least the mid-Eighties can use unleaded.
If the ' greenness' of going unleaded still seems a bit of a grey area, it is possible to switch to diesel without a shadow of environmental doubt.
Diesel always has been lead-free and the only adjustments you need to make are mental ones, because diesel-powered cars are no longer slow, smelly or noisy.
They also return more miles to the gallon than their petrol equivalents, although service intervals are shorter.
But after the publicity on unleaded fuel there has been increased interest in used diesel power.
But remember that these cars accrue, and can withstand, significantly higher mileages than petrol cars, 50-90,000 being the norm.
The tradition for diesel cars is far better established on the Continent and that is where the best buys come from.
Perhaps the most successful maker is Peugeot, with a complete range of cars from the small 205  around 3,000 for a 90,000-mile 1985 car  to the legendary 504 estate, about 2,000 for a 1982 example.
The Germans are also fairly accomplished manufacturers, although a five-door 1980 Golf with a six-figure mileage will still cost 1,500.
Prestige comes in the shape of a Mercedes with the 240D or ' Stuttgart Taxi ', commanding 7,000 but returning unfailing reliability.
Even if lead levels in the atmosphere do not bother you, I am sure you will find the fact that unleaded petrol is 15p cheaper, and that diesel fuel boosts mpg by at least a third, most interesting.
Motoring: Miles of smiles as the diesel comes of age: Brett Fraser on the Citroen AX, which offers fuel economy without much sacrifice in performance to drivers willing to turn away from the petrol engine
By BRETT FRASER
BACK IN the bad old days, drivers of diesel cars were the social outcasts of the motoring world.
At filling stations they were banished to the far-flung corners of the forecourt, away from the well-lit protection of covered petrol pumps, to battle 32-tonners for a turn at the diesel pump.
That was not the end of their woe.
Until recently, diesel cars were slow and very noisy, the theory being that this was the price you had to pay for economy.
There was a social stigma attached to diesel car ownership, too.
People thought perhaps you needed to save money  after all, that was the only reason for buying a diesel car, wasn't it?
What few realised was that diesels were more costly than their petrol-engine counterparts, and that the break-even point (when the fuel savings outweighed the price difference) didn't occur until very large mileages had been covered.
Those who sold their diesels after 50,000 miles or so might just as well have bought a petrol vehicle.
At least that was the case in Britain, where the gap between petrol and diesel fuel prices has always been small.
On the Continent, governments have actively encouraged the use of diesel-powered vehicles as a way of stretching resources.
Not only is diesel much less expensive at the pumps, especially in France and Italy, but purchase tax on diesel-powered cars is reduced.
Travel the roads of Italy, and petrol-engine cars appear to be in the minority.
Even the Italians' up-market makers, Alfa and Lancia, have diesel models.
In Germany, diesel sales are in sharp decline after the Greens pointed an ill-informed finger at the visibly dirty exhausts of diesels and cried ' polluter '.
In fact, diesels are cleaner in many ways than petrol engines in their emissions.
German manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are so convinced of the diesel engine's future importance, they are developing ' clean-burn ' units and fitting catalytic converters to the exhaust systems.
Currently the French PSA Group, which comprises Citroen and Peugeot, produces the best diesel cars.
' Best ' means a combination of economy, speed, low noise, general refinement and pleasure to drive.
Judged by these criteria, the little Citroen AX diesel is the best of a good bunch.
The AX is the smallest of the Citroen range and is available in three-and five-door versions.
Computers were used extensively during the car's development, in a successful attempt to make the AX 220lb lighter than the class average.
The significance is the boost it gives to the AX's performance, particularly in the context of the diesel.
Here is a diesel-engine car which will out-gun many of its petrol-engine rivals.
It comes close to shaming some of its own stable-mates, too, and they are among the swiftest in their class.
Top speed for this diesel is 96mph, and it spurts to 60mph in just 13.2 seconds.
Most un-diesel-like.
On the road, the biggest difference you notice with the diesel is the need to change up a gear slightly earlier than in a petrol car.
This is not a hardship, as the AX is blessed with one of the lightest and quickest gear changes around.
The diesel never feels slovenly and can be hurried along snaking back roads with the sort of haste which soon makes you forget that derv, not four-star (or unleaded), goes into its fuel tank.
Another way the AX deceives is by the noise it makes, or rather the lack of it.
Once, all diesels sounded like taxis all the time.
The baby Citroen tends to give the game away only when started from cold.
At 70mph it is hard to tell what fuels the car, and only at idle, windows down, does the noise start to irritate.
Even then, it is not so bad as to give you taxi syndrome.
Other noises do infiltrate the cabin  the wind, the odd bump and thump from the suspension, and the constant rattle and clunk from the cabin fittings.
Citroen makes some fine cars, but it tends not to make them very well.
The plastic the French company uses for its interior trimmings is not of high quality and looks brittle and cheap, and in most places it sounds not to be screwed as tightly down as the designers originally intended.
Look into a cavernous gap down the right side of the dashboard and there are wires on display  beyond them, daylight.
For a light car, the AX rides surprisingly well, soaking up most road surface horrors with dignified composure.
Rough roads, however, of the sort council repair crews seem so keen to create, ruffle it slightly and cause it to slap its tyres on the road in protest.
Anyone who thinks owning a diesel spells the end of driving fun, should park their backside in the AX's comfortable, supportive driver's seat and go for a quick ride.
It carries a bit more weight in its nose (diesel engines are heavier than petrol) but the derv-sipping AX is just as agile as its petroleum cousins.
Light, accurate steering allows you to place the car precisely in a bend, and although there is a fair amount of body roll, once you've chosen your cornering line not even bumps half-way through will deflect the faithful AX from its path.
If you go into a corner too fast the tyres will lose their adhesion, but in the AX it is safe to take your foot off the throttle and let the car snap itself back into line.
Try that on several cars in the Escort-class, and you will sometimes watch the back of the car overtake the front.
The worst that happens when you overcook things in the AX is that the nose runs gently wide.
And what is the fuel economy like?
Well, for a start, ignore the preposterous and irrelevant figures achieved on the recent RAC-supervised ' economy run '.
Unless you drive everywhere at less than 40mph and never sit in traffic jams, the record-breaking 112mpg is as achievable as drying flowers underwater.
Nevertheless, watching the AX's fuel gauge fall to empty is a long and tedious vigil.
In ordinary conditions  a mix of blatting down the motorway, pootling down country roads, and getting stuck in London's slow-motion hours (when the rest of the country apparently rushes), fuel consumption in the mid-sixties is almost guaranteed.
With care, and clear roads, that figure should greatly improve.
Even when driven with the utmost contempt for economy, it is difficult to drop below 50mpg.
What is nice about the AX diesel is that you can smile smugly about the miles you are effortlessly squeezing from every gallon, in the knowledge you have sacrificed little along the way.
No longer does the diesel driver need to feel disadvantaged.
Second to the sporting GT model, the diesel, in either of its two trim levels, is the most desirable of the AX range.
For that to be true, the diesel must have come of age.
Motoring: The soaring triumph of the exotic Stag: Blow all your savings on a rare classic convertible which has just started to show a major rise in value, says Roger Bell
By ROGER BELL
PSST!
Shares a bit shaky?
Bored by your savings passbook?
Then now is the time to invest in a Triumph Stag  but keep it to yourself.
There are not that many good ones about.
Convertible prices always tend to dip in the autumn, particularly after a balmy summer, but the advice to buy has little to do with cyclic depression.
Stags are appreciating.
In the crazy world of classic cars, where old Ferraris and Aston Martins fetch silly money, and Jaguar E-types have gone through the roof, the rise and rise of these exotics over the past two or three years has lifted values down the line.
If Austin Rover's Leyland forebears had made a better job of the Stag in the first place, values would probably have risen before.
As it is, the car's great attraction as a luxury convertible has always been overshadowed by its reputation for poor reliability.
Not for nothing was it dubbed the ' Triumph Snag '.
Today's Stagisti, guided by the mechanical tragedies that befell their hapless predecessors, know that preventive maintenance is the key to dependability.
Achieve that  and it is achievable, though my own car, currently without an engine, is not yet there  and the Stag's attractions are nothing short of seductive.
Much was expected of this Anglo-Italian four-place convertible, high on creature comforts as well as style, when it was introduced almost 20 years ago.
Triumph aimed to build 12,000 Stags a year.
In the event, it produced fewer than 26,000 in its seven years of manufacturing life, between 1970 and 1977.
Depressed production, costly for Leyland at the time, is good news for investors now because it has endowed the Stag with scarcity appeal.
It goes without saying that rare cars are more coveted than common ones  and rare convertibles are of blue-chip status.
Scarcity value apart, the Stag is made of the right stuff by classic yardsticks.
It has style (Michelotti's), a luxurious, timber-encrusted cabin (with hard and soft headgear), six speeds to play with (four, plus two overdrive on the manual, though many Stags had three-speed automatic transmission) and a burbling V8 engine that can be found in no other car.
In its day, fully independent suspension (like that of the Triumph 2000 saloon) and lavish equipment that included power-assisted steering were also assets.
Ironically, the Stag's reputation as an expensive liability is rooted in the three-litre, 145-horsepower engine  effectively two four-cylinder Dolomite/Saab 99 units siamesed to a common crankshaft  that is germane to the car's appeal.
Overheating and loose valvegear chains, both of which can abruptly extinguish all mechanical life, are its (avoidable) weaknesses.
With the wisdom of hindsight, it is easy to see now that the Stag's troublesome V8, designed and inadequately developed in-house by Triumph before it merged with Leyland, should have been ditched and replaced by Rover's proven ex-Buick 3.5-litre V8 (still used by Land-Rover, Morgan, TVR and others) that was already on the shelf.
In the interests of dependability, many Stags have subsequently been converted to Rover V8 power, gaining in reliability (and quite possibly in performance) what they lose in originality and nose heaviness.
A Rover-engine Stag may well be a better car than one with Triumph power, but as a hybrid it will never be so valuable.
Ford V6 conversions are intrinsically even less desirable  though worth considering as a cheap and reliable engine.
Many Stags have undergone reversion transplants in the quest for originality.
To buy a Stag just for its investment potential is to deny yourself the sort of al fresco luxury that most people can only dream about in a new car.
Jaguar's classy convertibles start at 41,200, albeit with V12 power.
What is more, the current XJS ragtop is structurally inferior to the cabriolet (with Stag-like superstructure) that preceded it.
Other classy convertibles come from Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Aston Martin, whose Volante, listed at 120,000, is said to be changing hands at over 200,000.
Even the best Stags  and the best are very good indeed - are cheap by comparison.
Here is stylish, tousled-hair motoring without the discomfort.
Here is a car to be savoured at your leisure, on high days and holidays, but above all on sunny days.
I enjoy my Stag most when it is loafing along in overdrive (the DIY box has longer legs than the automatic), exhaust burbling as only a twin-pipe V8 can burble.
When there is nothing above your head but the bracing T-bar  fitted as much to provide body rigidity as to anticipate US safety regulations that did not materialise  so much the better.
From February 1973, all Stags were sold with both hood (which stows neatly in a lidded well behind the back seats) and hardtop (which required two pairs of strong arms to manipulate).
So heavy and cumbersome is the hardtop, which fails to turn the Stag into a refined fixed-head coupe because of atrocious wind whoosh, that many have succumbed to rust while lying neglected in the garden, incubating snails.
The Stag is not a sports car, nor is it especially fast: any modern GTi hatchback will comfortably outpace it in a sprint from rest to 60mph.
What the Stag has which most modern cars do not is the endearing ability to amble quickly, to lope effortlessly, reeling in the miles without really trying.
That, to me, is its strongest suit.
Despite the intoxicating exhaust noise, the Stag is not dynamically exciting.
Far from it.
The engine's lovely, lugging delivery (it is not all bad, you see) serves as an antidote to frenetic driving.
Whereas most modern performance cars encourage aggression through their virulence, the Stag suppresses it while getting there just as quickly.
Anyone who is not relaxed and glowing with a sense of well-being at the wheel of a good Stag should keep their money in the building society.
Age and mileage have little to do with values any more.
Condition is what counts.
A concours Mk 1 will fetch much more than a ropy Mk 2, perhaps six years (and maybe 100,000 miles) its junior.
Triumph did develop the Stag a little, but not enough to make the last of the series significantly better than the first.
Most of the changes were cosmetic, anyway.
Prices today range from under 1,000 (bangers for breaking or total restoration) to over 15,000.
Unblemished freaks, still in showroom condition (or else expensively restored to it) have been known to sell for even more.
Expect to pay 4,000 for a serviceable car, 6,000 for one of quality (rust-free body, sound engine), 10,000 or more for outstanding examples.
Spares, by the way, are plentiful and relatively cheap (Rimmers and SOC Ltd are major suppliers) and membership of the active Stag Owner's Club is strongly recommended.
