1974 Dolomite Sprint

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I've never really understood why they haven't gone ballistic in price like it's Ford's and BMWs competitors of the time have.

Because they weren't as good.

When has that ever really affected a classic cars modern day value?

It's a tricky one. A Citroen GS1220 is crushingly superior to an Escort 1300 yet is worth less. But in the arena of enthusiast cars - those that were bought new by have a go heroes - it all counts. The Sprint was known for dicey handling, terrible brakes and reliability issues and the RS2000 and 2002Tii weren't.

Four door cars are very rarely worth as much as two doors anyway. Bizarre but there you go.

Values don't mean shit anyway. It just means you've got an interesting car for a lot less money.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I've never really understood why they haven't gone ballistic in price like it's Ford's and BMWs competitors of the time have.

Because they weren't as good.

Correct. They were a lot better and especially better looking.
I always wonder why people seem to have forgotten just how incredibly shit Fords and especially BMWs of that era were.

Styling is subjective. I prefer the DS19 to the more fashionable later ones. The 2002 was certainly an ugly bastard of a thing but they do drive superbly with IRS. Most period road tests show that an AVO Escort would run rings around a Dolomite. The standard Escort was dismal but a Mexico/RS1600 or TC wasn't.

In August 1973, a mate of my Dad's ordered a Mexico new. By this point AVO had changed from the glorious Monza blue to the insipid Olympic blue. For a few quid extra, could he have one built in the old colour? It was about 100 'nudge/wink' quid extra but as AVO had their own paint shop to refinish every Halewood shell, this was done and this was the very last Monza blue AVO Escort. Six months later, Father Bluejeans bought it and ran it for three years. He didn't like the Sprint (driving position and brakes) at all but an Avenger Tiger was on the shortlist. It was considered too showy however.

For Ford to have set up a small factory and hand build cars just so they could compete (and win) was just a different era. It will never happen again.

In an ideal world I'd have an Inca yellow Sprint, an RS1600 and a 2002 Turbo.

[Junkman]

AVO Escort running circles around a standard Dolomite shocker. Don't you remember what miserable piles of pure unadulterated horse cart sprung bottom of the barrel shit regular Escorts were? Do you really not? This is so ingrained in my memory that it pops up randomly when I carry out mindless tasks.

Sadly the mounting points of the hailed 02 IRS were made from toilet paper and lots more people would have died horrible deaths due to their cars spontaneously wrapping around trees because of them snapping, had it not been for the cylinder heads made from merengue, cracking all the time, thus rendering them deadlined most of the time until their boot floors had succumbed to nature and their seat fabric dissolved while you watched. That and the 1,500 D-Mark tariff for a new bare cylinder head casting saved many lives indeed. Don't you remember this?

Yes, the Dolly seating position might not have been optimal, but it was still lightyears better than in an 02 with archaic standing pedals and no space whatsoever for your left foot except permahovering over the clutch pedal, at least in LHD verisons, and the seat cushions being too long, cutting off the blood circulation below your knees on longer journeys. Okay, I give you that it was still better than in Escorts, for which no excuse whatsoever exists.
Fords also always looked like a terrible mess until Uwe Bahnsen finally sorted at least that out.

[SiC]

Funnily enough the brakes is the one thing that everyone on the Dolomite club forum is telling me to upgrade. There is a kit by a chap called Trackerjack who has made some adapters so Ford calipers can be put on. Apparently the difference is night and day.

The stock discs are laughably small and the studs on mine even more so. In fact Triumph put thicker studs on the later models (mine is an early) as apparently the MET police had a few issues with wheels coming off in spirited driving. Similar happened to someone in recent years when track daying one.

My MGB discs are a fair bit bigger - despite being a much older design. I can't compare haven't driven the Dolly properly as they're not even braking straight at the moment. I believe the front end setup is the same between all Dolomite models - 1300/1500/1500HL/1850HL and the Sprint. There were vented discs as a BL special tuning upgrade back in the day, but these are naturally non existent now.

Right now I'll probably go with stock brakes as the parts are easy to get hold of and also I've got a fair amount of expenditure to go anyway, before I can get the car at least reasonably sorted. As it currently stands, it doesn't feel nice to drive at all and not a pleasure to take out. Hopefully it won't take as long to get sorted as the MGB did.

Oh and I don't particularly like the seating position much either. A bit too upright. Not helped by the truly knackered seat foam. At least the steering wheel has both reach and height adjustment. Something even my Boxster doesn't have!

[CLINT]

All I can add to the discussion on value is that as a child of the eighties Escorts were cool. Due to their rallying success presumably. Only two doors though. Any BMW was seen as cool, although most 02s had disappeared by then. I don't remember Sprints being talked about, I think any Dolomite or other Triumph saloon was just seen as an old mans car. My peers lusted after Mexicos, RS2000s and of course XRs and Cosworths.

Personally though, I wanted either a Peugeot 604 or a Renault 16 but that's not really my point...

[SiC]

As a child of the nineties, Escorts were seriously uncool. Remember this is the time of the Escort Mk4 and Mk5.
I don't remember Dolomites or many pre 80s cars really. I guess by then they were much rarer and just rotten heaps.

[John F]

All I can add to the discussion on value is that as a child of the eighties Escorts were cool. Due to their rallying success presumably. Only two doors though. Any BMW was seen as cool, although most 02s had disappeared by then. I don't remember Sprints being talked about, I think any Dolomite or other Triumph saloon was just seen as an old mans car. My peers lusted after Mexicos, RS2000s and of course XRs and Cosworths.

^ This, basically.

IMO the last standard British car to enjoy "cool" status among the general populace was the early Hillman Avenger with those boomerang rear lights.

[Junkman]

There always has been and still is a huge difference between a Dolly and a Dolly Sprint, Escort and Escort AVO, 1502, 2002, ti, tii and turbo. And that is money.

If you stop comparing apples with eggs and go by the purchase price, the Dolly Sprint, although not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, provided the most bang for the buck by not a narrow margin. The BMW with the same hp figure was the tii, which cost a proper draught from a bottle more and any Essy available to normal mortals had 20 PS fewer.

At least where I'm from this mattered. Maybe the British were so loaded that money was of no significance to them, but for us it bloody well was.

[John F]

Nah. As far as us kids back in the 1970s were concerned, the Dolomite was passé compared to the stylish new European competition. This was the era when European package holidays were starting up, people were fascinated with the future. The British motor industry reeked of the past.

[Junkman]

I also remember the good old days in the 70s when I found a Lambo Espada cooler than an Opel Kadett and couldn't understand why my father didn't just buy one and a bag of Haribo Gummibears for me. But I have learned the concept of money since then.