Fantastic, thanks a lot Frank, Brian! I'll deffinately look the guys in Berks up! Do you mind me asking how much I can expect to pay?
Absolutely love the photos of your collection Brian that GT looked fantastic.
I'm also a huge fan of the Dedra and keep toying with waiting for a mint example to pop up?!
Right I'm off to look into getting my wheels sorted
Cheers again! John
Hello John,
Woburn sands is Beds not Berks, if I get a chance I'll run over there and get the details and prices for you, from what I remember I paid about £50 per wheel.
The GT was lovely although I'd have liked a pair of replacement doors as one of mine was bad at the bottom but I never found a pair,
I originally bought it as Diane wanted another Y10 after we sold her 'Fire', and from that point of view the GT was a mistake, because it has the Brazilian built 1301 cc Fiat cast iron lump instead of the Aluminium Fire engine, it alters the weighting of the steering, it made it so much heavier that Diane couldn't drive it, and it was a bugger for having to tug it around corners at even reasonable speeds, it just weighed up so much, this wasn't helped by bigger alloys and tyres.
Not many good Dedra's left out there now but they do occasionally turn up, having had 5, as well as being the Dedra Adviser for nearly 20 years my preference is for the 2.0 models, while the 1.8's are still lovely, they don't have some of the bells and whistles of the 2.0 but the cost of maintaining the with the twin cam engine is the same, although there's not a great deal of difference in performance.
If you don't mind LHD there's a greater choice, as well as the lovely SW, probably the best of these is the 2.0 Dedra integrale sw, while it's a 2.0, it's not a Turbo, and they were only produced for about 2 years. Dedra Turbos are even scarcer, and tend to have been well used.
Dedra were still available on the Continent until 1998 but with very restricted model choice,, the last ones had the alfa/fiat 1.6 twin cam , (which was used in Lybra)or the 1.9 turbo Diesel, the late ones also had the same dash/door pads etc of the New Delta, that never officially came here.
You can also find aircon, that was never an option in the UK RHD.
Dedra integrale saloon is the one to go for though if you want performance, but not many of these were built.
The Alcantara in Dedra was very good quality and lasted very well, usually only the side cheeks used to wear, on the other hand the cloth interiors were a mixed blessing that sometimes shredded.
Speaking from personal experience I had two automatics, and I must have been mad, the car and engine were fine, it was just that the Volkswagen electronic gearbox wasn't suited to the car at all, besides which the fuel consumption was abysmal, partly due to my driving, but it was invariably 10 mpg worse than my 2.0 manuals that I drove in the same manner.
Finally your left with the 1600 that is much simpler & cheaper to maintain, very good specifications for the cost new, with good performance and longevity, I know of at least two that exceeded 250,000 miles with no major problems, downsides were drum brakes on the back and solid discs on the front.
Brian
8227