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Gavin Bushby is not only the Chairman of the Fiat Motor Club; he is also the proud owner of a very unusual Coventry-built saloon: a Talbot Solara Rapier. ‘Beautiful gold, with brown, brown, beige, and brown velour’. And the colour scheme was not the only attraction of this fine car as it presented the driver with plush ‘inserts on the door trim pads and ‘front hockey-stick armrests’.  

We will be hearing more of this rare vehicle later this spring, although any Solara is a fairly exclusive sight. My own memories of the Talbot are of the British Transport Police patrol cars lurking around Southampton Central Station.  But for many Britons, the vehicle with the power to ‘light up your life’ is bracketed with the Honda Quintet, the Nissan Stanza and other unfairly forgotten 1980s cars.

Ryton commenced production of the Alpine, their version of the Simca 1307, in 1976 but the now Chrysler-badged Hunter still remained available. On the surface, this was a shrewd marketing decision as many traditionally minded buyers preferred a “three-box” RWD saloon to a five-door FWD hatchback.  In France 1976, as Andy Townsend and Keith Adams note in https://www.allpar.com/index.php ‘the Chrysler-Simca 1307/1308 accounted for 7% of total French car sales – more than the Renault 12, Citroen GS, Simca 1100 and Peugeot 304 together!’. By contrast, in 1979 Ford sold over 130,700 Cortinas as compared to under 30,000 Alpines in the UK.

A further problem was that the Hunter now looked utterly archaic, in comparison with the Morris Marina Series 2 let alone Dagenham’s finest and the Vauxhall Cavalier Mk. I.  The Arrow’s appearance remained about as “1966” as Simon Dee or a record by The Kinks. It remains quite a surprise to realise that “Arrow” sales continued until the end of the 1970s. In such circumstances, the Solara’s British debut in 1980 was eagerly awaited by Talbot dealers, for at last, they had a contemporary-looking saloon to offer private and fleet buyers.  

The body of the Solara was three inches longer than the Alpine, and the styling was best described as ‘innocuous’. When Motor tested the 1.6 GL, the version pitched at fleet buyers they complained about the gear change but praised the fuel economy and found its performance ‘stately but manageable’. Autocar thought the Solara made ‘a fair overall showing’ in comparison with the Cortina, the Cavalier, the Fiat 131 Supermirafiori, the Renault 18TS and the Honda Accord saloon. It also offered ‘rather more comfort’ than the Ford and the Vauxhall.

The overall impression from both tests was of a car that was not exactly scintillating but agreeable – which was just what the potential buyer demanded. Far better the safely predictable than ‘advanced but regularly leaves you stranded on the M3’. The television commercial emphasised such qualities, with the voice-over promising substantial value for money rather than a jet-set lifestyle https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=GUi6jS8nd9g&feature=emb_logo. Meanwhile, the brochure copywriter was clearly on overtime with such gems as ‘Take a test drive and it will show you the power to light up your life’.  Not to mention ‘discover the glow that comes from driving Solara’, which rather conjures up images of the Readybrek advertisements.

On the Thames Television show Wheels, Chris Goffey thought the Solara https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziTS_00QXk4 would ‘have to fight very hard’ for its share of the fleet market. Dealers could point out the Talbot’s smart appearance, the fact it looked slightly more up-to-the-minute than the Cortina, the vast boot and the fact it was derived from the COTY 1976.  The top of the range SX was also lavishly appointed with cruise control, alloy wheels, PAS and a trip computer. To put the last-mentioned item in context - in 1980 many households still lacked a telephone.

In short, the Solara looked set for a reasonable degree of success; in the UK it out-sold the Alpine.  However, Ford, Morris and Vauxhall rivals all were long-established with fleet and private buyers alike whereas the Talbot replaced a model whose heyday ceased in the mid-1970s. The Solara also lacked a 2-litre engine option, and a further challenge was that the marque possessed comparatively little brand identity. ‘Talbot Takes You Further’ remains one of the less memorable slogans of the age.

The Cavalier II of 1981, the Sierra of 1982 and the Austin Montego of 1984 progressively impacted on sales of the Solara. What Car evaluated the 1.6 GLS opposite the Daihatsu Charmant and the Hyundai Stellar, praising the ‘excellent ride, good economy and decent interior space’. However, the scribe moaned about the ‘ludicrously noisy engine’ and the ‘cheap-looking fascia’ as well as stating ‘Talbot’s familiar saloon is beginning to look very poor value indeed’.

Production ended in 1985, and the last examples of the Solara were the entry-level Minx and the more luxurious Rapier, their names reminders of the long-past Rootes Group era.  Showroom appeal was enhanced by PAS, five-speed transmission and a stereo radio/cassette player, with the latter featuring duo-tone paint, alloy wheels and electric windows. By that time, the Talbot marque was being side-lined in corporate PR in favour of Peugeot. It must also be said that this commercial probably did not enhance the Solara’s prospects – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=097bV5hkEjM

It would be too easy to suggest that the Solara would have enjoyed far higher sales in the UK if it had debuted alongside the Alpine in 1976 - at that time Chrysler was in a state of considerable turmoil. The legacy of cars such as the Bushby Solara is in capturing an aspect of 1980s life that will be familiar to many readers who can still recall a time of “Video Libraries”, and Now That’s What I Call Music 3. Only the, most determined sales executive would claim the Talbot offered ‘excitement’, for that was never its purpose. It was a car as innocuous as a packet of Bird’s Dream Topping, and it belonged to the suburbia celebrated in Ever Decreasing Circles.  

WITH THANKS TO – GAVIN BUSHBY

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