A longer look at the Sunbird

Press, 28 October 1977, Page 8

A longer look at the Sunbird

By RUSSELL JONES, motoring editor General Motors is selling Holden Sunbirds as fast as it can make them so I was glad of an opportunity to reassess the car by driving it in Christchurch for a few days recently. After I spent a day with the car a couple of months ago 1 wrote a detailed report (August 19) and since then my opinions have not changed much. However a few

interesting things have come to light. In town, the worst thing about the car is the gearbox. Although the test car had more than 4000 km on the clock the box was stiff , when the oil was cold and a little harsh to use, especially when changing down, even when it had warmed up. The four-cylinder 1897 cu cm engine is flexible enough to allow third gear to be used in most slow city work but second is needed to give the car a bit of punch. Unfortunately, the change from third to second can be hard and rough.

Sometimes the clutch mechanism compounds the problem. The pedal needs to be depressed fully and once or twice my toes caught on the cover over the steering column and stopped the pedal short. This resulted in some unpleasant grating noises. The other problem to

emerge was the size of the boot. My parents were going to Australia for a holiday so I offered to drive them to the airport — a Holden seemed appropriate — but their suitcases would not fit in the boot. Two medium sized suitcases should fit in the boot of almost any car, and certainly one with the external dimensions of the Sunbird, but there was no way I could fit them in the boot and close the lid. The spare wheel, which sits up on an angle at the back of the boot, was the

problem. It should be resited under the floor. The theme of Sunbird advertising, that it is "dedicated to the driver in every family," hinges around the handling of the car, and this is certainly its most impressive quality. The radial tuned suspension is certainly much more than a gimmick and 1 found the car stable and secure under all conditions. During a trip to Timaru and back I was impressed by the low level of noise from the engine and steel-

belted tyres, and the flowthrough ventilation kept the interior cool on a hot day. Another thing I liked about the car was its responsiveness in top gear at the critical passing speed of 75 km/h. Not once did I need to change down to third. My previous comments about mediocre instrumentation and only average performance stand, but in general 1 found the Sunbird a pleas ant car to live with. Cer tainly one Of the better Holdens.