Telstars—cars with good road manners

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 22

Telstars—cars with good road manners

BEHIND the WHEEL

with

Peter Greenslade

If house-proud New Zealanders can find it in their hearts to thank the Japanese for anything other than their cameras and electronic gadgetry, it must be for their cars that don’t soil driveways and garages with oil droppings as do so many European cars and particularly those of British origin. I drove a couple of the new Ford Telstars over the holidays. These Mazda 626 derivatives were Japanese house-trained too, but dare I suggest that the 2-litre Ghia saloon, which is fitted with an Australian-manufactured engine, had not had the benefits that an excellent finishing school had conferred upon the TX5i, the petrol-injected engine of which had come direct from the Land of the Rising Sun. Maybe ‘ the Bosch LJetronic multi-point fuel injection system, manufactured under licence by Nippon Denso, is responsible for much'of the smoothness that is a characteristic of the TX5i engine, but I thought the Australian-built unit, which comes from Ford Australia’s Geelong engine plant, had a touch of rough and readiness about it.

That is not to say that the Telstar Ghia is not a very civilised car. It is a wellappointed five-seater sedan with just about everything that opens and shuts, plus a five-speed manual gearbox with a shift action so good that it is pure delight to use. However, its four-cylinder 1998 cu cm single overhead camshaft engine, with alloy cross-flow head, that develops 73kW at 5500 rpm and produces its peak torque of 5Nm at 3500 rpm, tends to grumble somewhat if called upon to answer really serious questions. On the other hand, the Japanese-made fuel injection engine, which is of the same configuration but develops 88kW at 5500 rpm and its peak torque of 166 Nm at 4000 rpm, always remains silky smooth. All the same, it likes to rev freely and the engine needs to turn over quite briskly to ensure smooth starts. In that regard, the Telstar Ghia, which is fitted with a Nikki twin-choke downdraft carburettor, is an unfussy performer.

Both cars have excellent road manners and although the TX5i features adjustable suspension, with three modes, “sport,” “normal” and “automatic,” I am of the opinion that, with our

100km/h open road speed limit, full exploitation of this feature would not appreciably shorten the running time between, say, Christchurch and Blenheim, compared with that of a driver who ran his car in the “normal” mode.

Admittedly, when the TX5i is driven in the “sport” mode, the ride is stiffer and body roll in corners is minimal. In “normal” mode the ride is softer and, although roll angles are greater, the car hangs on just as securely. What is more, I could not'detect any variations in the steering characteristics, which in fast but sane situations, tend towards safe and slight understeer.

I guess that for those among us who thumb our noses at the law and drive just about as fast as the road conditions will permit and, in the South Island at least, that is often a lot quicker than the strong road safety lobby would approve, the adjustable suspension would pay more of a dividend.

Incidentally, the all-disc brake set-up of the TX5i is more than adequate for the performance potential of this car, and I found that even under quite severe braking the car kept running true. For that matter, the discdrum arrangement on the Ghia saloon was also most effective.

The Telstar Ghia is Ford’s top-of-the-line model in the range. It sells for $26,990. The TX5i, which sells for $29,840 at present is the high performance model and, in fact, it has everything the Ghia version has got, with the exception of a sensible instrument panel. When Mazda Motors of New Zealand launched its 626 Sporthatch, the company made much of its digital and graphic display instrument panel. Ford, on the other hand, strongly defended its traditional analogue panel when it launched the TXS a little later. The latest Mazda Sporthatch has an analogue

panel and the TX5i has gone digital and graphic. Mazda’s about-face is understandable. That Ford, a multi-national company, the European-orientated segment of which is generally committed to commonsense but, nevertheless, advanced techniques, should make a switch back to the old-hat Mazda layout borders on the incredible — if not incredibly stupid. The point is that instrument panels with graphic and digital readouts have to be read rather than absorbed by peripheral vision. Sensible drivers donn’t read a book while they are driving. Why should they be asked to read an instrument panel? In the TX5i which, arguably, has pretensions tc being a high performance five-seater, it is silly tc expect drivers to divert their attention from the road ahead and behind while they find out how their car is performing. For the politician who has the adaptability to forget about the drink-drive and speed road safety issues long enough to think about other distressing factors, the whole question of instrument panels could introduce an entirely new and important road safety factor.

All that could be interpreted as an indictment of the TX5i, but it isn’t. This is a car with almost everything, apart from that instrument panel and the limited headroom, as well

as a seeming disregard for the length of Anglo-Saxon legs in the rear compartment, that many owners of similarly-sized and priced models will look upon with envy. The Ghia saloon version is a car to which more Kiwi motorists will aspire, even though an acquaintance, noted for her outspoken views, opined that the red velour upholstery and trim was reminiscent of one of the better Edwardian bordellos. Frankly, I was surprised that she was old enough to be able to offer an opinion.