1986 On Road 4x4 Comparo (Reaction) Motorweek Retro
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- čas přidán 27. 08. 2024
- This weeks motorweek retro review is the 1986 4x4 on-road comparo!
Bringing together Mercury, Subaru, VW, Audi, and others in a gigantic comparison test!
Tell me in the comments which is your choice!!
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An '86 Vanagon with a rear locker & 4wd? Doc, warm up the time machine & bring cash....
I remember these cars when they were intro'd. I was too young to drive a car at the time, but my favourites were Subaru and VW Vanagon Syncro.
Jon, you are correct in saying that all five of these vehicles are more all-wheel-drive(AWD) than 4WD. They have no off-road capability. These are mainly for foul weather conditions.
They're all nice cars with good features worth considering. My favourites are the Subaru and the VW Vanagon. I've always liked vans, you can carry more cargo and people if you need, something the Vanagon Syncro has. I also like Subaru.
I miss the 80 s every thing use to be simple and normal
Cars in the video **IN 2023 DOLLARS
**
-------------------------------------------
Mercury Topaz: $29,600 ($35,500 as tested)
Subaru GL-10: $43,200
VW Synchro: $46,400 ($54,700 as tested)
Honda Civic Wagon: $27,700
Audi 5000 CS Quattro: $86,000
Great vid, Mr No-Sno, really entertaining....
Glad you enjoyed it! It's a brisk 47f here today, I'm all bundled up!
Generally when all the diffs are locked, you’re not going fast enough to worry about abs. My wrangler defeats all the nannies when in 4 low also. If the wheels are diff locked together, one isn’t necessarily going brake lock without all the others.
Some differing ideas of AWD/4WD, but what a weird comparo. Australia was full of long, lonely, isolated dirt roads back in the day, so reliable Subarus & Suzukis were always popular here, esp. farmers & out in the country. Pretty perfect for 70s-90s, the Leone wagon outsold the sedan. Btw, has anyone worked out what that Saturn was meant to do yet? =) Thanks Jon.
Perhaps what we should've done was tested our cars on Australia's roads. That would've given engineers an idea of how to design and build a car.
I had an 89 Ford tempo that had the all-wheel drive onyx mine did not work because it needed the rear shaft.
I found out that most of those were made for power companies and other utilities.
I’m digging that subie!
Re the concluding notes: yes. When you wake up to the white equivalent of 6” of loose sand, 4wd is your friend!
I may be mistaken, but at the time weren’t there huge tariffs on imports to the US? Could be one of the reasons the Subaru in particular were so expensive.
Let's call it "The Relatively High Output Engine™". Generic is exactly the correct term to describe that Topaz. Subaru probably had relatively well off people who lived in areas that get a lot of snow or people who were just "different".
love this vw reminds me of scoopy doo car
Dude, that subie had pneumatic adjustable suspension with a central locker!
Jon you stated it correctly
The Vanagon was really in the same category as the old Toyota Van, Nissan Van, and Mitsubishi Wagon. Certainly, the Caravan and Voyager were better minivans. The fact that the Vanagon Synchro didn't have an automatic makes it a no-go for me. Same for the Civic Wagon 4WD.
Vanagon! There two teams running these in 24hrsLemons and the drivers of those vans had nerves of steel. You could see light under inside wheels in the turns and elevation changes. They had Subaru and gti engines in them for updated go.
I imagine a few lower income ruralites with red-clay driveways out here in east Texas looked at few of those as well...
17-20 sec quarters are slow, but I recall that the F40 was in the low 12s at the time. (For context)
Every off-road motorcyclist knows this & that's why most all dual-purpose bikes have an "abs off" setting....
I can't say any of those stood out. Like he said if you can't remember when you were stuck in snow then you don't need 4WE. Back then I drove RWD cars and was fine. Yes I remember them well. The VW maybe would've made sense to me to carry a small family more securely.
The Topaz, meh…I liked the looks of the next gen model better.
Not a modern Subaru fan…but I can’t help but love those old boxy GL/Loyale models.
The Vanagon…weird but I can’t help but love it for its quirkiness.
And at 12:29, bless you Jon 😅
Lol. Thank you. :)
It’s interesting because all my American cousins drive either Audis or Subarus depending on whether they’re well off or not so well off. And they love their cars. I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t buy a Subaru because of the “cultish” fans because Subaru guys are quite straightforward with the benefits and problems of Subarus and are usually more than happy to advise on them. And I think if you bought a Subaru, Jon, you’d love it. Subaru guys are much better than Tesla or Hyundai guys.
I've driven many Subaru, and I agree with you. I think if I ever got one I'd fall in love and join the cult.
But Every one has always been 'nice', but not better than a Honda or Toyota or others. Nothing compelling to move me to chose it.
@@AllCarswithJon Ah, I see.
1:49 That was a horrible place to pause.😂
LOL! He's watching you!
@@AllCarswithJon 🤣👍
You must live in an area where there isn't much snow...these cars were for getting out of snow drifts... definitely not for going off road
Okay Jon, I may be nitpicking with Motorweek here, but they say: "on-road," then promptly take the cars into wet fields, gravel and the woods to show us that they can go "off-road?" Granted, they aren't meant for rock climbing, but the terminology is a bit confusing...
Agreed
They should have wet the launch pad and rerun the tests!
Never knew about the 4x4 fords. I’ll say 4x4 as this is only a part time system with no center diff/viscous coupling. I wonder how many blew up with the 4x4 locked and driven on pavement?
it's a bit of a bad comparison, they could've used the Passat Synchro which was available at the time and was much more comparable in both price and specifications
AMC Eagle (all of the Eagle based awd AMC's) would have beat the living crap out of all of these and taken names in winter, which at the time was the intended purpose of all the awd/4wd cars/vans.. They're all just 80's "mom's car" snowmobiles. Eagles were like G4 Macs, may limited at what they could do but they just worked, in perpetuity
Unfortunately the Eagle was on the way out by '86. Still available, but they were changing over to the AMC/Renault (Later Chrysler) designs.
Though I'm surprised they didn't mention it. They were very popular in the Northeast and North Atlantic states where Motorweek is based.
Edit: I checked, Motorweek did do a couple stand alone reviews of AMC.
@@carlasghost656 They were made all the way to the '88 model year.. Amazing little cars in the cold and the snow, they just got the job done with no bullshit and didn't beat your spine out through the top of your head like a Jeep or 4x4 truck would (Wagoner notwithstanding; But they don't count here!). And didn't cost much. The Topaz was a fairly expensive car for what it was. And the old GL's were really good but REALLY expensive for what you got (thanks Uncle Sam 😑). Owning a bunch of AWD cars, 4x4 truck-based junk and Jeeps I think Eagles were just all around the best buy for what you got if you lived in snow country 🤣
The had enough power to climb Colorado interstates too.
I'll take the Vanagon.
Too slow and dangerous to drive Colorado interstates. Could not handle hills in the slightest. A friend had one, it was terrible.
An AMC Eagle would be better than any of these!
Much better. At least the inline 6 had enough power to climb mountain passes in Colorado. The Vanagon was strictly a right lane, hazard lights blinking mountain pass climber. Dangerous to drive at 20 mph when everyone else was doing 55 to 60.
Well full-time four-wheel drive it can vary from car model and of course decade it's like for instance take the AMC eagle in 1980 it was available at full-time 4 wheel drive home my grandmother owned one.
But of course as time went on they came up with select drive I believe it was introduced in 82.
Santa Clara's day touted up that it was shipped on the fly etc etc meaning you didn't have to go out block the hubs and all that it was all automatic of course by this time the Jeeps were set up the same way.
Basically I would say on the 1980 AMC eagle now there was no specific low gear to go to however I would say it was geared in the middle of the road I mean that car even in two-wheel drive you were not winning drag races it was pretty damn spunky for what it was but it was certainly no race car.
Put on the other hand if you take for example the 1979 Jeep Cherokee Chief, which nowadays you would call a full-fledged SUV back then it was classified as a station wagon right on the tittie,
It too is a full-time 4 wheel drive vehicle my father had one,
In the center of the dash there was a door that you would open and there was an app that you can turn that basically locked the axles together and it was to be used only in extreme emergencies and the vehicle had advised the manual it once the emergency is over you immediately disengage this because if you didn't it would eat itself alive.
And the reason I bring that up is because the full-time four wheel drive system it was available in the 79 Jeep was very comparable if not practically the same thing that ended up in the 80 eagle.
So then if you hop along Subaru in years later had acted as if they have come up with some sort of great system that can sense what will needs more power well they can go blow smoke up someone else's ass because AMC invented that it was called quadatrack.
Of course this is just dead I mean if you're talking about a Subaru versus an AMC eagle well the AMC eagle was actually built for more off-road capabilities at the super Subaru first off it's ride height take a look at ride height.
A lot of people say that the eagles ride height makes it look awkward yeah but it gives you all kinds of clearance if you have to go off-road it's not a full-fledged off-road vehicle I mean you're not going to take this thing on the trails and thrash it.
it's basically meant for the one off here and there that you do have to go on a nasty trail so it's like if you live in the country on top of the hill in your driveway periodically washes out and becomes a mess well no worries because you have an AMC eagle.
Where is the 79 Jeep yes it's basically meant to take through the fucking mud pit anytime you wish...
So there's a bit of a difference but to be honest it just depends on basically the automaker at the model.
And like I said Subaru you can definitely take off road it's great for road rallying it still has the the racing handling and all of that stuff I mean that's wonderful the 80 eagle you're not really going to take that fucker on a rally at least the wagon version now the SX4 AMC did run that in a rally and it did rather well.
But I will say especially like a lot of 90s cars I mean it's like for instance a Chevy Blazer basically would suck in comparison to a Jeep furthermore even the first Carnation of the Blazer back in the 80s would basically suck in comparison to a Jeep and the reason being is because the jeep has the highest ground clearance of any four-wheel drive market at least it used to.
If I ground clearance I mean from the pumpkin in the rear end to the ground.
Love these idiots seem to think ground clearance means how high the body itself is off the ground, no it's the axles because that's how you'll get high centered.
Well selective four-wheel drive not being used on dry pavement is actually industry wide.
I mean you know they're again I'll have to go back to the Jeep and the AMC eagle and that is simply that if you had a full-time four wheel drive setup then yeah it was meant for everything you could use it on dry pavement ECT.
But the select drive system it was primarily or like in the Jeeps where you had four high for low etc there's a few different arrangements for the Jeep so I won't say for high some will say full-time part-time at Saturn part-time you can pretty much drive around and it's okay full-time you kind of could but the idea is is if you drive in two-wheel drive via good weather then you're going to save your front end parts you're not going to put so much wear and tear on before wheel drive system.
Basically Ford Chevy and a lot of foreign automakers had went with the same thing so technically for not having a full-time four wheel drive system available on the tempo or topaz and is actually to me not really a hint so it's not really a bad thing that's industry standard.
Doesn't make any sense to you? You must live where it doesn't snow often. 4WD is better than AWD in the snow. I would say this first car is 4WD even though it doesn't have a transfer case with high and low range. 4WD doesn't have the coupling and differential mechanisms that AWD does. In 4WD a front wheel is always rotating the exact same amount as a rear wheel. That's not true for AWD. That's why you can't drive them on dry pavement but also why they are better in the snow or mud.
Very seldom snows where I am. Like once every 5 years or so (with any actual accumulation)
@@AllCarswithJon Keep in mind around 60% of the US population live where they average 6 inches per year and 40% get over 12 inches per year. These percentages were probably even higher when this episode was made.
The purpose was that folks were crying for 4wd & OEMs were running it up the flagpole in case crazy Murcans wanted to salute it....
I bet there will be a Subaru in there