6 months new car warranty
10/04/2014
It's hard to imagine now, but 40 years ago car manufacturers were not afraid to sell their cars with a six-month warranty. Triumph even limited the mileage to 10,000 km.
Nowadays, when some suppliers even offer a seven-year warranty and no car is sold with a warranty of less than 100,000 km, the reliability promises of the 1970s seem very modest.
Less modest, however, was the thirst of some of these cars that have now matured into classics. 19.2 liters test consumption for a two-liter with 125 hp, you think you've misread. But in fact, the 'hobby' testers measured the consumption of the Triumph Dolomite Sprint at over 20 liters in some cases.
The differences in braking at the time were also surprising. Just under 40 to 46 meters were recorded for the stopping distance from 100 km/h, whereas today most normal cars stop at less than 36 meters.
How a Triumph Dolomite Sprint, a Saab 99 L and a Chrysler 2 Liter compared 40 years ago was documented in detail by the 'hobby' journalists in two issues of their magazine. And because this is still interesting today, we have reprocessed all the results and documented them with many historical photos.
