A loveless, festering, stinking, crapulous, oily piece of merde floating unwanted in the swimming pool of hot hatch history. Avoid at all costs.
The Story
As a mulleted, metal-loving teenager in the 1980s I once bought an Yngwie Malmsteen album. It was crap. And there the story would have ended, had I not got a foolish notion that it must have been a one-off; that this well-renowned, highly-rated guitar virtuoso must have released a duff record at some point and that this was the one I must have bought. In fact, this perverse logic persisted until I owned no less than four of this tiresome wank-meister’s turgid LPs; only then did I finally realise that, actually, I had been right all along: Yngwie sucked donkey balls.
It should have been a valuable learning experience about not trusting journalistic opinion in those wonderfully ill-informed, pre-internet days. Sadly, it wasn’t. In fact, I managed to repeat the whole sorry process some years later with French cars. Four times I threw away my hard-earned in the hope of experiencing the exquisite poise, the playful handling and the quirky charm that the motoring press had assured me I’d find. Four times my dreams were crushed to oblivion; in the end leaving me little more than an empty husk of bitterness and betrayal, finally driven to find solace in the aesthetically-questionable but reassuringly well-built arms of Fuji Heavy Industries.
The final nail in the Gallic coffin was a 1992 Citroen ZX Volcane 1.9i. The Volcane was essentially an 80s hot hatch that had been cooled-down for the early 90s. Insurance premiums had skyrocketed, mainly thanks to the TV constantly playing that footage of the MG Maestro doing h-turns round Blackbird Leys. After Black Monday and Black Wednesday, the economy was still reeling; car crime was going up whilst conspicuous consumption was becoming an increasingly unfashionable lifestyle choice. What better, then, than a swift-but-subtle car which could avoid the unwanted attentions of GTi-loving thieves and soon-to-be-repossessed neighbours? A car which hid its 130bhp potential under a mundane, five-door body whose only hint of any performance orientation was an 80s-hangover bumper stripe. A grey car for grey times indeed.
Depreciation disaster - ZX lost 97% in 4 years
By the time I got mine, around seven years after it first appeared, the Volcane’s Q-car appeal was rather less relevant for most people. However, as I worked in East Leeds at the time it was something of a key attraction. So, enthusiasm buoyed by clippings from contemporary issues of Performance Car, I found myself a low-mileage, superficially pristine example and embarked upon my final odyssey of French fancy. What joys did it bring me? How about the fragrant odour of burning oil wafting into the cabin on every journey thanks to those infernal valve-stem oil seals? Or interior trim that could only be described as narcoleptic, so prone was it to dropping off unexpectedly. Not forgetting a gear linkage apparently made from bits of wood and elastic bands lubricated by that oozy white stuff that accumulates in the corners of fat peoples’ mouths. Sticky, springy and obstructive, all in one ‘box.
Reliability was not a strength. Coolant pipes split, electrical items seized, mechanical items ground themselves into oblivion and the exhaust fell off. And, of course, even when you weren’t parked up waiting for the AA there was the thrill of never quite knowing which way round you’d be exiting a corner. On more than one occasion did I find myself heading unexpectedly backwards into the verge, pondering the curious fact that “Lift-off oversteer” is actually an anagram of “Oft frets: Life Over”
Inevitably, the bastard thing developed what I had by that time come to recognise as the archetypal French-car fault i.e. intermittent, tricky to diagnose and impossible to fix. In this case, it was a severe misfire that occasionally crippled the wheezy old 1.9, giving you about as much chance of hitting sixty as Ray Charles at a darts match. It went through several garages who kindly supplied some very expensive parts and labour but resolutely failed to find a cure. I gave up in the end and pensioned the ZX off as a second car that only did journeys short enough for you to walk home if it broke.
Roadholding? Best described as "revenge for Agincourt"
After several failed attempts to give it away for nothing, I finally sold it for £80. Forget new-car depreciation - this car was six years old when I bought it and over a 4-year period of ownership it lost over 97% of its value. Given the misery it caused and the many £100s it sucked up when getting fixed, I might as well have burned the cash instead. At least it would have smelled better than all that burnt oil. And I could even have chucked my Yngwie Malmsteen albums on the pyre as well.
Ratings
|❹|A-Road Overtaking
|❸|B-Road Blasting
|❸|City Driving
|❹|Long Distance Comfort
|⓪|Reliability
|❹|Stealth Factor
|❶|Entertainment Value
Random Facts
● Got nicknamed Jif, as it was such a
ing lemon. ● For less than the price of a new C4, you could buy every ZX currently for sale in the UK, although none are Volcanes.
● 1.9 engine was the same as that in the legendary 205 1.9 Gti. Only found in the earliest ZXs before it was replaced by a slower, catalysed 2.0.
● Did about 25mpg unleaded on a good day. Felt like about the same for oil.
● Things that I can remember breaking, falling off or wearing out included: Fuel pump, gear linkage (twice), valve stem oil seals, ECU, interior dash illumination, two wheel bearings, coolant pipes (several), central locking, electric sunroof, stereo controls, ashtray, wiper stalk, front brake calliper, passenger electric window, passenger mirror, battery, glove compartment, front towing eye cover, rear shocks, exhaust silencer, assorted interior switches, exhaust midsection, handbrake cable, rear parcel shelf and… Every. Single.
ing. Bulb. ● Number of roadside recoveries needed: 7. Had to move to a different breakdown company.
● Why didn’t I get rid of it sooner? Because I’d naively made the mistake of taking out a 3-year loan to buy it. Madness, I tell you.
The Big Question
Would I own one again? Seriously? I would rather stick my cock in a food mixer.
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