My dad had that car, same colour, but the estate version.

My everlasting memory is a holiday to France in the late 70s. The French decided to blockade the ferry ports while we were out there. Instead of a drive from Loire to Cherbourg we had to return via Zeebrugge. Navigating Le Peripherique with a Michelin large scale map in the dark trying to escape Paris to find a hotel!

Mum had developed sciatica and was lying on the back seat, sister sat with her, so it was down to me.

We made it back to the UK, but on leaving the ferry the car wasn't healthy having a severe mis fire. Diagnosed as a failed HT lead.

I think the car was sold after that trip.

I had a 4 door one in green as a first family car. One of the push rods would regularly punch a hole in the rocker and the engine would loose power. Over the time I had it I must have replaced about 6 rockers, cheap part to buy and easy to change. Problem only ever happened with the same rocker and once changed full power restored. Never worked out the cause can only conclude that the rocker metal was very soft but ii never happened with the others, eventually traded for a 1.6 Montego

They had a few weak spots, tappets soft so needed adjustment more often than most, weak fuel pump, the diaphragm was weak so was the valves, once the diaphragm weakened they lost oil and let air in, poor HT leads and distributer, points were terrible condenser wasn`t any better, always had to keep spares in the boot, weak clutch some lucky to do 24k, rear wheel bearings and diff whine was very bad on some, wipers sometimes stopped in heavy rain, cause never found that I recall, they did have other problems but they were the main ones

I bought an estate with most of those problems, I repaired it to last me 2 years 1980-82 until someone sprayed it in brake fluid and lost interest in it so sold cheap for a Marina...

I traded in my 1966 Jaguar 3.4 S-type (that was only running on 5 cylinders) for a Viva HC with the 1800 OHC engine in the late seventies. It was metallic gold, although it soon became apparent that the wings had been resprayed as they faded rather badly. The engine was fine, but the 3 speed auto not so much. It had a tendency to change up to third too early and then not want to change down to second unless you really floored it. It started to make a rattling noise which turned out to be due to cracks in the flexplate. The handling wasn't that brilliant, although it was probably driver confidence exceeding ability that caused a bit of an argument with a drystone wall in Devon. I traded it in for a MG Midget not long after that.