We've been doing some sorting out recently, and came across a Which? magazine (product review magazine) from 1980, with a review of small hatchbacks, including the 343DL. Thought some of you may be interested, so here's a scan of it

Thanks for sharing that MJ!

Verdict: "worthy" is that good or bad ?

Tom

Nice one, Martin.

This confirms something which I long suspected. The Volvo 300 was the most expensive hatchback money could buy back in the day. It was a premium product, and i believe this is reflected in build quality. Yeah they rust, but not as much as VW's I've owned of a similar age.

Thats an awesome read MJ, ta!

It looks to me like Volvo read that road test, and though, hmmm, ok, we'll change those bits (bad ventilation!? either the Mk3 is much much improved, or modern day is even worse) and then didn't touch it for the last 10years All the late roadtests basically say it's a 70's car made in the late 80's.

Which is amusing considering how much most people pay for 70's RWD cars now

Cheers for the post, was a good bedtime read lol, nice to see that the volvo was the best looking as-well imo.

Dan

In my MkIII there is really not much of need for fan, same goes to 240 too, but MkIII 360 has better ventilation, imo.

Don't know how it is in MkII, at least it has better control over how air comes to car, but maybe vents or tubing is not so good, or perhaps there is not enough vents for air to exit. One thing that comes to my mind is that as test car was probably protected against rust after importing to UK, could it be possible that some important ventilation holes would been vaxoiled shut by mistake?

My experiences from Fiat are from early 90's and even at those times there were no good ones around, today I don't see those Fiats anymore, they have gone to better place I believe, however old 300 series cars can be still spotted on roads. Colt's haven't been around for ages, they did rust away faster than rusty nails in salt water.

Colt was bit oddball to that test anyway, I would class it more in supermini class than small family compacts as it was not really similar in size to other two. This what I have found from them in practice.

Colt had turbo version too at some point, it had turbo integrated to manifold, so those are quite rare to spot today too, they did rust and to replace turbo you would need to get it from dealership...

Excellent reading those older car test, would be nice to have all old tests from 300 series, I do have one from 1976 but that is in Finnish, so probably not much of interest to majority of members?

I was surprised at the depth of the article, I particularly liked the MPG readings at the various steady speeds - I don't remember seeing anything like that in modern road tests... It clearly shows the fuel saving you get driving at 50 instead of 70

Maybe Volvo did read it Chris, another thing is that they commented on the wipers being the wrong way round which was fixed later.