Car Guru\’s first car owned – 1983 Ford Laser

Even with my extreme passion of new cars, when it came to spending money to purchase them, somehow, someway, common sense prevailed. That is, instead of deciding with the heart, I decided with the head. Maybe this was my father’s attitude as well, judging by the two cars that he had bought/given to me in the early 90’s.

Irrespective of who actually paid for the cars, this article talks about how good these cars are to own and drive on a daily basis.

Cars owned by CarGuru:

We will examine the ownership experience of each of these cars with the aim of providing you, the reader, with good old honest feedback. You may be thinking what would be the use of writing a review for cars that are now well and truly museum pieces that would be as rare as the Tasmanian Tiger. Well, the first two may well fall into this category, but I thought what the heck, someone may find this information useful.

Review 1 – 1983 Ford Laser

At the time that this car was released, the Ford Laser (and it’s near identical twin the Mazda 3) were the leaders of their pack. They had class leading ride and handling, economy, power and, believe it or not, “The Look” that appealed to the vast majority. Turn the clock forward 7 years, and these attributes somehow diminished quite significantly. The crop of little cars around at the turn of the decade (very early 90’s) were significantly better cars in every aspect.

My first car, the 1983 Ford Laser was the perfect example of a car that takes one “from A to B” – this car performed that task effortlessly and faultlessly. In my case, it took me from home to the University of South Australia “Levels” and “North Terrace” campuses. However, if one expected some excitement or panache on the way, then you would have been disappointed. But then again, should we expect this class of car to generate excitement? Maybe not given it would have only set you back around $11,000 when new.

I liked this car for 3 main reasons – it was cheap to run and maintain and relatively easy to park (even without power steering). Reliability was also its strong suit. Not once did this car break down. We can thank Mazda for this as the engine was the same engine used in the Mazda 323. But unfortunately for me, I did run out of petrol a couple of times – being the base mode Laser, it didn’t even have a low fuel warning light/chime.

I also liked the relatively roomy boot and the interior space was reasonable given the size of the car.

What didn’t I like about this car?

It was a mighty hot car in Summer, thanks to no air-conditioning.

Being the 1.3 litre model, the engine was pretty gutless and it made a horrible raucous sound when I revved the engine a touch more than normal (I couldn’t tell how much I revved the engine because it didn’t even have a Tachometer).

Totally featureless – that’s what you get when you buy the “poverty pack” model (applicable to most cars).

Overall though, this car performed its intended function well.