30th Nov 2006, 06:50
Interesting reading these comments. I inherited a 1988 blue Vauxhall Belmont in 1998 - only 30,000 miles on the clock and I have only added the same amount since then. Sadly I wish I had realised that it was popular with thieves. I left it one night on the road outside the house (instead of on the driveway) and next day it was gone. Found burnt out in Bromley after being used in a violent crime. I miss it very much especially because it was passed to me on the death of my father-in-law. The theft was 6 weeks ago and no sign of the claim being settled yet, but don't expect to be offered very much - certainly not enough to replace it.
Only people who ever admired it were car mechanics because it was such a good and rare car - yes wet boot and some rust that was fixed and endless repairs to exhaust (London road humps) but otherwise very reliable.
19th Jul 2010, 13:24
I used to own a D plate metallic light blue Belmont 1.8 GLSi back in 1998 until early 2000.
It was a really nice car for long distance motorway cruising, it used to do about 65-70 MPH on motorways at 2000, about 2200rpm.
My friend had a 1.8 SRI Belmont. Mine must have had a different gearbox or final drive ratio to the SRI, because his used to be much more responsive on the throttle and had much faster acceleration 0 -100 MPH performance. I used to have the advantage of a straight line top speed. His used to do 110 MPH in 5th gear at about 4800-5200 RPM, but mine would do 125 MPH screaming it in fourth and 137 MPH in 5th, but the engine was only on about 5300 RPM.
Did anybody else's GLSi have a long ratio gearbox?
18th Jan 2013, 13:51
A very good review of a car that I remembered very fondly. It was just an Astra with a boot, but was very spritely.
1st Aug 2022, 14:50
True, and just as good as an Astra, same with the Escort and the Orion. I wonder why they named the booted versions of these cars differently? If I recall they all changed back to the original Astra (or Escort) names eventually for booted cars. A lot of manufacturers did it. In the UK only it seems, even VW changed the Jetta to Vento, then Bora, then back to Jetta, meanwhile in the rest of the world they used the Jetta name pretty much everywhere else.
16th Aug 2006, 07:45
I had a 1988 E plated Belmont 1.8 Glsi - which I have to say was bullet proof - 3 Mot's and the most it ever needed was a tyre and a number plate bulb - the belt went on it - and thankfully was not a valve bender - so 15 quid later and it was back on the road. Good buy I'd say - if you want something cheap and reliable - without being overly attractive - you could do much worse. Ask the French!