Faults:

Sills both rusted out, but it was 10 years old.

A curious electrical fault developed, where at night you could only turn off the engine if you put the lights off first. Otherwise you could turn the ignition and take out the key, and it would still keep running. Weird...

General Comments:

These things were ubiquitous in the 1980s, they took over from the Cortina as the quintessential rep's car, and you saw them everywhere. Such huge production figures meant that they were reliable, easy and cheap to find parts for, and always salable.

I remember being stunned by how pokey it was for a 1300cc car, and it got 40+mpg.

For all its competence, I got bored with it very quickly. Everyone else had one, and it was the automotive equivalent of a microwave oven. A machine you buy to do a job and nothing more.

I did a straight swap for a mk5 Cortina, which I owned for 5 years after. There was a certain "je ne sais quoi" that was sadly lacking in '80s Vauxhalls.. too bland and sterile.