Techzle has been in existence for 30 years and that is why we look back every week on this week’s edition in 1990. Techzle 51 will be in the shops from today, but what exactly was number 51 thirty years ago?
News
On the news pages of Techzle 51 of 1990, hard news shone through absence, but a few pages away there was one big news story. Mercedes-Benz had unveiled the F100, a futuristic concept car that roughly showed what the MPV of the future would look like. The design language that Mercedes applied to the F100 caused quite a few furrows in 1990, because it was almost nothing like the models we knew at the time. However, looking back, it can be clearly seen that it was a very strong hint to what was to come years later. We see some A-class in it and the headlights are even reminiscent of Mercedes that would only appear in the new century. So you see, the most bizarre concepts can already give a concrete picture of what is to come in the future.
Tests
On page 10 of this week’s 30-year-old Techzle, an Opel Omega shone with all four wheels. Well, not an Opel Omega, but a Lotus Carlton. Under the umbrella of General Motors, the British brand was given the Omega and was allowed to unleash its sporting expertise on it. The Carlton was a huge step more violent than the Omega. A no less than 377 hp 3.6-liter six-cylinder ensured that the Carlton was already at 100 km / h in 5.3 seconds and of course Lotus also worked on the chassis, the brakes and the aerodynamics. It was an extremely impressive thing and it became a rarity too; only 320 Carltons were born. Nowadays you can easily spend well over € 40,000 to get one, although the prices regularly shoot a lot higher.
A considerably more modest driving test was reserved for the Nissan Sunny in number 51. That year, a new generation had appeared, described by the editor of the service as ‘little Primera’. With a three- and five-door hatchback and a four-door sedan, there was plenty of choice. Also in terms of engines you could go in different directions, but the best was of course the GTi. Later the four-wheel drive GTi-R would appear, which with its 220 hp turbo engine, flared hood with air intakes and a large rear spoiler was really very extreme for its time. An extremely rare and very fast thing.
Reports
With the Christmas holidays in prospect, no major report was planned for the end of 1990, but we did elaborate on an ‘interesting idea for the future’. Refuel your car via your meter cupboard. Nowadays, for EV drivers, that is straightforward what you might do every day, but in 1990 we meant something completely different by it. Natural gas was then touted by many as a good alternative to petrol and diesel. Since that also simply came from your gas pipe at home, shouldn’t it be possible to refuel your car at home? Just one person did that already in 1990. He had a machine behind his company that transferred the gas at the pressure suitable for the gas tank of his car to the car. It took about five hours to fill up the car.
Ultimately, natural gas did not really take off on a large scale as fuel for cars. In the long run, bi-fuel models did appear on the market, which we wrote about in 1990, and there are still some new cars for sale that like natural gas. However, the downscaling of natural gas extraction in the Netherlands, the relatively lower capacities that engines provide and the limitations of the infrastructure are important stumbling blocks.
The fact that December is often a bit of a news-savvy month became somewhat painfully clear in 1990 in the above article. In number 51 there was a real ‘car horoscope’. Four whole pages were devoted to it and that was even only up to the zodiac sign Virgo. The rest would follow the following week. Funny, but something you don’t have to expect in our magazine anymore!
Advertisement
You can’t really call it an advertisement, rather a striking warning. The Ministry of Justice gladly turned to Techzle readers with this confronting photo and urged them not to speed. You hardly ever benefited from it, you put yourself and others at risk and it was also bad for the environment. Well, was? Of course, this still applies. Fortunately, cars today are a bit safer than the ones above. Do you know what car we’re dealing with here?