Austarion

I'm off to look at one next week, just wondering if anyone has had anything to do with these and what the things are to look out for?

never got them over here, your cuzzie bro's will have to sort you out on this one..

Are you feeling ok?
Buy a FORD?
Seriously... cut your right arm of, that'll be a better thing! :D

Import from UK? We got Lasers instead of these things but there are a few around.
Look for rust everywhere if its an import, without first hand knowlegde I'd call pos :) with older Escorts being such big sellers there has to be a reason they decided to go with the Laser. They did win Euro car of the year but the Austin Metro got second which shows the calibre of the competition LOL

The reason why we got the Laser instead of the MkIII Escort is the Laser would have been cheaper to produce for Ford than the Escort, plus as Mazda at the time were fairly well established in NZ it would be just as easy to get parts than it would for English cars, which at the time the numbers were dwindling. I think they are a nice car, perhaps a little bit under-rated. I wouldn't buy one for a reliable means of transport from A to B, I would buy one because it's fairly uncommon and different to your usual Familia/323/Laser/Corolla/Civic/Mirage etc from the 80s.

Thanks for your input... have decided to buy a new turbo for the starion instead