[v12]

At one time, the Cielo, Opel Astra, Ford Escort were one of the best selling cars in the country. Before the new models were launched these cars were seen everywhere on the roads. But now these cars are a very rare sight. Agreed that newer cars have replaced them. But where have these cars gone. Have they been scrapped? Or have they been sold in small towns at a better price?

[karthik247]

Atleat the Opel Astra's are a bit common. Hardly get to see a Cielo or an Escort.

But no doubt that the Astra and Cielo are brilliant cars. Nicely powered and good cars. Only prob these days would be with the spares.

[devarshi84]

While all these cars did pretty well when they were introduced the units sold were pretty low.

In 1996 for Opel Astra which cost 10lacs almost was a pretty high price and car sales were not zooming.

same goes for cielo/nexia and Escort.

hence even though they were successful you can hardly see them.

[metallica]

Well ,there's an Astra Club and a Cielo Automatic in my garage ...

[iraghava]

I guess most have been scrapped due to availability of cheaper, younger options and the others have disappeared into garages as rare use cars. Anyways the current price for a well maintained Cielo is around 70-80k tops so you can probably understand why they are not so visible these days.

[aZa]

A neighbour of mine has a Cielo Executive, and now he's got it modded with Corrolla Rear lights + weird body kit + BMW nose job! And its in BROWN color or some muddy shade. thats one Fugly ride, i'm gonna take some pics soon.

Opel astra's are fairly common, especially the Club version.

[adya33]

Astra's are very common sight in Pune. Even you can see some Cielo's but Escorts are very rare.

[khanak]

astras are pretty common. cielos are less common but you can still see them around. i havent seen too many escorts though

[islero]

The original Astra and the Cielo shared the 1.6 litre 72 bhp mill, I think the Nexia shared the 91 bhp unit with the later Astra too.

Other than the Astra, both the other cars are absolute rubbish anyway, so its a good thing they have been banished form our roads.

[Sahil]

I guess all the Astra's have been moved to smaller cities/towns....and cielo and escorts just deserve to be scraped,so they are.

[theMAG]

Originally Posted by v12

At one time, the Cielo, Opel Astra, Ford Escort were one of the best selling cars in the country. Before the new models were launched these cars were seen everywhere on the roads. But now these cars are a very rare sight. Agreed that newer cars have replaced them. But where have these cars gone. Have they been scrapped? Or have they been sold in small towns at a better price?

We still see some Cielos in Bangalore - altho they're all LPG. These older cars cannot be run in Tier 1 cities like ND,Mum,Kol,BLR and CHN legally anymore due to pollution norms.

[Rtech]

I've often thought this myself V12. I remember when there were literally thousands of Cielo's running on Mumbai streets. Then, within a span of a few years, you hardly get to see any. The Escort never sold many, so its not too surprising not to see them around. And the Astra is relatively common still.

I guess they are sold off to smaller towns. However, you see quite a lot of them in scrap yards and chor bazaar. Also, I think Cielo's are used as cabs in quite a few places. I know I've seen a lot of them used as Radio cabs in Delhi.

[v12]

Originally Posted by islero

The original Astra and the Cielo shared the 1.6 litre 72 bhp mill, I think the Nexia shared the 91 bhp unit with the later Astra too.

Other than the Astra, both the other cars are absolute rubbish anyway, so its a good thing they have been banished form our roads.

The Astra had a 1.6L (16NZR) 76 bhp engine whereas the Cielo had a 1.5L 80 bhp one. Opel and Daewoo never shared the same engine at that time.

The Cielo was not a rubbish car. It was a good VFM car. As cheap as an Esteem but more powerful and offered more features too. Plus it was India's first "fuel-injected car".

[S@~+#0$#]

I like all three cars, specific variants though ....
Cielo-Nexia - because it was 16vDOHC and had good interiors.
The Ford Escort Zetec and in diesel the Anniversary model.
The feature-packed Opel Astra Club(I own one for the last 6 years).

[1100D]

Is the 309 missing from this list. Read an issue in ACI or something about a person called "Peugeot Raju". It was interesting. Personally I feel The Astra's and the 309's were best suited for India. But it was not the "car" in each case which contributed to the downfall.

Had a few relatives with the Opel and the Cielo. In case of Opel many vital parts were not localised leading to high spare cost (GM had serious reservations against localising parts thinking quality would take a beating). The Indian counterparts available later never matched upto the standards set by the OEM. None of these cars the relatives could sell at decent price.

Looking at these cars one just wishes that the same fate does not go down with the Fiat cars available here. The cars themselves are gems. But the service personell, and even TATA that dealing with their cars now, dont look too serious about the fate of these machines.