A landmark car that unwittingly kickstarted a career
Fascinated by cars from an early age, Iain Robertson was not averse to ‘breaking the law’ in order to drive various examples, while still at school (!) and, by way of weak mitigation, he admits that nobody got hurt on his way to getting a story.
When people ask me about how I became a motoring writer, sometimes because they might like to indulge, ofttimes because they are incredulous that I have survived for so long, I have responded in many ways, all of which can be construed as being true, although, what I am about to admit is the absolute truth. Firstly, I am not a ‘career criminal’. I have never broken-and-entered, or taken-without-owner’s-consent. Yet, I did break the law.
Although I was a ‘late bloomer’, by the age of fourteen years, I was both tall and moderately mature. I could communicate fluently and, thanks to a father, who encouraged my motorsport leanings, I was able to drive a car, with more than a degree of confidence. My illicit car washing enterprise (my first business venture that my father would have shut down, had he known) around the village, where I schooled, earned me the trust and car keys of my clients and none of them questioned why their cars might disappear for 15-20 minutes…or why a full tank of petrol might lose a quarter of its contents.
One of my schoolboy heroes was LJK Setright, who wrote for Small Car & Mini Magazine (the forerunner to CAR Magazine), and it was my bounden duty to emulate this great writer and avowed lover of Bristols, Morgans and Hondas, in that order. I wanted to feel what he felt at the controls of cars. I wanted to feel the suspension squish, or the secondary effects of an anti-roll bar. I wanted to discern between the understeer of a first-generation Ford Capri 1600XL and the oversteer of a Triumph 2.5PI. My dad’s Lotus Cortina allowed me to experience the warble of matched Weber carburettors, while an uncle’s Alfa Romeo provided the snick-snack change security of its gearstick.
By the age of fifteen, I had driven a four-speed manual-with-overdrive Jaguar E-Type V12 and the manner by which its torque-laden power could tolerate pulling away from standstill in top gear. Quite why the salesman in the Edinburgh branch of Rossleigh Motors would allow this lanky lad to drive such a model never ceased to amaze me. Perhaps it was for the same reason that the Ford dealership, in Kirkcaldy, allowed me to borrow for a weekend a Ford Escort 1.3GL, which was then entered in a ‘driving test’ competition. I finished second overall, with a promise not to forget my Driver’s Licence at the next event. I did not hold such a document…
However, there was one car, a very rare car, that was available from a former NSU and now Volkswagen dealer just along the road from my school. I had even booked the test opportunity. The fact that the dealer knew my father seemed to help the situation somewhat, as he had purchased an even rarer NSU Ro80 saloon from the same dealership only a few weeks beforehand.
Unlike the streamlined, wedge-profiled, twin-rotor engined Ro80, the VW K70, which is celebrating its 50th birthday this week, was a crisply styled, square-rigged, slightly tiptoey but undeniably attractive four-door saloon that would be VW’s first front-engined, first water-cooled and first front-wheel drive model that preceded the Passat by almost three years. It was a landmark car and I was driving an early dealer example, in Fife, in the same week that LJK Setright did so, at Salzgitter, Germany.
The car had actually been unveiled as an NSU, just as VW had staked its claim on the Neckarsulm carmaker, although the brand would disappear ignominiously within five years. NSU was renowned for its range of well-built, quite handsome and surprisingly sporty rear-engined compact cars…and the Ro80. The K70 was a gap-filler in the range.
The K70 shared a lot with its Ro80 stablemate, including a long wheelbase that created a spacious cabin. It even featured the in-board front brake discs of the Ro80 and the long-travel, independent coil spring suspension that allowed a well-controlled but loping gait and body roll angles that might even alarm the owner of a Citroen 2CV. Despite constructing over 200,000 examples, the K70’s fate was linked inextricably to the development of the Audi 100 and what would be the replacement for the rear-engined VW 411/412 model range in coming years.
Its 1,605cc, 74bhp engine, a development of the 1200 unit from the rear-engined, air-cooled NSU, was deliciously free revving, even though the car’s performance was little better on paper than a sluggish Austin Maxi 1500 of the period. Yet, it felt significantly quicker, even with rather leggy gearing. Opening it up on a quiet main road revealed that it could top an indicated 90mph with a degree of ease and it was blessed with lovely, responsive steering and less than 3.5 turns from lock-to-lock of a fairly tight turning circle. In other respects, its 650-litre boot was cavernous and class-leading, aspects that VW would retain for its future models. Thin roof pillars and a generous greenhouse promoted its airy cabin and exceptional outward visibility.
So few examples were ever sold in the UK, none of them wearing the NSU badge, and it was the all-new Passat that would set a trend for Volkswagen, from which it would never look back. Yet, I was in the vanguard of early ‘testers’, who drove the rare and memorable K70. I felt that I had ‘come of age’, even though I still had another 18 months before I would carry my first Provisional Driver’s Licence, a small red passport to motoring nirvana. I realise that I am not alone among under-age enthusiasts getting a little ahead of themselves but, then, it was a simpler, happier time and, under Scot’s Law, two policemen were required to apprehend motoring offenders, if they suspected a transgression at all….