READER RIDES

I had a 1982 twin-carb Laser Sports as my first car, which I bought about 1993. It was at a Ford dealer and they couldn't get it started. So I went up with my mechanic and we got it going. It was a great first car and was relatively trouble-free. My dad liked them for their tuneability.

-  GUY ALLEN

There's a 10 and 12-year age difference between me and my older brothers and they had those cars as well, when they were growing up. They probably had around a dozen from the eighties. My brother had a White Lightning four-door, but it was a lemon, and a couple of TX3 turbos.

I remember watching the Laser race series on TV - the one Mark Skaife made his name in. The twin-carb and the Laser in general was a real good car for Ford and got them market share in that segment.

When you look at some later developments such as the TX3 Turbo AWD, they were really ahead of their time.

The engine in my car is an E5T 1.5lt inline-four with blow-through turbo and carburettor. It's a five-speed manual with front-wheel drive.

Back in the day when there more forums on the internet, and before Facebook was what it is now, I put up a wanted-to-buy ad for a Laser Turbo. Preferably a project I could restore.

This car came out of Melbourne and was in a sad state. It had a lot of good parts and much of the model-specific gear, such as the Recaros, the turbo top-hat and pretty much everything was there. It's based on a Laser Sports, with Telstar Ghia wheels painted white and they had Pirelli tyres on them from new.