People’s Hero: Tishillyman Sagata 3.8 Turbo.
Written by Keith Hutchinson
First published on Driver’s Edge on Web, 17th July 2016
Back when I was in high school in 1988. There were 2 types of car we student drove. The school I attended to was not a luxurious one, but neither was it a hole. But the list of cars we had in the parking lot was quite interesting. A lot of people just drove a reliable used Dearborn or Mitsushita, typical bangers you could get for a few hundred to low thousand. But for every tin boxes, there are always some nice wheels. I knew of a guy who had a Bavaria UWOT28. That car was nice, but not exceedingly special, we always had 3-4 in the lot. Today we swoon all over nice example of those. And that’s not counting all the Dearborn Pinto Sport V8 that were very popular with hotrodders of the day.
A few years ago we start to get nostalgic for those cars. The feeling that still persist today. It doesn’t matter if it’s a battered small Japanese Ossan car, or the quintessential redneck BKOO Coupe. And that’s not even counting the car we couldn’t afford. All the Italian supercars, all the proper sports car that adorn our walls. That’s why a lot of these cars are appreciating in value massively. I’ve seen a Conan S44 “Euro” with small engine that went for low 10’s. Man, I remember the time when you could have a derelict one for hundreds!
The fact is, not all of us could afford all those cars back then. We can now, and we’re taking them up very quickly.
For me, one of the best 80’s nostalgia car that ever exist was one on the poster ads I put up above. Tishillyman Sagata.
I still remember vividly story of how I first saw one. It was a typical rainy day in 1988. Obviously. I was in New England back then. A dreary day by all account. As I got to school in my '77 BKOO however. A car pulled up in our parking lot. It looked like a product of it’s time, 1988. It didn’t look all that flashy back then, and finishing in exact Burgundy colour. It doesn’t look flashy today.
The car was gleaming, all new, with temp plate still on. A guy stepped off it, he was a thin man in glasses, very nerdy, I knew the guy very well, his name’s Jeff and he’s my classmate. He was not a pinnacle of cool, but on that day. Man, he became nearly unapproachable. Why? He just bought a Tishillyman Sagata Turbo, man! Back then that car was in the class of it’s own.
As much as it looks like typical Sagata, we could feel the difference just by standing next to it. It’s almost as if there’s an aura oozing from those 1980’s bodywork. Apart from the car’s factory bodykits, including a tiny lip spoiler. There’s not much to indicate that this was any difference. Oh that and the boot badges, which proudly presented 2 most important things you could put on a car in 1980’s.
It was TURBO DOHC.
Twin cam, turbocharged. The Sagata Turbo was special for that exact reason. They claimed that the 3.8-litre 6 cylinder engine produced “270hp”. Which technically was true. It did produce 270hp. But that was not flywheel horsepower. The car actually produce 270hp at the wheels and thus flywheel number is closer to 320. And that’s before we started to screwing around with the engine’s computer and turbo boost controller.
What Jeff had wasn’t a typical yuppies’ mobile then. It was a muscle cars killer. It might look like a businessmen express, but unless you were in another expensive German sports car, you ain’t gonna catch Jeff. But the Sagata was NOT expensive. It was about the price of normal German’s rival. Bavaria 280E and Carlotta 200i. But the Sagata had 320hp! It would take the Bavaria MK or Calotta MechS to beat one, let alone typical muscle Mangusta or BKOO that other kids had.
You may think that with a lot of power and angry, teenage hormones, Jeff totalled his Sagata. And he did 2 years later. Surprisingly, it wasn’t his fault at all. A BKOO truck ran red light, t-bone his car right in the middle.
The Sagata have, sadly, become unfortunately rare these day. A lot of people had one back then, and they wrecked a lot of them. Those that aren’t wrecked have been modified beyond usable point. 400hp? 500hp? Try 600hp with no internals reinforcement. But the nice original examples are exceedingly uncommon today. I think that is a shame. Because I remember how the drive in Jeff’s original example back in 1988 was already a hoot. You didn’t need to alter the car in anyway to make it good, it was already excellent.
Since the day it was totalled, Jeff never had another Sagata Turbo. Which I think is a shame, because I know, deep down, he still yearns for the day he could have one again.
Like I’m still yearning for one right now.
