That the Manta was sold alongside the MK2 Cavalier in the 1980s gave rise to the curiosity that the previous generation Ascona/Cavalier was effectively being sold concurrently with its successor, since a coupe/sports hatch version of the Ascona C/Cavalier Mark 2 was never engineered. However, the early to mid 1980s saw the decline of coupe models on the British market, with British Leyland not replacing the MG B when it closed the famous MG factory at Abingdon in 1980, and even the Ford Capri (a top-ten seller in Britain as late as 1980) had no immediate successor after the end of production in 1986, as Ford felt that there was not sufficient demand in Europe for a new sporting coupe to be launched. This was largely due to the rising popularity of "hot hatchbacks" and sports saloons including the Volkswagen Golf GTI.