A family friend had one of those. I seem to remember it as a good car. Was the gear stick mounted so it protruded from the dash?
Cars from the 60's / 70's.
- Thread starter gavroche
- Start date
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A family friend had one of those. I seem to remember it as a good car. Was the gear stick mounted so it protruded from the dash?
newts
Veteran
- Location
- Isca Dumnoniorum
I learnt to drive in an Austin Maxi & an ex Telecom yellow Bedford HA van. The gear linkage on the Maxi meant shifting was a bit of a lottery.
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OP
OP
gavroche
Getting old but not past it
- Location
- North Wales
I learned to drive in a Peugeot 404. I was on the way back from somewhere with my dad. He just stopped on the side of the road and said to me. I think it is time for you to learn to drive. No 'L' plates then or provisional licence. I wasn't even 18 (the legal age in France) but loved it and looked forward to going for a drive. I passed my test 2 months after my 18th birthday and that was 54 years ago!!.
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oldwheels
Legendary Member
- Location
- Isle of Mull
I had a Bond 3 wheeler for a while then an A30 van with rear side windows and rear seats. This was followed by a new Mini then an A60 Cambridge for towing a caravan. There was also an old Rover somewhere in the mix with big end bushes you could stick a pencil through since they were so worn.
Somewhere I have photos but they are on paper so need to be scanned.
Somewhere I have photos but they are on paper so need to be scanned.
Slick
Guru
It did feel like a big car, but they really were woeful.seemed like a huge car back then... these days i reckon it'd be no larger than a new Mini.
edit... as for memories; a group of eight year olds racing their various bikes around the residential streets we lived. The leader was pedalling furiously whilst looking back at us losers, then smashed into the back of parked Maxi. Nobody died
ebikeerwidnes
Guru
- Location
- Z’ha’dum
My Dad had a Morris Minor - Ministry of Pensions car when I was little - very safe car as can be shown by the fact that as a toddler to about age 4 I generally travelled standing on the transmission tunnel with one hand on each front seat
ANyway - he decided to buy a car of his own and got a Cortins Mark 1 Super
Brilliant car!
Swapped that after a few years for a MArk 1 Capri - Great car except for the suspension - kept making banging noises
eventually if had been replecaed so many times in the first yea rthat Ford took it back and took it apart at the factory
was great after that but Dad was disabled and had lost confidence in it so he sold it a short time after
For an Avenger - I remember one of the main selling points was that it was less than £1000 brand new!!!
back axle fell out of in in 9 months - just before he and I were due to travel to London to see Liverpool in the FA Cup Final!!!
The garage took it back and swapped it for a Hillman Hunter - base model - worked well - but no character - just did its job and that was it
anyway - he then went onto 2 Renault 12s - first a base one then an TS - both were wonderful and fault free and the TS went like crazy (twin webbers)
He then went back to Ford and got a Capri again - a Calypso model - 2 tone grey
it was beautiful and great to drive with unnecessary wide wheels for a 1.6!
lots of problems with the front seats - fabric ripping and seams splitting but otherwise a good car
At some point he had a Honda Accord when they first came over - lovely, classy, well equiped, good performance, different
great
Then it went downhill FAST!
he got a Maestro - he was feeling guilty about not supporting the UK car industry
We used to joke that every time you shut a door anoth random piece of plastic fell off somewhere - except that it was not a joke
great for round town driving with very light steering and good economy
carp for anything else
replaced that ( before the guarantee ran out!!) with a Rover 213 - on the grounds that it was a colaboration with Honda with Honda checking standards
Nice car - few problems - all with the Rover bits not the Honda engine - but OK, no mor ethan that
replaced it with a ROver 216 - colaboration had finished and instead of a Honda engine it has an R Series ROver engine
Big end broke after a couple of hundred miles
Seen at one point in a roped off part of teh garage with the engine in literally individual bit and being boxed up by Rover engineers
came back with a new engine and renewed guarantee
that was the end of the UK based cars!
In the middle of all that my Mum (i.e. me because my Mum had stopped driving) had a Datsun 120Y - which started whenever you wanted - including after sitting still for 10 weeks while I was a University - when the second spark plug fired. How any petrol had got to the carb at that point was a mystery
wonder full car - never failed - until one day I jacked it up to rotate the wheels and it fell down as the jack went through the jacking point and a pile of rust landed on the floor
the bottom had been DIY undersealed and some petrol has compromised it when some had overflowed. Water got under the underseal and it rust badly
sold it and I got a Ford Fiesta - first car I ever owned myself!
anyway - by the now it was the 1980s - so I will end here!
ANyway - he decided to buy a car of his own and got a Cortins Mark 1 Super
Brilliant car!
Swapped that after a few years for a MArk 1 Capri - Great car except for the suspension - kept making banging noises
eventually if had been replecaed so many times in the first yea rthat Ford took it back and took it apart at the factory
was great after that but Dad was disabled and had lost confidence in it so he sold it a short time after
For an Avenger - I remember one of the main selling points was that it was less than £1000 brand new!!!
back axle fell out of in in 9 months - just before he and I were due to travel to London to see Liverpool in the FA Cup Final!!!
The garage took it back and swapped it for a Hillman Hunter - base model - worked well - but no character - just did its job and that was it
anyway - he then went onto 2 Renault 12s - first a base one then an TS - both were wonderful and fault free and the TS went like crazy (twin webbers)
He then went back to Ford and got a Capri again - a Calypso model - 2 tone grey
it was beautiful and great to drive with unnecessary wide wheels for a 1.6!
lots of problems with the front seats - fabric ripping and seams splitting but otherwise a good car
At some point he had a Honda Accord when they first came over - lovely, classy, well equiped, good performance, different
great
Then it went downhill FAST!
he got a Maestro - he was feeling guilty about not supporting the UK car industry
We used to joke that every time you shut a door anoth random piece of plastic fell off somewhere - except that it was not a joke
great for round town driving with very light steering and good economy
carp for anything else
replaced that ( before the guarantee ran out!!) with a Rover 213 - on the grounds that it was a colaboration with Honda with Honda checking standards
Nice car - few problems - all with the Rover bits not the Honda engine - but OK, no mor ethan that
replaced it with a ROver 216 - colaboration had finished and instead of a Honda engine it has an R Series ROver engine
Big end broke after a couple of hundred miles
Seen at one point in a roped off part of teh garage with the engine in literally individual bit and being boxed up by Rover engineers
came back with a new engine and renewed guarantee
that was the end of the UK based cars!
In the middle of all that my Mum (i.e. me because my Mum had stopped driving) had a Datsun 120Y - which started whenever you wanted - including after sitting still for 10 weeks while I was a University - when the second spark plug fired. How any petrol had got to the carb at that point was a mystery
wonder full car - never failed - until one day I jacked it up to rotate the wheels and it fell down as the jack went through the jacking point and a pile of rust landed on the floor
the bottom had been DIY undersealed and some petrol has compromised it when some had overflowed. Water got under the underseal and it rust badly
sold it and I got a Ford Fiesta - first car I ever owned myself!
anyway - by the now it was the 1980s - so I will end here!
Cycleops
Legendary Member
- Location
- Accra, Ghana
I wanted a Lotus 7 or even a 6 but in the late sixties I could never afford one. Eventually I found a Austin 7 special, a 1930's Austin 7 with a tubular space frame with aluminium hand made body. It had rod brakes and wire wheels, bigger at the back, and manual advance retard ignition. Wish I could find a picture of it. I used to love it.
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glasgowcyclist
Charming but somewhat feckless
- Location
- Scotland
My brother had one of those, a 16TX I think. I remember it had a column shift and it was one of the most comfortable cars I’d ever been in.
midlife
Guru
Did your bond bug have fake bullet holes
. I guess not many people remember those stickers lol
BrumJim
Forum Stalwart (won't take the hint and leave...)
- Location
- Selly Oak, Birmingham
70s would have been my Mum's Ford Popular, the only side valve engine in the neighbourhood.
Dad had a succession of company cars of varying quality, Vauxhall Viva and Morris Marina being the highlights.
Later on we had a pair of Escorts. Mum's was a MK1 green 3dr estate automatic (why? because Dad had done the training on the auto box and engines last better in autos as they don't get over revved), and Dad's was a mk 2, also estate, but red.
Dad had a succession of company cars of varying quality, Vauxhall Viva and Morris Marina being the highlights.
Later on we had a pair of Escorts. Mum's was a MK1 green 3dr estate automatic (why? because Dad had done the training on the auto box and engines last better in autos as they don't get over revved), and Dad's was a mk 2, also estate, but red.
I had a white mark 2 estate as a company car for a while in 1983.
One more than one occasion I managed to lock the keys in it. I gained entry by peeling back the seal from the window in the rear hatch, removing the glass and climbing through.
It didn't take long and it was a quick easy job to replace the rear window.
figbat
Slippery scientist
- Location
- South Oxfordshire, UK
60s/70s cars means whatever my dad had over those years:
Mini Traveller
Mk2 Cortina Estate
Rover P6 2000
Morris Marina
Chrysler Alpine
After that we hit the 80s.
My first car, in 1988, was a 1977 Mini 1000.
Mini Traveller
Mk2 Cortina Estate
Rover P6 2000
Morris Marina
Chrysler Alpine
After that we hit the 80s.
My first car, in 1988, was a 1977 Mini 1000.
