Fond memories of cars gone by...

[gbb]

Well hardly...
Just reminiscing with colleagues about our old cars and the shennanigans you had to get up to to keep them going...
1961 Mini...everytime it rained, the engine would die. Water used to splash up and flood the HT leads. Fabricated a guard out of ...ooer...something or other, problem solved....until it fell off, then start over again

1960 Cortina Mk1...brought from a scrapyard as a runner with electrical problems. Didnt even know how the problems manifested themselves...until i turned the lights on...and the engine died
So i drove on sidelights, and avoided driving on unlit roads. Sadly the girlfriend lived on such a road, so you had to flick the main beam on, get your bearings before it stalled...then turn them off pronto.
This resulted in the local rabbits going blind from the continuous on / off of the lights i reckoned.

Austin 1100....well known for the subframes rotting....and mine did with a vengeance. The whole car used to clunk when you turned corners. got rid of that sharpish

Fond memories...i dont think so ...but memories all the same.

Any offers ?

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Triumph Herald - lovely bodywork but the rest of it was solid rust - cost £50 and a Panasonic Way!

Also an ancient Mini too - it had the standard pull the choke out and put a clothes peg on it to stop it going back in on it's own, I believe this was a standard BL issue peg!

 

[Arch]

A mini for me too - the only car I've ever owned. 1979 vintage. It had a special poor weather driver protection system - in rain, ice, snow, fog or dark, it wouldn't start, thereby preventing me driving in dangerous conditions. Sometimes it used to worry about me getting sunburn and refuse to start in the sun either...

Mum finally persuaded me to give up on it when the passenger door fell off as she got out one day...

 

[alecstilleyedye]

Triumph Herald - lovely bodywork but the rest of it was solid rust - cost £50 and a Panasonic Way!

Also an ancient Mini too - it had the standard pull the choke out and put a clothes peg on it to stop it going back in on it's own, I believe this was a standard BL issue peg!

i always found that a 1p (decimal) piece (wedged horizontally between choke knob and dashboard) was sufficient to get the mini going; if you wanted a bit more oomph from standing, a 2p coin was deployed.

 

[andylaw79]

1981 Ford Fiesta. My dad was a mechanic for Ford in his younger days so everyone in the family had one. Dad used my as a rally/race project so it got tinkered with more than most, slightly lowered suspension, wider wheels and the engine had a bit of a boost too. Not a full on Max Power type thing but performance was improved. Had some really fun jaunts with friends in it but was unfortunately written off by drunk driver crashing into it.

 

[numbnuts]

Cars I’ve had
Ford Anglia 1960
Ford Prefect 1956
Austin Ruby 1932
Ford Corsair 1966
Ford Transit 1968
Mini 1961
Land Rover X 2 1970 &1972
Mini 1976
Mini Van 1974
Tabot Alpine 1979
Fiat Mirafiori est 1972
Ford Cortiner est 1972
Ford Granada est 1980
Ford Granada hatchback 1982
Ford Mondeo est 1998 present car just passed it’s MOT
All bought secondhand, the only vehicles I have bought brand new are my two bikes

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

I had an S-Reg Fiat 127 in Canary Yellow as my first car. It's a wonder I ever drove again or went out in public... but it served me well until some knobhead decided to pull across in front of me on a wet road and our cars met to have an intimate chat.

My next one was an X-Reg Metro in Gold... I know, you'd think I'd have learnt... it gave up the ghost whilst driving 4 up back from Nottingham when the subframe cracked and gave way leaving us stranded in lane 2 round a fairly blind bend on a busy road!!

Since then I've had another Metro which was nicked when I was a student and driven about 30 yards up the road before being abandoned (unsure whether it was the shame of being in such a car or the fact that they couldn't break the steering lock which forced them to dump it)

After that was a Rover GTi which I loved and which served me well for a few years, but then I needed a more 'family friendly' car so got a Focus. It was okay, but had no power at all.

Family got larger so we now have a Zafira. It drives.

 

[jack the lad]

1959 Ford Anglia - Front wings rebuilt out of papier mache sealed with dulux household gloss. Would last about a month in winter before needing doing again. Windscreen wipers operated by passenger leaning out of window and sweeping them back and forth. Had to drill holes in drivers floor to let rain out. 34 bhp engine really struggled with more than 8 passengers on board.

Such was progress in the british car industry that my 1994 Austin Maestro reminded me so much of that old Anglia...

 

[twowheelsgood]

Ford Cortiner?

A special edition for the West Country?

My fave ever car was my Rover P6. Not many kids at 17 drove a 3.5 litre V8 to school. Full length webasto sunroof and the boot-mounted spare wheel. Shame it had a habit of cutting-out going up hill due to a leak in the fuel system. It's also one of the few cars that's approaching 50 years old that can still be driven practically in todays traffic.

 

[upsidedown]

Opel Manta GTE, dreadful car but i thought it was good at the time.

 

[twowheelsgood]

Yep, bangers were a rite of passage in my day and far more fun.

Was it one of the series humbers from the late 50s and 60s? - always liked the shape of those.

 

[Mr Pig]

My mate had a Mini, loved it. He likes to point out that they great thing about it was that you could work on the whole car very easily. Which by default suggests that the less than great thing about it was that you had to!

 

[User482]

I have memories of my first car (950cc citroen AX) but none of them are fond. The head gasket blew twice and the engine caught fire on one occasion. In retrospect, I should have let the useless piece of crap burn out, and claim the insurance money.

 

[trsleigh]

1963 Mini Traveller ( real wood ) with a glass fibre tip up front end, held closed by some rather snazzy rally style rubber toggles. Crumple zones unheard of.

 

[gbb]

1963 Mini Traveller ( real wood ) with a glass fibre tip up front end, held closed by some rather snazzy rally style rubber toggles. Crumple zones unheard of.

I had a C reg (was that 65 ?)Mini Traveller...awesome car. The guy i brought it off was way ahead of his time. He'd painted it Primrose Yellow (very soft colour) and done all the chromework...matt black.
Amazing it looked...even more amazing was that the entire car industry followed with matt black trim several years later.

12 inch wheels, 1100 engine, twin carbs, masses of extra instruments...oooh and a freekin great whip aerial mounted on the front wing, and anchored on the rear corner you coulda hung your washing on it.

Never let me down...until i let it down Thrashed it within an inch of its life...and then some more Ran out of oil one day and the engine sounded like a tractor Crept into a local garage, topped up with oil, tentatively started it....brilliant. No noise, no banging, phew, got away with it.
Drove it 3 miles up the road....bang bang bang, pop pop, splutter.
Shoved it in the garage at home, and i thing it got cut in two for scrap eventually.

It was one of my all time favourite cars. Went like stink.