Motoring Fads

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BoldonLad

Not part of the Elite
Location
South Tyneside
Was that the one with a hissing carb?

Don't remember that "feature". But, it had vacuum operated windscreen wipers, and various rust holes, plugged with "plastic padding". It was a side-valve engine. I bought it at age 17 (1964), it held together for two years, long enough to take me (and then girl friend) on trips throughout UK ;)
 

RichardB

Slightly retro
Location
West Wales
I don't think I imagined/dreamed this.
I seem to remember that when I was very young, sometime in the 60s, there was a brief fashion for putting stickers on your car (usually the rear window I think) that made it look as if you had bullet holes in it.
Suppose it was supposed to make it look as if you had an exciting life in your underpowered runabout, running roadblocks or something.

Yes, I persuaded my Dad to have some on our Triumph Herald. They came free with some brand of petrol, and I think they were a tie-in with one of the James Bond films, possibly Goldfinger. I also had some on the crossbar of my bike. Life was a thrill a minute in 1964.

See also: fluffy tiger tail you could tie round your petrol filler cap.
 
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RichardB

Slightly retro
Location
West Wales
Possibly the most famous and certainly the most stupid was the 'Quartic,' steering wheel on the Allegro:
View attachment 551116
Can you imagine the development meeting at BL when it was decided to put this into the new Allegro?
I'd agree it was a bit bizarre, and too quirky for the market at the time, but it wasn't stupid. Plenty of cars today, including many F1 cars, have asymmetric or non-circular steering wheels. It was an idea before its time, which I would class in the category of 'answers to questions that no-one had asked'.

Now, what was stupid was the alarm system of the Austin Montego, about the same period. Car alarms were still a novelty, and BL thought they would go one better with a proximity sensor that (in theory) detected a thief approaching the car and yelled "Warning! This vehicle is alarmed!" Of course, naughty children sussed the enormous entertainment possibilities. Near me, there was a newish Montego that had a constant group of kids dancing round it, making the warning message go off. Owners begged BL garages to disable it, and in a few months it was no longer to be seen in the product range. Did no one in the product approval meeting have teenage kids and raise the alarm? Apparently not.
 

byegad

Legendary Member
Location
NE England
One of the one's i can remember well but not seen for years was Honda's 4 wheel steer mainly on Prelude's if i remember rightly .

I wonder what happened to this fad and many others
Enough cars got onto UK roads to ensure the MOT had rules about the rear steering that were similar to the ones on front wheel king pins, CV joints and linkages. It was banned on FIA competition cars eventually, which suggests that there were advantages to be had.
 
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