What was your dad's worst car?

[subaqua]

Morris Marina was the worst... pile of ugly sh!te it was.
Best was a Corsair, or the Morris Oxford estate.

my dad bought an Austin Cambridge for £20 in the late 70s early 80s as a stopgap. it had 2 doors that worked from the outside- the drivers front and the rear passenger and 2 that worked on the inside- front passenger and rear drivers side. horrible horrible red vinyl interior that stank awful in the summer. all the others weren't bad cars just bad examples of the marque/make. plenty of Cortinas and a few Vivas.

 

[Melonfish]

One of these, in that colour to boot. i'm not sure if it was this one that had the crank arm for cold mornings? i remember my dad having to manually crank the engine on one car at least.
I remember when i was a young lad we took this car to harlech castle, the incline was such to get to the car park that the car would not go up the hill forward, we instead had to reverse up the hill?!
odd but true.

 

[Beebo]

In the late 1980's my dad had a T Reg Datsun Sunny and an Austin A40 which was so old it had old fashioned number plates I still remember the shame as I pulled up at the school gates with all the other kids in their shiney new cars.

The Datsun sunny was just a rust bucket with holes large enough to put you hand in, and the A40 was and old banger.

Dad eventually upgraded to a Austin Rover Montego Estate, which at the time felt very posh after the other ones but looking back was also a crap car!

 

[snorri]

We never had any crap cars, my father worked for Fords and we had a new one every two years.

Which sums up the lesson the British motor industry failed to learn in the 60s and 70s so providing an opportunity for foreign manufacturers. The public didn't want cars that only lasted two years before rust perforated the bodywork.

 

[twobiker]

My dad had a Fiat 127 every day you could see the rust spreading on it.

 

[swee'pea99]

Thankfully, no pictures of my parents cars exist. The first one I remember was a dark blue Morris 1300. When that fell to bits my Dad bought a dark green Austin 1100 from the old dear next door. When that expired it was replaced with a white ('ish) Morris Marina 1300 - Coupe. I remember his efforts on the sills with chicken wire and filler vividly. This lasted long enough to be traded in for the little know Morris Ital 1300 SL. The crankshaft failed and it needed a new engine after 50K.

Doesn't that name just tell you everything you need to know about the dying days of British Leyland? Morris Ital. I mean, what a terrible name per se, just for starters. But the idea that anyone in that company ever imagined it was going to fool anyone, that anyone would think 'Gosh, what a sexy new car, with its exciting Mediterranean flair', as opposed to, say, 'that's a bloody silly name for a Morris Marina'...you really do wonder. I could see it was moronic at the time, and I was only about 9.

 

[Yellow Fang]

[quote name='swee'pea99' timestamp='1317894259' post='1870643']
Doesn't that name just tell you everything you need to know about the dying days of British Leyland? Morris Ital. I mean, what a terrible name per se, just for starters. But the idea that anyone in that company ever imagined it was going to fool anyone, that anyone would think 'Gosh, what a sexy new car, with its exciting Mediterranean flair', as opposed to, say, 'that's a bloody silly name for a Morris Marina'...you really do wonder. I could see it was moronic at the time, and I was only about 9.


[/quote]

But wasn't it designed by Pinafiore? He must have done it in his lunch break.

OT If anyone wants to see a Morris Ital, there's an exhibit of one at the Oxford Bus Museum, just next to Long Hanborough railway station near Oxford. It's also a Morris Motors museum. William Morris seems to have been a decent sort of chap. There's a few old bicycles there too.

 

[Andy_R]

But wasn't it designed by Pinafiore? He must have done it in his lunch break.

OT If anyone wants to see a Morris Ital, there's an exhibit of one at the Oxford Bus Museum, just next to Long Hanborough railway station near Oxford. It's also a Morris Motors museum. William Morris seems to have been a decent sort of chap. There's a few old bicycles there too.

I would be very careful about describing one of the best italian automotive design houses as something a schoolgirl wears! I think you mean Pininfarina...well I hope you do anyway...

 

[MontyVeda]

by 'eck they don't make cars like they used to!

We were very briefly a two car family on the 1970's when we had a white Renault 4, dappled with rust and a matching Hillman Imp, both crap and crammed onto a single driveway... but 'my' worst dads car was the late 80's Ford Orion.

 

[Shaun]

The best and the worst was a Cortina MK3 estate. It fit the whole family in - mum, dad, and us five kids (my youngest brother came along later) and there was none of the car safety fuss you get now - sitting in the boot with no seat belts on, climbing over the back seat, scrapping with each other and driving my dad mad.

I have a fond memory of having the boot space all to myself whilst we drove from Hull to Scarborough for a family day out - sitting in the back with my tape recorder and the latest Top 40 recording (with the start/stop chopping as I manually edited out the DJs with the pause button).

Those were the days eh ...

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[threebikesmcginty]

...sitting in the back with my tape recorder and the latest Top 40 recording (with the start/stop chopping as I manually edited out the DJs with the pause button).

Those were the days eh ...

Mary Hopkin? Didn't know you were that old!

 

[Arch]

We had a late Hillman Minx like this only white:

Well, we had two, the first one was carjacked by the IRA to run guns over the border, and the second stolen by joyriders. Both ended up blown up by the Army.

Nothing wrong with them that I could tell, but then I was less than 10 at the time. I know my Mum said they were good because they had a nice wide ledge on the passenger side of the dash, for standing a Thermos and cups when picnicing.

When we moved here, and Mum went out to work instead, she was loaned a very rough old Simca for a few months. Possibly like this:

only blue, and mostly rust.

and then she had a succession of Metros as company cars. The first one was bright buttercup yellow, and we had it only a month or so after the Metro came out, so people pointed at us from bus queues.

 

[User169]

In the late 1980's my dad had a T Reg Datsun Sunny..

The Datsun sunny was just a rust bucket with holes large enough to put you hand in, and the A40 was and old banger.

My father had a similar vintage Sunny which also had massive holes in it.

Prior to that a Hillman Avenger. In summer the vinyl seats got so hot they'd sear the the skin off the backs of your legs.

 

[pubrunner]

What about this though, my step father had one of these. I learned to pinstripe on it.

Is that a Toyota Crown ?

 

[pubrunner]

I think the Polski Fiat takes some beating for all-round naffness.
[attachment=5539:250px-Polski_Fiat_125p.jpg]

Nah, there's always the Moskvich - I don't think anything beats that !