Which Car Do You Remember with Affection from your Youth?

[Cycleops]

For me it was the Morris Minor. I had three, the first was a Series2 split screen in ‘Empire Green’.

The ropey old 803cc engine ran its big ends so I put a later 948cc unit. After that I got a saloon, ‘56 I think which I crashed into a tree.

Then came a pale blue convertible which I loved. I ‘tuned’ the engine by gas flowing the head and putting in Cooper S valves and fitting a 1 1/2” SU on a special manifold.

Minors are great cars, very simple and easy to maintain. It all came back to me looking at some videos of the on YouTube.

What were your favourites?

 

[biggs682]

I can just about remember some of my dad's cars ie Saab 2 stroke's , Mark 2 Cortina GT that some yob dropped a brick from a railway bridge and smashed the windscreen , Triumph Acclaim and an Austin Allegro sport that took us all the way to the South Of France .

My own personal ones that i remember fondly are the various mark 1 & 2 Escort Mexico's and a Saab 96 that you could left brake and do clutchless gear changes due to having a free wheel device

 

[Dave 123]

I had one of these

Sadly I wrote it off on a sheep! It was good while it lasted. So was the sheep I suppose.

 

[Crackle]

That I drove, a series of Minors and Minor Travellers, my first car was a 1957 Minor, great and terrible at the same time. Also an Imp California and a Commer Campervan and then I took over a Renault 12 on which I pretty much rebuilt everything over time, including teaching myself to weld, though the MOT bloke did say it was the worst he'd ever seen but it was solid. After that I kind of lost interest in them being anything but functional devices for a purpose.

I did once try to re-capture the Minor nostalgia and bought a half finished one, which I half heartedly put back together, engine, prop-shaft, brakes and then got fed up and finished it in hammerite black with a brush. When it rained the windscreen wipers used to fly off occasionally and I had to stop and get out and get them. I finally flogged it to a bloke for a pitiful sum and then realized after he'd driven off that he hadn't paid me. It took 15 miles of tortoise and hare traffic light changes to catch him and probably cost me more in petrol than he paid. That was my last dalliance with old cars.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

I had one of these:

 

[Paulus]

I first remember my Dad buying one of these. The colour was dark blue. A Ford Anglia, similar to the Popular. He drove us from London to The Highlands of Scotland for a holiday in it.

My first car was one of these, a123e with a 1200 cc engine.

 

[gavroche]

That's the same car that I went on honeymoon to Portugal with in 1971. Drove from Worthing all the way to Lisbon and back. The car never missed a beat. Later on, I bought a Vauxhall 101 and that was a lot of sh**e.

 

[stalagmike]

My dad had a black Renault Feugo which was awesome when I was little but looks a bit of a dog now. Would love to own one myself. Turbo bump is a beaut.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

If it's a case of what did I see as a lad, locally, that I wanted (& remember)

On out Avenue
Ford Escort 1600 Sport (mark 2. in that vibrant metallic green)
Triumph Dolomite Sprint (sadly, in BRG, with Wolfrace wheels, not Mimosa Yellow, with the standard alloys)

In the village
Ford Mustang!! (65-69 shape)
Red, with a white filling the concave section along the side
It was a booted version, not the 'fastback'

Rover V8S (Sd1), in green, with those matt gold alloys (well before Subaru used gold paint!)
A 'timewarp' (or so it seemed) Cortina mk 1 estate, that looked like it had just come off the showroom floor



In my late 20's, when I had my first Land Rover, a friend (who was a member of Calder Clarion) had a 101FC
What a lovely vehicle to drive, barring the double-jointed should you needed!



A schoolfriends 1956 Land Rover Series 1 (86") that he'd restored
It was his car, after passing his driving test, in very late 1982
There was a farm in the family, & he'd already restored various vintage tractors (mainly Fordson E27Ns. & a couple of Field Marshalls)
He's still got the S1, as far as I know

Also, his uncle (the farmer) had a procession of Range Rovers - when it was a proper one!!

 

[simon.r]

An XR3i.

I had some compensation from a motorbike accident and invested it wisely in a lump of Ford’s finest steel.

https://goo.gl/images/pnLa7c

 

[BrumJim]

My Dad's MkV Cortina 2.0l estate. Seemed to be able to handle anything that you threw at it with ease.

 

[GM]

This was my first car, Mark 1 Ford Consul. Cost me £20 in 1967, loved the bench seat.

 

[wheresthetorch]

This was my first car - a rather tautological Fiesta Festival. (Picture from interweb, not of my actual car)

 

[Cycleops]

This was my first car, Mark 1 Ford Consul. Cost me £20 in 1967, loved the bench seat. View attachment 390303

The local paedofile called Sid had one of these, I remember seeing him drive by with about three children licking ice creams on the bench seat. He was fairly harmless as we all knew what he was up to and frustrated his efforts.

 

[Dave 123]

As a lad I thought these were dead posh

There is a white one rotting away near a friends house in Cambridge.