Photographs of Past Cars...

[KenONeill]

2 hours ago, sneal said:

Mine was a Singer Chamois - a dreadful little thing that I keep for only two weeks! Bought me a Triumph 1300 (FWD) which was absolute luxury by comparison. I later upgraded to an 1850cc Dolomite

Well yes; OTOH the Chamois was much better than the Laylow M*n*.

[TMB]

The advertising slogan for the Fiat Strada at the time was ''Hand Built By Robots.'' The Not The Nine O'clock News comedy show did a skit on that slogan only they used the BL Ambassador as the car and changed the slogan to ''Hand Built By Roberts'' ....

 

 

 

 

And the proper advert....

 

 

Edited 11 February, 2022 by TMB

[nta16]

1 hour ago, KenONeill said:

That was as much about the number of lumens you didn't get from a Lucas unit as (un)reliability.

Fair enough, I wouldn't have taken the slightest notice of the make of a headlamp back then, if it worked ok that was good enough, as I put I can't remember thinking they were particularly dull.

 

ETA: I always think of the advert and sketch too, a real classic.

 

PPS:  the proper advert is even more a proper classic,  all the elements of inventiveness and talent to turn such a boring subject into something entertaining.

 

Edited 11 February, 2022 by nta16

[Gaz]

20 hours ago, nta16 said:

Vanden Plas 1300 so twin carb(?)

 

Nah, single carb.  Wasn't it the 1300GT that had twin SU's?

 

Sadly, I was 16 & 17 years old when I had it.  In my youthful exuberance, the difference between what I knew about cars, and what I thought I knew about cars was a gaping chasm, but it was a good learning curve.  I learned things like you can get a floor pan through an MOT by pop riveting a plate from a galvanised water tank onto it, then using P.38 crafted to look like welding under underseal.  I also put some heavy duty driving lights on (can't remember what they were - possibly KC Daylighters) and learned the value of relays, instead of melting multi-column switches.  I filled the dash-pot with Red-ex because someone told me it was a good idea, and like an idiot I believed them, which is why it needed weekly topping up.  I broke the rear subframe 'jumping' over the railway bridge at Doleham Halt, just outside of Westfield 🙄  It was used and abused.  Felt like I had it years, but in reality I had a Mk3 Cortina by the time I was 18, so didn't have it much more than a year.

 

Gaz

[Gaz]

5 hours ago, roottoot said:

I am guessing this is about 30 + years ago on my much loved Fiat Strada.

 

OMG I remember lusting after a 130TC Abarth 😎 Just about one of the coolest cars (to me) at the time!

 

Gaz

[Mickvrs220]

I traded my rcz 200gt in for my current vrs tsi ,no room in back and i realized i was starting to roll out of it rather than step out of it haha

[skomaz]

1 hour ago, Gaz said:

 

I also put some heavy duty driving lights on (can't remember what they were - possibly KC Daylighters) and learned the value of relays, instead of melting multi-column switches.

 

Gaz

 

I did something similar trying to fit foglights on a Chevette...   got them wired in via a separate switch and decided to try them only to be greeted with a smell of burning and smoke from under the bonnet as the wiring overheated!

 

I learnt my lesson though and didn't make the same mistake when fitting big driving lights to my Nova and foglights to my Mitsubishi Colt!

 

In fact I've still got the driving lights and the bumper over-riders they fitted on off the Nova in the garage - I seem to recall they were rebranded Hella lights and were great on a country road, the only trouble being that after you switched them off you were temporarily blind until your eyes readjusted to the low power of the standard dipped beams.

[AnnoyingPentium]

My Grampa had a Chevette when my Dad was young. In fact, my Dad mentioned it in the Fast & Modified magazine feature he was in. I'll need to scan that up.

[skomaz]

5 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

My Grampa had a Chevette when my Dad was young. In fact, my Dad mentioned it in the Fast & Modified magazine feature he was in. I'll need to scan that up.

 

We had two in the family - my sister had an early one with the sunken headlights, a 1.3 GL in red with a tartan red interior and I had a later 1.3L with flush headlights that was mushy pea green with an interior that was a similar shade...   to which i added some pinstripes, speakers and a new stereo.  It was fine for tooling back and forth to work in Cheltenham from home in Sheffield but got a bit 'floaty' on the A38 at close to 70mph so the natural cruising speed was 60- 65.

 

I'll try and dig out some photos at some point!

[AnnoyingPentium]

I'll need to see what photos my Grampa has! I know there's also 8mm Ciné footage of when he strapped his camera onto the side of the FB (?) Victor he had.

[roaddetective]

Owned this Civic Type R in the mid 90s for 5 years. Fantastic car, great handling, but you had to get that V-Tec high revs to get any speed out of them. 

 

Edited 11 February, 2022 by roaddetective

[nta16]

2 hours ago, Gaz said:

Nah, single carb.  Wasn't it the 1300GT that had twin SU's?

Yes and IIRC MGs Rileys and possibly Wolseleys - but don't quote me on any of that.

 

"Single-carb 1275cc engine optional on last MkIs and offered on first MkIIs; 1100 MkIIs available until early '68. From late '68 twin-carb '1300' standardised. The best way to go to 1100-ing - ask the Japanese, who've been snapping up these Vanden Plas models."

 

I didn't do much on my cars, except mess up the rocker clearances the day before going to the coast for the weekend (Gt. Yarmouth of course) and the mate I was going with had a cousin who luckily was a Jag mechanic, he told me never to touch the car again as I wasn't suited to car mechanics - he wasn't wrong.

 

Redex. 🤣  That was only used to fill your mates car with smoke when he parked behind you having left his windows down.

 

My wife had a 1974 Cortina Mk3 2000E when it was around 16 years old, she decided at the time she wanted to give up full-time work  for part-time - AND have her own transport!!  Less income and more expenditure!

 

[nta16]

6 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

I'll need to see what photos my Grampa has! I know there's also 8mm Ciné footage of when he strapped his camera onto the side of the FB (?) Victor he had.

Are you sure it's suitable for public viewing !?   Has it got audio or just tick, tick, tick?

 

[AnnoyingPentium]

Just now, nta16 said:

Are you sure it's suitable for public viewing !?   Has it got audio or just tick, tick, tick?

 

 

Had a Beatles track on the audio track of the reel. Cannot remember which song it was for the life of me, I remember it being rather deteriorated due to loft storage mostly.

[nta16]

Just now, AnnoyingPentium said:

 

Had a Beatles track on the audio track of the reel. Cannot remember which song it was for the life of me, I remember it being rather deteriorated due to loft storage mostly.

You're so young you won't know about the reels and machine the chap from the Rugby club would lend or hire out, simpler and more innocent times (relatively anyway).

 

[AnnoyingPentium]

1 minute ago, nta16 said:

You're so young you won't know about the reels and machine the chap from the Rugby club would lend or hire out, simpler and more innocent times (relatively anyway).

 

 

I know enough about them, mind you, we have some home movies kicking about on them as well.

 

I mostly shot still images with 35mm film, anything done with motion was done on a Hi8 'handycam' which still resides somewhere in the house.

[Redboy]

My first car at 18 years old, Celica 1600 ST, obviously I was shy so it had an Eagle on the bonnet and huge Pioneer speakers. 

[ncarring]

Another excuse to post this (1980) - self, Cortina and Dillon:

 

[skomaz]

20 minutes ago, roaddetective said:

Owned this Civic Type R in the mid 90s for 5 years. Fantastic car, great handling, but you had to get that V-Tec high revs to get any speed out of them. 

 

 

Oooh...   Breadvan civic! My dad had a 1.6 auto...   Think it was an Azure special edition or something and later on I had a spaceship diesel sport

[nta16]

14 minutes ago, ncarring said:

Another excuse to post this (1980) - self, Cortina and Dillon:

10 year old last year of the Mk2, is it a 1600E or just the grille (IIRC).

 

Dillion looks fabulous, big lad, cross between a cat and a fox maybe (or is he a dog, blurry eyes and photo), fantastic regardless.

 

[nta16]

21 minutes ago, Redboy said:

My first car at 18 years old, Celica 1600 ST, obviously I was shy so it had an Eagle on the bonnet and huge Pioneer speakers. 

If it wasn't for the Eagle that could almost be a brochure photo.  I wonder what BL could offer to compete with that. 😄

 

[nta16]

39 minutes ago, roaddetective said:

but you had to get that V-Tec high revs to get any speed out of them. 

That was the point, I had a S2000 and IIRC it's power band was something like 7, ?50 and 8,3?50, limiter at 9,000.  You could switch the digital speedo to kph which I thought was useful on our weekend at Laon Historical but I kept mentally working kph back to mph to work out how fast I was going so I just switch back to mph as that was easier for me to work out as kph!

  

[@Lee]

56 minutes ago, ncarring said:

Another excuse to post this (1980) - self, Cortina and Dillon:

 

My Dad had a 71 Corrina 1600 E. First three letters were JOE! That got written off sadly but my grandad gave him his non E and dad transferred everything he could onto that. 

I've still got some of the original Smiths gauges in the shed here. I'll dig them out.

[KenONeill]

43 minutes ago, nta16 said:

is it a 1600E or just the grille

IIRC a real 1600E would have had a pair of auxiliary lights.

1 hour ago, Redboy said:

it had an chicken on the bonnet

Correction inline.  

[@Lee]

Here we are. Probably worth a few quid now to someone?

I've just noticed the garage name and address on the box; Ipswich. Probably somewhere known to FordFan (RIP) as that's where he was located.

Edited 11 February, 2022 by @Lee