Dad’s Cars

[Velma's Dad]

A suit wearing Ford Capri driver...

Usually addressed as "the defendant".

 

[briwy]

Morris Isis. Similar to an Oxford but a bit longer and a 2.6L six cylinder engine. Great car, front bench seat and the gear stick between the seat and drivers door. Passed on to me when he bought a Humber Super Snipe which was a horrible thing.

 

[Gavin123]

Ford Escort Estate MkII. As soon as autumn arrived we would start working our way through a can of WD40 to get the thing started. Had to be cautious with the choke on start - start routine a jet pilot would think complicated. What a heap of junk!

 

[IainB]

My mum was always the main driver in our family. I recall her driving amongst others, a green Morris Minor, a horrible yellow Hillman Imp, a wine coloured Peugeot 504, a beautiful metallic purple Ford Cortina Mk3 2000E with black vinyl roof, then a horrendous Austin Princess, and many cars after that, but my fave was always the Cortina.

 

[Haves1979]

We had some fairly dull cars growing up including a gold nova saloom, mk4 escort and a series of Sierra estates. My dad did have a wealthy friend who used to loan us some interesting stuff thoigh including an RX7 cab, XR3i cab, also a couple of TWR tuned XJSs. He did have a few fancier cars that we got to ride in too, like an ex paul McCartney owned lamborghini espada and an Owen Sedanca.

Most memorable cars of that ilk would be the blue H reg Sierra 2.0 GLX estate though, that's he used to tow our caravan in the mid 90s.

 

[Anthony1]

Just watched last night’s episode of Top Gear (told you I was bored) and the feature on what was your dad’s car brought back loads of memories for me. Not the ones after you had left home, but the one(s) where you have memories of being picked up from the scouts or guides (etc.). Mine was a Wolseley 1500 in two tone green and I can still remember the registration number - 480 DTJ. what was yours?

Mine was shanks' pony or a bus.

 

[Joker 1299]

Mine was shanks' pony or a bus.

We only got the first one (the Hillman) once I was old enough to start school so my mum could go out to work to help pay for it. Even then, we were one of the first families on our street or among my friends to have a car. I drove down that same street last year and almost every house had at least one car parked on the street, often with another one on the drive or in the front garden.

 

[The Pox]

This was my dad's first car, called "Jev" because of the number plate. I think it could have been a Ford but I am not 100% on this...

 

[ejmoore]

We had (and I learned to drive in) a gold Mk 2 Ford Cortina 1600E, like this one (only real).

 

[Velma's Dad]

This was my dad's first car, called "Jev" because of the number plate. I think it could have been a Ford but I am not 100% on this...

View attachment 75378

I think that might possibly be a Ford Prefect E93A of 1939 onwards, they made some with tourer bodies like that.

 

[ejmoore]

This was my dad's first car, a Ford Prefect with a hole in the roof. I was put to work looking after it at an early age.

 

[The Pox]

I think that might possibly be a Ford Prefect E93A of 1939 onwards, they made some with tourer bodies like that.

You could be right. It was from the 30s. It smelled of old boots because of the damp leather interior. The drop top leaked. It must have been a Ford!!

 

[Borris]

I think that might possibly be a Ford Prefect E93A of 1939 onwards, they made some with tourer bodies like that.

It looks like 1938 Austin eight to me.

 

[Velma's Dad]

Yes you're absolutely right Borris. The headlamp mountings had been bothering me, on the Ford they were on the wings. Well done.

 

[The Pox]

Yes you're absolutely right Borris. The headlamp mountings had been bothering me, on the Ford they were on the wings. Well done.

I will bow to your superior knowledge. The headlamps bothered me too.

They are both soo similar I wonder whether it was blatant plagiarism or were the two companies sharing body parts as they do today. I suppose only a real car buff would know that one! To me the wings on the car look more like the Ford but what do I know!

 

[Polomint]

I was brought up in Australia 1st vehicle was a vw combo, I slept in the middle of the parents and brother on the front bench seat. We then had a Holden station wagon in light green, on return to England a Ford Classic in a dark steel grey XDL 418 followed by a white automatic Morris marina and a navy blue and a red triumph toledo which then became mine Good times and no power steering.

 

[The Pox]

They are both soo similar I wonder whether it was blatant plagiarism or were the two companies sharing body parts as they do today. I suppose only a real car buff would know that one! To me the wings on the car look more like the Ford but what do I know!

No I take it back. If you zoom in on the badge it is an Austin. I would have been surprised if my dad had bought a Ford. Back then Austins were seen as a superior product. Still they are really similar.

 

[Joker 1299]

I was brought up in Australia 1st vehicle was a vw combo, I slept in the middle of the parents and brother on the front bench seat. We then had a Holden station wagon in light green, on return to England a Ford Classic in a dark steel grey XDL 418 followed by a white automatic Morris marina and a navy blue and a red triumph toledo which then became mine Good times and no power steering.

Ford Classic. A classic in every sense. The coupe version was the first Ford Capri.

 

[Velma's Dad]

They are both soo similar I wonder whether it was blatant plagiarism or were the two companies sharing body parts as they do today. I suppose only a real car buff would know that one! To me the wings on the car look more like the Ford but what do I know!

No, very unlikely that Ford and Austin shared major parts, although of course things like electrical components etc would have common - mainly Lucas ("Prince of Darkness" ).

In the thirties, new car development was incredibly swift, with progress made every year both technically and in terms of styling. If you compare models from 1929 and 1939 most marques had evolved considerably. The number of cars on British roads doubled in that decade, and production expended still further to feed export markets. Britain was the world's largest car manufacturer with output by the late thirties of more than 500,000 units a year.

Of course a lot of those pre-war cars survived into the post war years and become what our fathers learnt to drive on (if they hadn't already been taught to drive during National Service).

 

[This Eva]

Dads car. Cringed one morning when we missed the school bus and he took us to the school gates A comprehensive school in Rugeley. Oh the car a Rolls Bentley 2 colour brown With reg TL 32

 

[Joker 1299]

Dads car. Cringed one morning when we missed the school bus and he took us to the school gates A comprehensive school in Rugeley. Oh the car a Rolls Bentley 2 colour brown With reg TL 32

Which was it, a Rolls, or a Bentley? Always preferred Bentley myself.

 

[Polomint]

I didn’t know that but thinking back, it had a sloped roof and was a 2 door, did look a bit like a Capri.

 

[Joker 1299]

I didn’t know that but thinking back, it had a sloped roof and was a 2 door, did look a bit like a Capri.

Technically, they were all Ford Consuls. There was the Consul Classic, which had an inverse rear screen like the Anglia, and the Consul Capri (the coupe). Even the original Cortina was a Consul Cortina not to mention the rakish Consul Corsair. The original Consul was the base model in what became the ‘Z-car’ range which additionally consisted of the Zephyr and the Zodiac. And I learned all that from the Dinky and Corgi toy catalogs.

 

[Borris]

Dads car. Cringed one morning when we missed the school bus and he took us to the school gates A comprehensive school in Rugeley. Oh the car a Rolls Bentley 2 colour brown With reg TL 32

Making your offspring cringe at the school gates was always a favourite with me.

I can remember one of many occasions that our kids hadn't got up in time to catch the train. So yours truly had to run them the six miles to school in one of our two cars. At that time we owned a wonderful metallic sky blue Jaguar XJ6 Sovereign and a two door Morris Minor saloon, complete with a 12v Bull Horn. For anyone that's never heard one of these after market accessories, they are great fun. Given the name, you probably won't be surprised to learn that when the wire under the dash was pulled, it made a very loud bellowing sound like a Bull with a twinkle in it's eye.

Anyway, for some reason the kids always used to beg me to take the Jag. On the very rare occasions that I did, I was allowed nay encouraged to drop them at the school gates whereas if it was the Morris I was always instructed to drop them round the corner.

On the particular morning concerned I had only recently fitted said Bull horn and they didn't know it existed. So having refused to drop them round the corner out of site of their school chums, we duly arrived outside the school gates. Being embarassed by being dropped off by an un-cool dad in a very un-cool car was reward enough but seeing their little faces going into hyper cringe overdrive when I sounded the bull horn and waved them goodbye was utterly delicious.

I was even more delighted when they complained that almost the entire school had witnessed it.

Strangely, they were considerably quicker out of bed after that.

 

[ChrisandPenney52]

We had (and I learned to drive in) a gold Mk 2 Ford Cortina 1600E, like this one (only real).

View attachment 75380

Snap. I learned on my Dad’s Mark 1 Cortina Estate, but then persuaded him to buy a lovely nearly new gold 1600E. I was a car nut, but after I left home his car choices went rapidly downhill


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