Early Childhood memories of Cars; good and bad

[Welly]

Was thinking at the weekend of all the cars I remember in the family as a kid and some of the events I remembered in particular:

Dad's Morris Marina 1.3L, approx 1978, screaming along the M1 (screaming because that's what they did rather than return any impressive speed).

Same Car's N/S rear door flying open around a sharp right-hander and my sister holding onto me to stop me making a sharp-exit (no seat belts).

Same Car and Dad revving the nuts off it on a Saturday afternoon following a dose of Red-X and the ensuing clouds of blue smoke as a result.

Dad's Austin Princess 1.7HL, 1980-ish: eggsauce blowing, Dad patches with Gun-Gum......the following weekend......re-patch with Gun-Gum.....the following weekend.......

Princess - dab rust with rust treatment, apply paint.........repeat the following weekend. More serious rust got 'fillered' and over-painted. I remember fashioning quite a neat impression of the bottom corner of the drivers door purely from filler/putty when I was about 11.

My Aunties Volvo P1800 - I remember the rev counter (what's that then?) and seeing the needle get near to 7000 rpm

Ford Cortina V6 ghia - woohoo the plush seats and that V6 noise

Then followed the usual line of Ford Onions, Sierra's, Mondeo's etc..I think cars improved then over the years, well I say 'improved' they didn't rust away as much but to be fair I can't really remember any of the earlier 'shitters' actually breaking or failing expensively like they do now.

Over to you.....

[scotty73]

I think most of our memories will be of our dads cars.

i remember the old man having a robin unreliant that looked rather scratched one day after being in work... apparently he drove it in the snow went over a cattle grid and it started sliding... Then rolled a few times.

Aistin Maestro, allegro and was it Ital or something like that?

The one I really lusted over was a black cortina with a sun roof i still remember the reg SNN 465X.
Few years later on it was my mates cars... XR2 lookalike, then an ex police 1.1 white Escrote that he turned into an XR3 lookalike.... Day after it came out of the body shop we stopped by another mates i got out to give him a knock but he hadn't finished parking... So I'm one leg out with the door open, He's reversing and along came a lamp post... Crunch i think you need a new door matey....He was not impressed.

[teamster1975]

My Dad's old Volvo 240; we used to sit in the boot and have great fun rolling around the car as it went round corners, good times!
Also on a similar note my Dad used to make us up a bed in the boot of the car when we were driving back from my Grand parents in Warminster to Surrey
It's a miracle I'm alive really based on todays health and safety culture...

[steve_earwig]

It's a miracle I'm alive really based on todays health and safety culture...

Did you carry out a risk assessment before posting that

Umm, earliest? My granddad, my dad's dad, getting in the back of what was probably a Minor, sitting next to me and giving me a sweety. He's been dead since I was 5. I suspect that was the same car that I was told off for lifting up the newspaper on the floor and watching the road go past underneath. Or it could've been a Mini, we had lots of both. I can even remember him changing an engine in a Morris and burying the old lump in our garden (I can pinpoint that on Google Maps if anyone's interested)

I remember finding a secret hiding place on a Vauxhall Victor, it had a flap on one of the back wings which you could pull out and hide stuff in. There was some sort of cap in there too but I didn't think anyone used that... It was a cream estate that my dad sold to his boss.

When I was slightly older my dad used to buy and sell cars for a bit more cash (mostly from Ally Pally) so lots of cars came and went. I have endearing memories of our Hillman Imp estate (LUF 702F in light blue), which my dad bought up the auction as a Commer Imp van, cut holes for the rear windows with a nibbler (none of your power tools here, the one he had looked like tinsnips, two straight blades outside and one curved and serrated inside, I'll bet his had hurt) and ground out the rear floor with an angle grinder to fit the rear bench in. That was our main school run machine, I can well remember my mum asking for a pound's worth in Marshfield Garage on Sewardstone Road, Waltham Abbey, near where we used to live. This would've been in the early 70's so too young for rust (and my dad probably undersealed the feck out of it, like he did all cars he got his hands on) but I can remember it overheating due to the radiator inlets being near the rear l/h tyres so they usually got filled up with crud, the throttle cable snapping and my dad nursing it home and a tyre exploding just as we arrived home once due to a sidewall failure - the inner tube was hanging out of it

After that we had a Simca 1100 Special (1300!) in Wardance Orange, It came with a truly awful paint job, so my dad redid the doors and wings and, because he didn't manage to match the paint so well, it had a thick white stripe down each side, which all the kids at school used to take the pi$$ out of for looking like Starsky & Hutch's car. The only thing I remember going wrong with that was the glass header tank shattering and waiting with my mum and brother on a motorway (?) for my dad to come and rescue us.

Other than that we had a whole load of cars that came and went:
Lots of Rover P6s, I remember one that, despite only being a couple of years old, had a rotten floor which my dad patched and sold off quickly. A 2000TC in Tobacco leaf brown that my dad sold to my uncle. He had it for many years and went all over the place in it. We had it back off him eventually to sell, it was rather battle-scarred and I noticed someone had tried to saw one of the bumpers off (hey, I just remembered, before that he had a Ford Concol Classic, the one with the inwards sloping rear screen, just like this one http://www.simoncars.co.uk/ford/slides/ ... 20rear.jpg)
A few Mk 2 Corset estates, including one ex of Guide Dog's for the Blind, which was absolutely full of dog hair especially in the rear bench which my dad had to resort to tweezers to remove.
2 Pug 204s which I can remember both having lots of surface rust: a blue estate with a front valance that looked like it'd never been painted and a maroon saloon with rust zits all over it, which my dad sprayed in with paint for a Morris Minor I remember the blue one we sold to a chap from Zimbabwe, we had to deliver it somewhere near Heathrow and someone crashed into it on a roundabout on the way there. It wasn't bad and the buyer didn't care.
Lots of Marinas, all 1.3 lame ducks. (My first car was a 1,3 estate in dung brown, there's some pictures of it somewhere on here )
A few more Simcas, one of which looked perfect on top but obviously had been off road at some point, it even had a bent driveshaft which I remember my dad bending straight with a club hammer and 2 blocks of wood.
Lots of Chrysler/Talbot Alpines, one of which I reversed over a low wall and onto a flower bed when I was 16
Lots of Renault 16s. They always seemed well put together compared to other cars we had so I guess Renault could build cars once. I remember when we had 2 metallic blue TXs (the ones with the breathed on engines and natty wheels), one with a brown cloth interior and one with a blue, which was way cool. My dad actually kept one for many years (XBL ???T in Gold) as his bestest car. One of the rare times he took it out a lorry driver managed to open a door onto it, putting a big fold into the rear r/h wing. It was repaired by Stadium Motors (later a Harley dealer), my dad had removed all the trim & lights on that panel so they wouldn't cock up and put overspray it all, only to have them spray the door too without masking anything

Oh god, I better post this before I remember more

[trufflehunt]

When I was a kid, in 1963 my father bought a Ford Escort Estate, a kind of van-like thing with windows, based on
the Anglia/Prefect. We'd drive from Scotland to Cornwall for holidays, and camp overnight on the 3 day, pre-motorway
journey down. It was pretty basic. My brother and I scrunched in the back, surrounded by camping gear, fighting, being told
off, sulking. Fully laden, the handbrake wouldn't hold on a hill. I'll never forget the expressions on people's faces as the Escort
crept backwards towards their bumpers when my Dad tried to do hillstarts.

Next car up, couple of years later, was a Hillman Minx, '61 model. Really nice family saloon, big bench seat in the front.

Several cars later, and a heart attack that forced his retirement, I'd left home by then, my father bought a Simca 1100.
Front wheel drive. When I visited, he said that driving it made him feel tired.
I didn't say anything, but just thought it was his heart. Next day, I had a drive in the Simca. Honest to God, it was like
driving a truck without power steering. He didn't keep that one long.

[rwb]

The earliest I can remember was a red Triumph Dolomite, on a T plate I think.
After that was a Mk II cavalier GLX. I think it was a 2.0, X plate. This was the one that took us on family holidays at the seaside before I got a bit too old and farming went tits up in the early 90s.
Then there was a somewhat poverty spec 1.6 mk iii Cavalier L, F-plate.
Then a 2.0 MK iii cavalier GLX, L-plate. I think he wanted a 406 instead of this, but mum vetoed the 406 because in the 406 you can't see the end of the boot in the mirrors. I drove this one, including once to Cambridge for an interview that was a complete waste of time.

My grandad bought a brand new 518 in 1976. 4 cylinder carburetor engine -- literally the shittest 5-series you can get Didn't even come with a radio. Unbelievably heavy (manual) steering. Was sold last year because there wasn't anywhere to keep it any more. 74k on it I think. Everything in the tool box still there and never used. Sills rusted away almost completely.

My other grandad, who's 95 and is a legend, had an Escort for a while. Pretty sure it was a mk I. That would have been mid 80s.

On the farm there was an L-plate (1972/73) landrover that I remember being described as 'an expensive hobby', it's also the earliest thing that isn't a tractor that I can remember steering. Then there was a 504 pickup that always refused to start. After that there were two Citroen C15D vans which were brilliant, one of which I learned to drive (on roads) in.

Next door had Lada Rivas, two orange/brown ones then a red one, and sometimes the woman would come round to ask my mum to get it into reverse for her.

[mjb]

My dad had an FSO (Polski Fiat 125p) with it's horizontal tape speedo. He then upgraded to a Lada Riva 1500 which clocked up more miles being towed than it did under its own power Best part of the Lada was the handbook. "For ventilation, open windows"

Most memorable though was the Austin Maestro work van he sometimes brought home for weekends. Being forced to spend hours stuck in the back sliding around on the bin bags full of old clothes which we called "seats"...

[Bailes1992]

Reading threads like this makes me feel like I was born in the wrong era. Cars are boring these days.

The earliest I can remember is my Mother having a 1992 Ford Orion GhiaSi in a gun metal grey colour. It was essentially an XR3i saloon!

For years my Father had various vans which changed every few weeks from a hire firm called 'Kenings'. Always used to get excited at going in a van I'd never been in before and was always utterly dissapointed when he came home with Escort vans, he came home with quite a few
I remember one week he came home with a Renault Kangoo which I was over the moon with on an 'X' reg. It was the first vehicle we had with remote central locking. Without a doubt the best van he'd had, then he wrote it off when it was just a few days old.
After that the hire company seemed to give him a spate of VW Caddy SDi's, every single one worse than the one before. All a few years old and dirty.

In 1999 he started an office job and was given a V reg Focus TDDi Ghia Saloon. That was the first car with a CD player we had. I remember he had a problem with it, lots of smoke and no power. Something to do with the turbo.

Then his replacement was a '51' plate Ford Mondeo Mondeo LX 1.8. He wanted a Zetec but at the time the MK3 Mondeo had just come out and the waiting list for a Zetec was much longer than an LX.

Around this time my Mothers Orion at 9 years old had started to pack up so was replaced with a 2001 Chrysler Neon R/T 2.0 High Output. We had this from 6 months old and at the time we never had a spare key with it. After just 3 months it was stolen off our drive after the spare key and out details had been stolen.

The Chrysler was replaced with a 2002 Focus which I ended up many years later

My Fathers 2001 Mondeo eventually got replaced with a few Vectras. Then the performance models arrived. It started when someone in his office left and he had their 2003 Mondeo ST220. Then someone else left who had a 2004 ST220 so he had that too!

As you can see. Pretty boring really.

[Doggy]

For some reason, I seem to remember most of the reg. no.s
First, my dad had a just post-WW2 Ford (DY 739) which had an ole or two in the floor. It had aircon too - there was an ickle handle on the dash that wound the bottom half of the windscreen open.
Next came the first of 2 Morris 8, series 'E',s (FOG 539), which he bought with a knackered engine, fixed, used it for our hols to Gorleston, then flogged at a profit.
Invested in Morris 8 #2, (DNR 244), in two-tone hand painted grey. (He made his own heater for this one). Vaguelly remember one odyssey to Scotland in this beast, 4 am start, midnight finish, taking turns to hold the cup under the leaky sunroof. 'Not a bad trip', he later enthused, 'two punctures, a broken spring and a leaky radiator, otherwise ran perfectly'!
Next up was a 2-year old Standard Companion, (Standard 10 estate), (7756 RE). Real pride and joy - failed it's first MOT, so badly rotted it had to be scrapped.
The replacement was a 1957 Hillman Minx, (THP 856), a 1340cc column-change fireball.
A 64 Viva van followed, (CRP 107B), this became my bro's first 'car' when he passed his test. He had it sprayed gold metallic with a matt black bonnet, roof & back doors. Kewl!
Dad's next gem was a Mk1 Corcertina estate, (which lived up to i'ts name when my bro managed to not quite stop before clouting the back of a somewhat more substantial Morris Oxford).
The inevitable, (grey), Morris 1000 followed, (or rather everything seemed to follow it). I clearly remember seeing this ooze out of a side turning in front of one of my bro's 3.8 Jags. "LOOK AT THAT STUPID OLD Bas....", he began, then trailed off as the family connection slowly dawned. Can't remember what became of the Moggy thou....
After on overnight affair with an automatic Mk2 Cortina, (it expired the morning after he bought it), his next car was a bright yellow HB Viva, (POC 286G), which was more or less OK. So much so I acquired it as a temporary stopgap, that lasted about 2 years.
BMC must've got a really good deal on grey paint, because there was some left over for his next gem - a 1970 Austin Maxi 1500, which had a 5-speed box - so awful was the gear linkage it seemed to include a random number generator. This car redefined awful. I got travel sickness driving it. Somehow it managed to have soft, wallowy suspension, yet could shake the fillings from your teeth. Horrible grinding noises ensued if you tried to use the brakes, mostly they did nothing, but just to surprise you it would lock up next time.
The final chapter in my dad's motoring history took the shape of a 1973 HC Viva in silver metallic, (all too soon to become silver and rust), it still outlived him though as the poor old soul died in 1979, when he was about 4 years older than I am now.

[Ares]

We had a Fiat 132,all that i remember was that it had huge brownish seats and dark blue body color.
After that we had Zastava 101,at the time i thought its the coolest car ever
Few years later,some guy hit us and Zastava 101 was dead,to be replaced with peugeot 309 diesel,which is still in our possesion.

You guys had some great cars,some of them i even had to google.

[highlander]

I'm the first in my immediate family to pass the test. My parents never drove; we never had a car. My elder brother passed his test a year after I did. But then, we didn't need a car when I was young; the town I'm from is tiny, walk everywhere in under 20 mins. Going anywhere else was accomplished by train. So I feel all left out with stories like these!

I wasn't hugely interested in cars as a kid, so don't really remember much of the motors going about town at the time. What I do recall is liking the look of the Ford Capri, and the letters XR3i being attached to some brash white noisy Ford, which I now understand to be a highly-sought-after collectible classic car that's appreciating in value.

My Aunt, who lives in Bath (still in the same house as then, in fact) had a Lancia Delta during the 80s. No idea of spec/trim, but it had a sunroof. As I recall, she got rid because it was starting to do a very good impression of a pile of rust.

I do remember jokes about Ladas and Skodas, and there were plenty of them about. Until one day, a Russian container ship pulled up at Scrabster pier and loaded a whole pile of them to take back to Russia, because some enterprising businessman had managed to sell them back to the Russians. Can't say I've seen another one since, but I can't remember what year that was.

I also remember the Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge series of games on the Amiga, and then Jaguar XJ220 came out, and I wasn't very good at any of them

[Welly]

Thanks all so far for taking the time to respond, I wondered if this would stir up all sorts of stories and I'm glad it has

I did forget something; I was about 15 and my mate and I had a temporary Summer job at a local Supermarket......"I'll get my Dad to pick you up tomorrow" he said....

Next morning there was a 'clattering' sound outside, peering out through the Curtains I was met by the sight of a Yellow Skoda Estelle, it was a brand new 'B' reg in 1985. His Dad was Russian and spoke little of anything; sitting in the back with my mate there was no need for words between us, just a look, and a look that said "OMG this is so embarrassing, but strangely interesting at the same time" I still remember the black shiny seats (in fact EVERYTHING inside was black and shiny) there was a 'fizzy' vibration from the rear engine and weird dials strewn all over the place, I'm smiling about it now

[steve_earwig]

a 1970 Austin Maxi 1500

I forgot the plague of Maxis, I think the 1970 was the earliest one with cable gearchange. It had 5 of them and the moment they started to wear you'd be lucky to find any gears at all. I remember going to North Wales in a 1750HL, it was a very light lilac (white with a hint of arterial spray) with a lilac coach line down it (which it had from new). Anyway, we got pulled over by the cops in it, apparently my dad had caused an accident and raced off so fast the guy we'd caused to crash hadn't managed to catch us. Which was that then? The Jag. You mean the one with the big wide wheels and flames painted on the wheel arches? Umm, yes. We never heard about it again

I also forgot the brace of Lancia Beta HPEs. They were really nice cars, low fast and sporty but with a useful tailgate & load area (as in High Performance Estate). It's a shame they all fell apart with the pox. They made a supercharged one you know

[lozz]

not much too add,

err.. ijust rember, the triumf harrold. loads of vauxhall viva's riley elf..and the minis,
and then the datsuns, rust and junk, best ones was the Mazda montrose' and mk1 celica,


thread reminds me of... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28nMdM_xecg

[DaiRees]

The old man had a 1963 Humber Sceptre (mark 1), dark red, white leather interior with red piping (reckon that's where my liking of light colour interiors comes from). It changed hands several times in it's first few years, including a spell in Germany with an owner in the forces, before Dad bought it in the late sixties, he told me he was the 6th owner. I came home from hospital in that car when I was born and it was still around after I got my license, although I only got to drive it a couple of times. We restored it when I was in my teens and I did loads of the work on it, so it's pretty safe to say that car's solely responsible for my love of cars and interest in the oily bits. Was gutted when he eventually let it go about 10 or 15 years ago, always thought I'd inherit that one I do believe he sold it to someone via an owners club so it might still be around somewhere, although it hasn't been taxed since 2001. Got loads of stories about that car (nearly falling out of it, summer holidays every year towing the caravan all over Britain, breakdowns, even it's theft & recovery) but I don't have time to type them all

He also had a Polski Fiat, which he replaced with an FSO, they were good workhorses and also dragged the caravan around Britain, so loads of fond memories of those too. I remember the Polski breaking down on holiday one year, electrical failure, and a kind gentleman stopped and offered us a tow to a nearby garage, but he had a monster Granada or something similar. So there we were on a rope, in a strange place, in the peeing rain with no wipers, going faster than the old man normally drove... never seen him look so scared!

I recall my Grandfather (on my father's side) having an Austin A35, when he took us on day trips to the seaside in that we had to stop half way for a cup of tea, and it was only about 30 miles ! He replaced that in the early 80s with a '69 Triumph 1300 which was bought by my father originally while we were on holidays in Bournemouth, but having gone to collect it and brought it home Dad made the mistake of taking it to show my grandfather, who instantly fell for it and nagged him into selling it to him Dad kept after my grandfather died and still uses it today .

The first car I remember my other Grandfather having was a white, split windscreen Morris 1000. It was a lovely car and he kept it immaculate, but it was stored in a garage at the bottom of the street and rarely brought out, so I only recall seeing it a handful of times, and riding in it even less! He replaced that with a gleaming black Hillman Super Minx that used to belong to the Mayor. That was another car I absolutely adored, a close relative of Dad's Humber of course but again he hardly ever used it. He died when I was quite young so I can't recall what happened to the Super Minx, but I assume it was sold off. I do remember going with Dad one day to take the Humber for welding, I would have been early teens so several years after my grandfather had passed away. The welder he used lived on farm and worked out of an outbuilding in the farmyard, while waiting for him I was having a look at the cars around the yard and found a white Moggie Minor in a sorry state which brought back memories. When I pointed out to the old man that it reminded me of Grampa's old car he said "It is Grampa's old car!" There was moss and algae all over it and weeds were growing through the floorpan, so sad!