Favourite older cars of younger days.

Triumph Herald then Mark 2 Cortina

Ah, memories.

First car I steered, while sat on my uncle's lap, was a MK1 Cortina. We were at Butlins Skegness and I guess I was about 8 at the time.

The car I learnt to drive in was my Dad's Hillman Minx - no sychro on 1st. I remember being the only one in the family who could successfully engage 1st on the move without grating the gears.

1st car I owned was a Mini. I hated it because it was so noisy, although it was fun to drive on snow.

I did have a Mini but I don't remember it with any fondness. It was too old and poorly maintained. I'd spend money fixing one thing, a few days would pass, then something else would go wrong.

It was certainly a car that needed to be driven every second that it was moving. No relaxing.

quote:

Originally posted by Barnie:
[240Z was my fav out of the 2, very fun car to drive, straight six, apart from rust the brake discs used to warp, and braking was quite hairy as I remember. Owened one of them aswel. Rare and worth a mint now.

I liked them both for different reasons - the 240Z was the purer of the two whilst the 260Z I had was the 2+2.

The brakes were awful - the 260Z had an after market uprating of the brakes (four pot calipers from a Toyota Hi-Ace van if memory serves me correctly).

They were very tweakable cars - a few improvements were made to the 260Z.

Sadly missed.

Mike

First car was a 1963 Mini with the sliding windows and floor starter button. This was late 70's, so I was 18. I had stretched wheel arches and fat tyres, of course. That died and along came a Vauxhall Victor FD, with a huge bench seat in the front and a column shift. Massive after the Mini; this was an early 70's job, the squared off one with twin headlights. With nicely polished leather, the girlies would slide over with a bit of careful planning. . That was the car we once took boating after bunking off college for the day and after sinking a boat, my mate drove back to the college car park stark bollock naked. We had some fun in those days).
After that came a '63 Triumph Herald that I loved to bits, mainly because it was my Grandfathers, and he gave it to me when he gave up driving. Then I had a '64 MGB Roadster with the stick frame hood. Eventually I got my first proper car, an Alfa Sud 1.5Ti Green Cloverleaf. After that I never looked back. (Oh...I forgot that I had an Austin 1100 in there somewhere, which I bought as a joke when I was at college, and it turned out to be quite cool in the end. It had a fantastic heater and we would cram the car full and mid-summer, jam the heater on full and take a long drive. Whoever gave in first bought the first beers . During that time, after bunking off college for the afternoon and sinking a boat, one of us drove back to the collge car park stark naked . It wasn't me though).

1. KEU 76 '59 AH Mk1 Frogeye Sprite - great fun car - sadly written off on the front of a Vauxhall Cresta on Cleeve Hill, Cheltenham in 63.
2. DOP 66C 65 Lotus Cortina SE complete with wire wheels - amazingly quick - still miss it now, particularly for its unique ability to corner best on 3 wheels

Some of you guys dont know how lucky you are!!! I landed in the driving scene with a most unfortunate combination of era and budget..

all i have to say on the matter is..

Allegro
maxi
princess
marina

...and they get worse ... think vanden plas

My first car was also my favourite. 1982 Alfasud Ti 1,5 (95bhp). An engineering classic, fantastic flat-four engine, great, tactile handling on its original 165 section tyres, stylish, quick, fun.

BOR

quote:

Originally posted by Brian OReilly:
My first car was also my favourite. 1982 Alfasud Ti 1,5 (95bhp). An engineering classic, fantastic flat-four engine, great, tactile handling on its original 165 section tyres, stylish, quick, fun.

BOR

I really lusted after one of those in my younger days but my insurer laughed at me! The alfasud was a truely great car to drive..

Mine was 105 bhp. Maybe that was the Green Cloverleaf bit.

My first car was a six year old FIAT 127, which I saved up for out my first year student grant!

My second car was on my second attempt at being a student, a few years later, a six* year old Alfasud 1.3Ti. My parents had previously owned two Alfasuds (a 1.2 and 1.3 four door, both of which rusted badly) so I knew what I was getting. The Alfasud was the kind of car that could tempt one to convert to Shinto...

I was going to link to the pic I posted of the latter in an earlier thread but it's gone.

* Six human years = 90 Alfasud years

Yes, the Alfasud was a true rust bucket. I feel sorry for Hawk though, he definately had his fare share of British pumped up hydrolastic crap!

Yeah, Rasher,

the Green Cloverleaf had 105bhp, don't rub it in !

My Alfasud never rusted.

My real favorite cars of my childhood were Hot Wheels. I wish I had kept them. I'd rather have those now than any of the heaps I used as transport.

quote:

Originally posted by HTK:
1972 (ish) Ford Capri Mk1 1600GT... And the best 'snick click' 4sp manual gear box it has ever been my pleasure to use.

I'll NEVER be able to drive (physically), but I too have fond memories of same - a "K" reg:


We inherited it in 1987, but this photo was taken after a guy in Belfast acquired it in 1994...

If I could drive, I'd have one of these with metallic green paint and a sunroof, so I could fulfil one of my mid 80s dreams (this one was started by Anne Fussell's "The banger boys" book!).

I always liked Peugeot 205 GTIs as well - but they're a chav car of choice now, so that's eliminated that one!

quote:

Originally posted by Hawk:
Some of you guys dont know how lucky you are!!! I landed in the driving scene with a most unfortunate combination of era and budget..

all i have to say on the matter is..

Allegro
maxi
princess
marina

...and they get worse ... think vanden plas

Well the thread title was favourite but if we are to remember the first two vehicles I ever ran around in then...

The Morris Marina followed by the styled in Italy Morris Ital. Two unbelievably crap cars in every respect other than they were oh so cheap to buy. The Marina fell to pieces within six months and as for the Ital it lasted all of one year before I destroyed it in a "Clarkson" moment.

Mike

He he - but how about "The Rotter's Club" with all those crappy Alegros???? My sister in law (who was my bro's girlfriend then) first turned up at our house in a 1300 blue Alegro estate - which was fairly meaty to be fair to it. The saloons were crap though, and the early 80s versions were of the crap "let's not change the body style but replace chrome with black plastic" variety - pants!

I miss our old Austin 1800 though - it died when the suspension went for the third time (we were a two-car family for all of two weeks, as we inherited the Capri just before the 1800 died). If anyone ever owned it before us, or helped crush "XRV 291L" blue 1800, I'd love to know!

quote:

Originally posted by oldie:
Mid 70's I had a Reliant Scimitat GTE and with the mist's of time clouding over everything I can now say what a wonderful car it was.Light weight fiberglass body 130 bhp when everthing else had 80 if you were lucky. Mind you if the front hose whent[ which was not unknown] what a bl--dy awful job it was to replace

Our vice chancellor at college told me a story of HIS Scimitar... ONe hell of a car, until the neoprene fuel pipe went, and, err, he saw smoke. Pulled over, and within 30 seconds, his car was a 30 foot high bonfire. By the end, you could see from the back of the car to the front, through all that fiberglass...

...BUT HE GOT HIS 8TRACKS OUT! And I own one of them - Doctor Hook's "Bankrupt" - and it still plays well in my 1972 Akai CR81D. (He gave me the tape in 1991 - he he he...)

quote:

The Morris Marina followed by the styled in Italy Morris Ital. Two unbelievably crap cars in every respect other than they were oh so cheap to buy. The Marina fell to pieces within six months and as for the Ital it lasted all of one year before I destroyed it in a "Clarkson" moment.

I used to have to drive the estate versions of these death traps on a regular basis. Both the Marina and its successor the Ital. Twice they tried to kill me, the first time it was wet and I was turning right, off of the Embankment heading towards the Aldwych and it just span, no warning, leaving me facing the way I’d come. The second and by far the scariest was in an Ital on the A40 heading towards Perivale, right opposite the Hoover building. Again it was wet, I just changed lanes and the thing went into a tank slapper of biblical proportions, to this day I do not know how I kept it off of the pavement.

I would never admit to owning a Marina I do however remember driving one when the gear lever parted company with the gearbox, although sometimes it was hard to tell if it was connected or not...

quote:

his car was a 30 foot high bonfire.

Enter the Bond Bug, another one that was fond of spontaneous combustion!

And as were now remembering the hot ones, who remembers the Russian secret weapon "Moskavitch", 3cyl two-stroke, freewheeling gearbox and killed most who were brave enough to drive it!

quote:

I used to have to drive the estate versions of these death traps on a regular basis. Both the Marina and its successor the Ital.

Paaaahh!! nothing - I spent almost a year trying to stay alive whilst driving a Hillman Hunter, now they were truly dreadful heaps at anything over 50. Heavy, dead steering, piss-poor handling, bugger all brakes and insufficient ooomph to pull the skin off a rice pudding! Couldn't wait to get back into a Cortina

Sounds like the majority of you chaps should have a copy of this publication:


(I actually used to fancy the pimped-up Volvo 262c (pictured above) as a school boy)

It's bloody funny and is filled with most of BLs output from the 60's & 70's.

My fave old bangers? Mum's old Ford Escort Mk1 1300 (Fanny Jane) and her later Triumph Toledo (white over red). Oh, and my '74 BGT.

Steve

My mate at college had a white Rover 2000, which had sumptuous red leather, but had piston slap that would scare old women and left a huge cloud of blue smoke. Still, we managed extraordinary milages in it even though we had to fill it with oil at every stop for fuel - which was often.
That was a great car.

Steve - Looks like a scene from a Joan Collins soft porn 70's movie.
(not that I would know, of course...)

Which one? The Bitch or The Stud?

Steve