General Chat

We were looking through some old family photos recently and suddenly realised how important vehicles were when we were younger.
So what were some of the cars your family had when you were a child ?

Among a long list of ours were;

Trojan Van
Austin A7
Rover 100

Hi

When I was growing up dad had quite a few cars.

The early ones were

2 x Rover 75s one was for spares.One was black the other green
2 x Rover 2000TC one was for spares Both green
Volkswagon Beetle when I was very small.Green

Mum had a Singer Vogue black with the pointy rear lights.

Br

DL

My Dad had a Hillman Minx in the 60s - not the angular one but the older, more bulbous model. It must have been a few years old when he got it. It had a bench front seat ('my' place was in the middle) and seemed very roomy.

never had a car - my Dad had a cycle and ten a two stroke motorbike - first car in our family was one which my husband and I bought for £35 - a 1935 Morris 8!!! TG9044

From my earliest memory we always had a banger, apart from when money was tight for a short time and then my dad would have a moped type of bike. I have grown up permanently embarrassed at the wrecks that appeared at our house.

I remember travelling on cushions in the back, if it was a van,seeing the road through the floor, catching rain from the roof,which made a more interesting day trip. Smelly mildewed lining to a leaky car when my dad bought a 1937 Rover in about 1958. By the time my father had me driving, which was when I was 11 he had bought a dreadful Jowett Bradford, with a three speed box. I managed to get smoke, or steam, out of it the first time I tried to reverse into the garden.

I always hoped no-one would see me in the vehicle, or jalopy, as my father called it. Once when I had overslept my father offered to run me to school and the thought of 2400 children possibly seeing me arrive in that clapped out motor leaves me shuddering to this day but I daren't be late for school and I couldn't make the one and a half mile journey on foot in time for the bell.

Then one day he came home with a second hand Standard Vanguard. I was over the moon. This had a bench seat so my friend and I could both sit at the front. There was a column change gear stick which I couldn't manage to drive at 14.I remember going at 55 m.p.h. with no seat belts.

By the time I was 16 my parents bought their first really decent motor, a three year old Morris 1000. This lasted a few months before my father wrote it off in a field somewhere near Chipping Ongar....we never found the place again as we were lost at the time.After that it was an Austin A30 followed by an Austin A35 which I eventually drove on my test when I got to 17.

Throughout our married life we never had the good fortune to have a brand new car when the children were little but always had a decent Volvo of some description.

For me the beauty of being old, and separated, is that I can go to the car showroom and choose my own car. I love the smell of a new car, I don't take the good fortune of a new car for granted, it is the only material pleasure I afford myself. I had to wait over twenty years after passing my test to get my own car.

When I see old 'classic' motors being used for a wedding, it would be my worst nightmare.I still cannot help getting uncomfortable at the thought of old cars. I have been in enough frozen rust boxes to last a lifetime..............well you did ask......lol....jl

I passed my test in the early 1950's in Edinburgh in a Standard Pennant belonging to the Clan School of Motoring.

Living in London and having family in Lancashire and Yorkshire a car was important to Dad, plus he'd learnt to drive in 1937 in the RAF and was a mechanic so whipping an engine out for something to do on a Sunday afternoon was perfect for him [when he wasn't bowling]

The first car I can remember was Dads grey Ford Prefect, in the '60's, how 4 adults and 1 child ever got in that I doen't know but we did, plus luggage!! I can remember Dad attaching a wire to the windscreen which would clear a small area of frost so he could see, and once, when we were driving overnight to family in the north, I had to get out [I wasn't a good traveller in those days] by the time I was able to get back in ice had formed on the inside of the windscreen!!

Then he got a Ford Consul [HHD 117] which compared to the prefect was huge, I loved the bench seat and would sit in the front so when I got tired I slept with my head on Dads lap [try that nowadays and see you get pulled over pretty quick!!]

After that he got a Austin 1100 [LYM 843D] I learnt to drive, and passed my test in that. But that was stolen, although he got it back after a few days he said it never felt like his anymore, and got rid of it, can't remember what he got as I had married and moved away

OH had a Truimph Toledo when we met, and that took us on honeymoon. We've had a few cars since then but my favourite is the one we have now which is a Puegeot 406, had it 10 years, I dread the day that goes as we used some of my inheritance from Mum to buy that so in a way it was Mums last gift to me

Never had a car when young.First car bought in 1957 was a 1938 MG 2 litre saloon wmich we paid the grand sum of £32 for.It stood outside on a bit of an incline so it would start easily(the days of the starting handle!)
The beauty of it was,it had a mascot on the front,which we didn't realise was the Rolls royce mascot...Spirit of ecstacy and I still have it.What it was doing on an MG I don't know as it is worth something and we didn't know about such things then and nor did anyone else or it wouldn't have been on there left outside on the road.
After that we had an Austin Somerset with bench seat and steering wheel gear lever.Then mini van,Austin A 40,Ford Cortina,GT6 sports car, Rover 3000.Then in the 80's new cars,but the style of all these old cars was superior.

What lovely memories we are getting, and impressed some remember number plates !

My first own car was a Ford Prefect 335 ACJ.

We had Austin Cambridges and |Morris Oxfords when I was little.

My parents never had a car when we were very young.
We were a family who trailed off on picnics in a family procession of adults and children, younger sister in her big pram with lots of our items carried in the deep well of the pram below her mattress.
Later we progressed to a pushchair, - youngest child taking turns with the large metal biscuit tin holding the Primus stove.
Then we got a black Anglia..... RKO 971....mid 1950s
Our picnics improved because we could transport so much more and no longer did we make annual train trips to south Wales to my relatives, we went in style and in comfort..... We even ventured to north Wales, but my parents thought that the trip from Portsmouth area was rather far, so we broke the journey by staying in a B & B near Oswestry....
If we set off from home early, we could make a day trip to my aunt in Somerset though....took about 3 hours I recall.... Dad filling up at an Esso garage before we left "...and 2 shots of Redex please ".... and off we went.

Our next car was primrose yellow!.... Can't remember what, maybe a prefect. c.1959
Next came another Anglia, 2 tone colour...this time with the cut-away back window. I'm reminded of that when I watch old editions of Heartbeat and see their police cars.

Gwyn

As a child we never had a car. My dad always had a motor bike, before my sister was born, he then had to change to a motor bike and side car .

Lol Rita is the only one to mention one of those.

Sister was born in early 50's, .. boy did we get some looks and stares from peeps, when we went on hols, cos dad would never change to a car.
But we went wide and far in that old faithful,.It was was he wanted and I was proud of him for his principles He could have afforded a car, but I expect the bikes cost a fair bit, if not more than some cars.
I remember 3 different side cars, not sure how many bikes, one was a Triumph 750, another was a Panther, I think he had a Honda too. They were big powerful bikes for that era.

We always went to my aunts on Boxing day, and we got stuck behind a line of vehicles in snow on the way home on a steep hill about 3/4 miles from home, after about 10 mins dad swung the bike around and took one of the back lanes home,... an even steeper hill , but it wasn't congested with traffic, there was a more than 90% left hand turn at the top of that hill,onto another lane, but he flung the bike around it and we came out on the main rd just above the blockage...a bus.
No wonder driving in snow doesn't bother me, learnt from an expert .lol

Hubby's first car, before we married was a mini van. in 1975..should have kept the number plate it would be a cherished one now,lol... I used to call it 'Sunshine' cos it leaked when it rained. Lord know's how old it was, the ignition was a button on the floor.
Won't bore you with the others..but ours are now a quite a bit more upmarket :D

I remember 2 of the No plates dad had:.......
JAV 163 and NMD 365 , I wonder where they are now .?

My hubby still drives the older cars.....
He has Rovers 2000TC and 3500.......
I won't drive them.. much to heavy on steering...
He loves it when people speak to him about them....

The first car we had when I was little in the 50s was an old black Singer with running boards and the spare wheel on the boot. I can only remember going out in it twice and it got a puncture the second time. Then dad had a Standard pickup, followed by 2 Vauxhall Victors. Then he got a Vauxhall Cresta, 2 tone blue and one inch white walls on the tyres, 63 DAY. He then got a Vauxhall Ventora. He also had an Austin A35 van in Clipper Blue VBD 413, which I drove before I got married. If you braked hard the passenger seat would shoot forward off the rails!! The round pedals would unscrew and fall off while you were driving and main beam was a rubber floor switch. It always smelled of oil inside and the heater was pathetic. I used to feel really posh with my tranny held on the dash with rubber bands. lol

PS.....The emoticons have gone mad and are taking over........I never put one in the middle of the number and it won't edit out!!!

Never had a car when I was growing up in the 40's. First car was late 60's when married. That was an Austin A40, then Austin 1100 and a Ford Cortina. All second hand.

The first new car was a Renault 5. Very proud of that we were.

Vera