What cars did you drive in the 60s & 70s?

[Martyn]

Just saw an old Ford Anglia on tv and it reminded me of the one I had in the 70s. My first car was a 1956 Hillman Minx, then a 1963 Hillman Mix. I then got a Mini built Mar 1960, wish I still had it it was one of the very early ones, I think first was Aug 1959. Then I had a 1967 Ford Anglia and the last car before I started with company cars was a Ford Cortina MK11. The cortina was my pride and joy, immaculate, maroon with coach stripe and automatic. It got nicked one Saturday night from outside the flat I was living in at the time. I then heard the following Tuesday it had been found and towed into Barnet Police Station(these days they don't bother) out of fuel. So I got up there at about 10.30pm and was taken around the back of the station in the pitch dark. I checked everything and it was all there so I signed for it. Off I went and got a gallon of petrol and went back around this police station car park on my own and filled it up. I started the car and the starter motor jammed on and the car burst into flames. Within seconds it was completely engulfed in flames. I was jumping up and down shouting fire fire fire like a demented Basil Fawlty until someone came out. Shortly after the fire brigade came along and started roaring with laughter at the sight of my car :hurt:

Got the insurance and plenty of witnesses though. Anyone got a story?

 

[SuperBogs]

When my father was young (late teens) he worked picking tobacco and saved for his first car, a mini minor. He got his dad to drive him in from the country where they lived and my grandfather dropped him off to buy the car. there was like 47 turns on this road leading back home....My father ended up passing my grandfather not too far from home. Suddenly my grandfather came around this long bend and there lie my father little mini in the middle of the road on it side. The whole side of the care was as shiney as a brand new nickel. Conviently they lived next door to a junk yard where they towed it with a rope and layed it to rest.

I laugh everytime I think of that.

Biker Bob

 

[peter the postie]

I wasn't old enough to drive

 

[Martyn]

I wasn't old enough to drive

Your excluded from this clique then :caked:

 

[teresa]

Mini Traveller with the wood was my first car RAA149G - funny how things stick. This was followed by a mini minor. My dad always drove various Morris Oxfords - built like a tank and great cars.

 

[Martyn]

Mini Traveller with the wood was my first car RAA149G - funny how things stick. This was followed by a mini minor. My dad always drove various Morris Oxfords - built like a tank and great cars.

Remember them well. My dad had a Wolseley.

 

[LeylanTiger]

Passed my test at 17 in an Austin a40 (farina!!) after 6 lessons @£4.00 each then immediately went to the local car auctions and bought ,what i thought was a bargain, vauxhall viva for £40.00!
i couldnt wait to get it home an "do it up" and drove the 3 miles back after parting with my total savings.
Got stopped on the way home by the local motor bike cop. No Insurance & MOT!!
By the time i got my little red book driving licence it was duely stamped with 2 endorsements! I never drove this car again as my dad had it scrapped.( to teach me a lesson) Next car was a 1959 VW Beetle (£80.00) what a great car, after 129000 miles it finaly gave up the ghost and was laid to rest at same scrap yard. (I wish i still had it) Next was Austin Mini Cooper S. This also passed away after making Head on contact with a stone bridge parapet during a 'rally' on the way home from a country pub!

Oh the exhuberence of youth.

Some 40 years later i believe i've settled down a bit now! I now have a Jaguar and my 2 kids (in their 20's) wont go in it " cos its an OWD FELLAS CAR"

 

[Martyn]

Passed my test at 17 in an Austin a40 (farina!!) after 6 lessons @£4.00 each then immediately went to the local car auctions and bought ,what i thought was a bargain, vauxhall viva for £40.00!
i couldnt wait to get it home an "do it up" and drove the 3 miles back after parting with my total savings.
Got stopped on the way home by the local motor bike cop. No Insurance & MOT!!
By the time i got my little red book driving licence it was duely stamped with 2 endorsements! I never drove this car again as my dad had it scrapped.( to teach me a lesson) Next car was a 1959 VW Beetle (£80.00) what a great car, after 129000 miles it finaly gave up the ghost and was laid to rest at same scrap yard. (I wish i still had it) Next was Austin Mini Cooper S. This also passed away after making Head on contact with a stone bridge parapet during a 'rally' on the way home from a country pub!

Oh the exhuberence of youth.

Some 40 years later i believe i've settled down a bit now! I now have a Jaguar and my 2 kids (in their 20's) wont go in it " cos its an OWD FELLAS CAR"

I can't talk about some of the things I did but you reminded me of the car I drove on my lessons and tests was a Hillman Imp. I don't know how it is now but then you only ever did an emergency stop on the hour lesson before your test. On the IMP the pedals were very small and close together and on my lesson I put my foot on the brake and accelerator together and was told if I did that on my test I would fail. Fortunately I passed.

Prices of the first car was £20 and the mini i bought and sold for £50.

 

[matty]

Triumph Spitfire, Karmen gear, Hillman hunter, mini traveller, datsun 140J.
well my boyfriend did! who later became my husband and still is!! I was just the
passenger back then....lol them were the days!!!!!

 

[butt007]

Back in 1969 I bought an automatic 6yr old Daimler-Jag, 2.5ltr, 8cylinder, when it was going it was fantastic, but mostly it was'nt going.
Me and a couple of guys went to Oulton Park in it one weekend, great afternoon, got in the car started up, uh ohh!! no forward drive, had to drive in reverse all the way back to Birkenhead, whats that..... 25mls about, mind you it would do 30mls/hr in reverse. What we could get away with in thse days?
Warren

 

[petermcintosh]

A maroon Austin Cambridge, £125 , boy was I ever so proud, lasted bout 2years, washed n polished it every month, have had my wee Clio sports 5 yrs now £6,550 brand new, think I,ve washed it 3 times !

Cheers Peter

 

[JET]

Numero uno was my Ford Prefect bought for £18, only three gears but nobody overtook me - and then came my ultimate dream - Ford Consul Mark 1, Racing Green (floor dipswitch) column change, bench seat......an absolute total Bird Puller. Got married, got a Singer Vogue and life went downhilll from there. Got a Clio now......

Cough! Cough! Sorry I just borrowed JET`s LT for a wee while.

 

[v6cod]

I missed out on the 60's I'm not quite that old however I started off with a cream and blue Ford Prefect, window wipers that went faster downhill than up.

I learnt to drive in a mk1 escort, I then graduated onto a Mk2 Cortina which in my misguided youth I had sprayed metallic purple and decked out in purple fur inside (please don't laugh), jacked up with small skinny wheels on the front and deeper dish on the back.

I then moved on to a Mk4 Cortina, a beige effort, this was the car I pulled up to take my future wife out in, we have now been married over 25 years.

Next up was a Peugot 305 that got written off when someone didn't see that I had stopped to let on old gentleman cross on a zebra crossing and pushed the rear bumper in about two feet. Oh and I just missed the old fella as well.

Vauxhall Belmont was next, followed by a Vauxhall Cavalier and then Vauxhall Carlton........ My vauxhall years.

I now drive a drivers car in a V6 Alfa Romeo 156, no matter how I am feeling when I put my right foot on the gas (legal speeds only of course :redface and the engine starts singing I always get a smile on my face.

 

[KKOB]

I bought a 1 year old 1400cc (?) Hillman Hunter in '72 and kept it for 11 years. During that time it had a respray and a de-coke. I sold it to a scrapyard for £15.

 

[dalyansteve]

I had a whole bunch of different scooters,mainley Lambrettas, a Triumph Bonneville and the first car at 17 was a Sunbeam Rapier convertable, quickly got rid of and bought a fairly new MG 1100. As I worked inshipping and forwarding and had mates in the car trade I had a succession of nice motors, some mine some not and only for short periods of time mainly because of the insurance being late teens/early twenties, the most memorable were Bentley Continental R, Ferrari Spider, Triumph GT6+ (export US model) Morgan V8, AC Shelby Cobra, Shelby Mustang and a few E Type Jags. Also got to drive for a day or 2 many other classics. At all other times my normal car was MG 1100 followed by Austin Princess 1300 and various other forgettable motors until I was 30 when I bought myself a 2nd hand Porsche 911 rs carrera but we are in the early 80's now.
Now I drive a Fiat Albea Sole Multijet for 2 reasons, 1 low road tax,2 low fuel consumption.

 

[paddington bear]

I couldn't wait for my 17th birthday so I could drive, so after passing my test at the first attempt my dad bought me a Hillman Imp, it went OK for a time and then the gears started playing up and I ended up with no reverse gear, parking was fun and then 3rd gear went so hills were a challenge!! He then bought me a Mini which was my pride and joy, my boyfriend (now hubby) put on go faster stripes down the side, a really small steering wheel, fat tyres and air horns on it which I used all the time to make people jump. It was pretty fast as well, a group of us quite often went out somewhere for the day on a Sunday and it would be a race back to the pub for last orders and the Mini usually won, beating faster cars, Chris used to swear it was the stripes he'd put on.

Good times were the 60's.


Sue

 

[val2661]

A couple of days after passing my driving test at 17, my then boyfriend told me I could drive his Sunbeam Rapier convertible. I really felt the business, until I took a bend too fast and managed to put it through a hedge. Needless to say he didn't let me drive again! In the 1970's, by then married to someone in the motor trade, I drove whatever was up for sale. My favourites were a Ford Escort RS2000 in bright red, and a yellow and black Triumph Dolomite Sprint with overdrive!

Val

 

[Martyn]

I couldn't wait for my 17th birthday so I could drive, so after passing my test at the first attempt my dad bought me a Hillman Imp, it went OK for a time and then the gears started playing up and I ended up with no reverse gear, parking was fun and then 3rd gear went so hills were a challenge!! He then bought me a Mini which was my pride and joy, my boyfriend (now hubby) put on go faster stripes down the side, a really small steering wheel, fat tyres and air horns on it which I used all the time to make people jump. It was pretty fast as well, a group of us quite often went out somewhere for the day on a Sunday and it would be a race back to the pub for last orders and the Mini usually won, beating faster cars, Chris used to swear it was the stripes he'd put on.

Good times were the 60's.


Sue

Yes remember the air horns, I think they were illegal if I remember right, and yes the 60s were brilliant. We were made of more durable stuff, walked everywhere obviously if the police were involved it was a bit quicker We used to go to Hampstead fair which was probably a four mile walk and we would rather spend our money in the fair than on a fare

 

[luckycat68]

Passed my driving test after 16 lessons at 1 pound a lesson in a Hillman Imp
I was 17 at the time and I immediatly spent all my savings a a 50 pound Ford Pop- it was my pride and joy- since then I owned a Triumph Herald convertable - Triumph Spitfire - soft top - etc etc -
Oh such memories !!

 

[LeylanTiger]

I had a whole bunch of different scooters,mainley Lambrettas, a Triumph Bonneville and the first car at 17 was a Sunbeam Rapier convertable, quickly got rid of and bought a fairly new MG 1100. As I worked inshipping and forwarding and had mates in the car trade I had a succession of nice motors, some mine some not and only for short periods of time mainly because of the insurance being late teens/early twenties, the most memorable were Bentley Continental R, Ferrari Spider, Triumph GT6+ (export US model) Morgan V8, AC Shelby Cobra, Shelby Mustang and a few E Type Jags. Also got to drive for a day or 2 many other classics. At all other times my normal car was MG 1100 followed by Austin Princess 1300 and various other forgettable motors until I was 30 when I bought myself a 2nd hand Porsche 911 rs carrera but we are in the early 80's now.
Now I drive a Fiat Albea Sole Multijet for 2 reasons, 1 low road tax,2 low fuel consumption.

Prior to passing my Car Test i was also a "scooter boy" being in the first Mod/Rocker revolution. I met my wife at 16 at a 'predominantly greaser' youthclub where "us Mods" would turn up just to taunt the sad little rockers who wore the gear but didnt have the bikes. My first lambretta was an LD 150 which i paid £12 for. Having started an apprenticeship with the "Gas Board" i was then able to save and get the deposit for the ultimate Lambretta SX200 (£5.00 per week HP) complete with 10 mirrors per side (mostly nicked from Zephyr 6's or Zodiacs) the compulsary Esso Tiger Tail,Fully Chromed panels and ancilloty exhaust. (0-60 in about 10 minutes).
One of the conditions of our soon to be courtship and later on to be 36 years of marriage was that the scooter had to go.
Gone were those visits to Wigan Casino and all night Northern Soul and my musical preferences morphed into "Progressive" with bands like King Crimson,Yes,Early Genesis & the like.
Having the longest hair possible was then the priority (pretty useful when you're a Gasfitter(not)) I even met a fellow gasfitter from Sheffield who later became known as Joe Cocker!
What fantastic days.
The one remaining problem now (as i am nearer 60 than 50) is our WEDDING PHOTOS!! Bridesmaids looking like something from the "Wicker Man" best man (my brother) looking like Rick Wakeman in his long haired Yes days, and the congregation like a set of film extras from Woodstock!
You try telling the kids today (and they won,t believe you.)
Saying that both of my sons play in a heavy rock band and the eldest once asked me if i'd ever heard of Black Sabbath! Heard of em I,ve jumped on the stage withem!