Lamenting Cars Of Yesteryear..

On the way to SCCA Solo II club champion (Stock Class "D"). 2006 Mazdaspeed6. Lived this car and enjoyed every moment. Sound track was Owl City and Rogue Traders.

 

I'm watching Life on Mars (again) on Netflix. Love it, nice to have something that is totally un-pc to watch. Reminded me that I used to have a MkIII Cortina back in the early 80s.


One exactly like mine

 

Ford classic it was like a pumped up ford anglia. Was from a time when most cars had a steering box instead of rack and pinion and you had to keep the steering wheel on the move to try and keep it in a straight line. Ah those were the days

 

Ah, the MK3
My brother Dodgy Doug of Dartford used his to cab in for years...when he changed the oil on his Honda 750/4 he poured the old oil into the Cortina.
Managed to do about 250000 miles in it before it died.

 

I wrote mine off on Dartmoor

 

Or, as the police used to refer to them
Monty No Go's.

 

My dad used to have a Mk3 Cortina 2000E when I was around 1 year old, some old pics laying around somewhere. He had the wheels chromed, black vinyl roof, rear boot lip spoiler, wheel spacers and mud flaps which were the in thing those days apparently! Must say, it looked pretty cool in the pics and he likes to tell me of his boy racer days lol.

 

3 litre capri which only had 1 exhaust as the other tail pipe had rotted off.....
Gold with a black bonnet.
People used to and try and race my dad in it as they thought it was only a 1.6 because of the exhaust.
Remember going to sunny hunny in it and loving it.
Hunny hasn’t changed much I don’t think.
Most comfy was a vauhall viva!

 

My father ran Wolseleys...the 16/60s.
I backed his pride and joy out the garage as I wanted to work on my bike.
A friend decided to tell me I was a bit close to the wall...so opened the passenger door....which I then removed against a post which was inconveniently placed just where the door needed to be.

 

I learned to drive in a 16/60, and a mk1 cortina estate

 

Morris 1800 was the first car I bought, although not my first car, I had been gifted a Morris 1100 as my first car, but it was a heap of crap.
I bought the 1800 at Southampton car auction for £400, it was a 1 owner ex Doctors car & immaculate, it had one of those speedo's that was a red ribbon across the dash that never really settled on a steady reading!
If you pushed the front seats all the way forward & stuck a couple of beer crates with cushions on top in the rear foot wells, you could sleep in the back of it (which I very often did!).

Like the one below, same colour, same year, but not this one, they called them the Land Crab, bloody ugly but I loved mine!

 

And my father's final car was the Wolseley version...the 6 I think it was called?

 

My uncle had one of those, in that delightful diarrhoea brown colour.

I was about ten, and he had really pissed me off * so I crept out and put a humongous rock right under the sump. Funny, nothing was ever said....

* We were on holiday on Anglesey.. On the way their in our car I'd been feeling crook, got out in Bangor, and SPLAAARFF, megapuke city.

Spent the first afternoon on holiday in bed. When I came down into the living room, Elvis Wesley (yup, his name was, Wesley) says "Are you feeling better now?" so, kind of surprised, I say "Yes, thank you".

He looks at me with a look of complete disgust and says, real snarky like, "I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the budgie".

Biiiiig rock.

 

I had one a Wolseley six 2.2 paid £100 for it about 1980 it drank juice like a drunk but had a level of comfort ideal for midnight plane spotting with the girl friend I still have the grill badge that lights up in my shed.

 

Happy to share the story of my first car, Mini Clubman 1275 GT, a striking royal blue with gold stripes and 1275 GT decals, it looked the business. However, it caused me that much grief it was not a sad departing.

It used almost as much engine oil as petrol, every time I refuelled I had to top up the engine oil, and we are talking more than a capful, I had a subscription with Wilco for their cheap Motor oil - damn car

I was able to travel further on my Raleigh 10-Speed than the Mini, it was forever breaking down, I was on first name terms with the RAC rescue centre, I lost count of the number of times the head gasket was replaced, and it wasn’t a cheap repair either - damn car

I saved every spare penny to be able to replace it, and when the day came it was a huge relief, but the dealer taking it in part-exchange made me leave the radio/cassette player with the car, he said without the audio system the car was worthless !!

Even after I traded it in it still caused me hassle. I was a young guy in the Forces, and I turned up at my Camp after leave - I was on leave when I swapped it - and was told to go straight to see the camp discipline Warrant Officer, I knew when asked to go see this friendly guy tea and cake would not be involved. He had taken a phone call from the police station close to where I lived, the evening before, my 1275GT had been tearing through a local village, had ripped up the village bowling green doing donuts, trashed the village cricket pitch doing handbrake turns and taken down a few fences. Fortunately I was able to prove, after a great deal of sweating , that these events had taken place after I had left the damn car at the dealers where I had traded it in. I still had to phone the Police and explain, and being on the discipline WO radar was never a good place to be. What did puzzle me though was how they had managed to do donuts and handbrake turns, neither the brakes or handbrake worked sufficiently well to do this during my ownership.

Anyway, 1275 GT gone, definitely not a sad departing, I was able to enjoy my new steed, a MG Metro turbo - clearly it took me quite a while to learn about cars, the MG is another story.

There is a reason I prefer motorbikes