Pat Heigham
My first vehicle was an A35 Van with rear windows fitted – I think there was a different licence rating?
It used to get me to Wood Norton, but used more oil than petrol. It was very useful to transport my Hi-Fi kit around to parties – one was at the Waldorf Hotel opposite Bush. I think I was ahead of all these guys who call themselves DJ’s! Records off a Garrard 301, tape off Revox 736. And I could get the audience dancing or smooching!
I fitted a rear compartment light, but when switching on, I had inadvertently managed to clip the wiring to the chassis, so the thing behaved like a Special Forces bomb fuse – great firework display and very alarming!
Later, it was a Austin A40 – now could that have been the first hatchback? I remember a horizontal split rear door, with the top half the window, and the bottom, an extension of the boot floor. It had an electric fuel pump – a bit temperamental, and Dad had to come and rescue me a few times. A bit of string, jerked, made it tick again. I did hide a switch in the circuit, which I could operate when taking a girlfriend home, and ‘run out of petrol’ near a convenient woodland carpark! Oh, devious!
The Triumph Herald with its rear suspension could be very twitchy, Going into Guildford for a recording at the Cathedral, my Revox was in the boot, and tipped well over when I was a bit over steered, and the car hopped across into the opposite lane – nothing coming luckily! Recorder all right – driver all fright!
John Nottage
A fun moment with my old Vitesse: off on holiday to Austria. Half way to Dover on the M2 the engine died. A good Samaritan stopped. He had a super tow rope with a huge spring in the middle. He towed us all the way to a late night garage in Dover who found the distributor capacitor wire had parted company. They soldered it up, jump started us and we caught the midnight ferry by the skin of our teeth! I had hired a spares kit for the car which came in a big wooden box (can you still do that?). When the wire broke again part way through the trip, I remembered the spares kit which actually included said capacitor. Once replaced the rest of the trip went fine. The good old DIY days of motoring!
Steve Edwards
BMWs were available for those who may have found themselves on a modest income or the financially challenged..
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Mine has one door, a back wheel missing, only one cylinder and you’ll be lucky if you can get up to 50 mph with the wind behind you going downhill.
You all want to think yourselves very lucky!
Bernie Newnham
I had one of those!
I bought it for £25 with a seized engine in 1965. My father and I rebuilt it in the kitchen which included using the meat tray to heat the crankshaft in order to remove the main bearing. My mother was not pleased. I learned to drive in it on private ground then on the streets. Having passed my test in a Mini I drove it to work just once – the rubber doughnut transmission linkage tore apart by Bushey and Oxhey station, and I was hours late for work. This time Jim Atkinson wasn’t pleased. I sold it for £48 and bought a Herald 12/50.
I knew someone who had rolled his over – very easy to do – and just stood it upright again and drove off.
You can still buy Isettas.
Steve Edwards
1965?- That’s certainly a good memory of how to correctly dismantle an Isetta engine 52 years on; heat up the alloy crankcase and bearings will slide out nicely.
Yes – rubber drive doughnut couplings were prone to failure because of the poorly designed degree angle of the driveshaft, particularly on 3 wheeler models as well as the oil leaks causing contamination.
I think nearly everyone that once owned one had theirs go roly-poly until they finally understood the laws of gravity (mentioning no names of course)
Wise man moving from a BMW up to a Herald.
Peter Cook
My big bang story started at Hillingdon lights on A40. 2 litre Vitesse. Joining from Long Lane I accelerated hard. Big Bang and car stopped. Luckily no one hit me. Recovered to Ickenham and found a piece of the diff pinion had broken and wedged between the crown wheel, and the casing. Bye bye casing. I found a repairer somewhere east and took the bits over. He sold me a replacement. When fitted I wondered why it went like a rocket but 80 mph seemed like 65. That is because it was. I counted revolutions, input against output and found not 3.87, but 4. it took a lot of research and some luck (years before Google) to discover it was a competition diff. Essex man refunded me the money but demanded the whole unit back. Now I had a gap between gearbox and drive wheels. As luck would have it there was an advert in ‘Ariel’ for a Vitesse (with overdrive) diff, from a VT editor in the centre. This was a few quid more but saved me probably more than 50% on the retail (trade) price. Back to normal acceleration speed and mpg.
Alec Bray
Coming round the North Circular from the Hampstead direction, late one Sunday evening (must have been) in the mid 1960s, I started to accelerate my A30 away uphill from the Traffic Lights at Hanger Lane tube station, only to find that I was actually going backwards. Sidled to a stop (luckily not too much traffic about) and then tried moving forwards again. Engine noise Ok (-ish), gearbox seemed Ok (-ish), clutch seemed Ok (-ish), but no forward movement at all.
Didn’t know what to do at all! (no mobile phones – or breakdown services – in those days. I guessed that there ought to be a car repair place somewhere along the A40 road, so with the driver door open, hand on steering wheel, I pushed the car across all lanes of the North Circular, round onto the Westbound A40, and then pushed the car along the A40 until I found a car service place. It seemed like it took forever to get there, pushing a car on your own – it must have been over half a mile. Left the car in the driveway of the garage, walked back to Hangar Lane tube station and made my way home.
Next day was a work day at TVC. I explained my situation to the Senior Cameraman, who let me make phone calls to the garage. Turned out that the car had a broken half-shaft, which they repaired for me.
That A30 had taken me and my friend from school to Rome and back in May 1964. Here is a picture of it at the Summit of the Julier Pass – we had to use that pass as the Gotthard Pass was closed. To get up the pass, we had the windows wide open and the heater going full blast to try to keep the engine cool.
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We started to have trouble on this trip on the way back from Rome. The little Austin A30 began to suffer: it became more and more difficult to start. Each day we managed it, pumping the accelerator (from under the bonnet) but it took a while. The engine – only 803cc – was also losing power. We made it to Calais and down the ferry loading ramp. The matelots directed us to the ramp up to the upper deck – well, we had a couple of runs at it, they shrugged their shoulders and we parked on the lower deck. When we were under way I went to the Purser and said that we might not get off the ship – to which he replied that we would most certainly get off his ship – method unspecified.
In the event, we actually got the engine started on the ferry, and made it off the ferry with the help of some burly sailors pushing us up the docking ramp.
We managed to drive through Dover and on to Folkestone where there was a steep hill out. The car was struggling – no power! So with the car going about walking pace, my friend Keith opened the passenger door and leapt out – now, he was a trim, athletic fellow, so this was exceptional activity and a great personal adventure and sacrifice. He was then faced with a long hard walk up the hill. The car struggled up to the top and once Keith caught up, off we went. We finally broke down outside a garage repair shop at Charing – and the people there let us spend the night in a converted ambulance that just happened to be parked there! The upshot was that there were three burned-out exhaust valves – the garage repaired them that Saturday morning and so we were able to get home.
John Nottage
The clutch on the A30 was mechanical: you pushed the pedal and a short rod opened the clutch – until the rod snapped. Luckily I wasn’t far from home, so I put the car in 1st gear, fired up the engine and drove slowly home in 1st gear. When I pulled into my garage I put my foot on the clutch and brake – and the car kept going, heading towards the back wall of the garage! Luckily I suddenly remembered and wrenched the gear lever into neutral and stopped just in time! The brakes on the A30 were one step up from useless – tiny cable operated drums.
Dave Plowman
If I recall correctly, Austin’s view was that good brakes encouraged poor driving.
I think the A30 had hydraulic front brakes with the rear brakes being a mechanical linkage operated by a single hydraulic cylinder – a design which was carried over to the later A35 and A40. Not quite sure why they used this rather odd arrangement. Perhaps it made the handbrake mechanism cheaper.
Alasdair Lawrance
The post-war Bentley Mk VI had hydraulic front and mechanical rear brakes. I suspect it’s because it had independent coil spring front suspension and cart spring rear, maybe to facilitate the handbrake mechanism.
It also had a disc type servo on the hydraulics, which only worked above about 4mph. Baffling for your average MOT tester, as it didn’t work at all if the car wasn’t moving!
Dave Plowman
Yes. I had the later S Series which was similar, but did have hydraulic rear brakes and a straight mechanical link to them too.
Both master cylinders (one for front, one for rear) were operated only by the servo. So they only worked with the car moving. And you couldn’t bleed the brakes by pushing the pedal.
S Series were all autos, and if you selected drive with the engine running at a fast idle when you released the handbrake, it would leap forward even after you pressed the brake pedal, until the servo cut in. So you learned to apply the footbrake firmly when releasing the handbrake. That started me left foot braking which I use to this day on any auto. And taught me to keep the adjustment to the rear shoes in good order. The fronts were self adjusting – even then.
It seemed a cock-eyed system, but stopped that 2 ton car very well from speed – even with pretty small drum brakes.
Peter Cook
Morris Minor: similar engineering and story to the A30, but the damn thing snapped as I was parking up on St Albans Head in Dorset. As I was on a first date, before descending to the beach, I did the chivalrous thing of searching my ‘bits box’ in the boot and cobbling up temporary repair. Picnic etc was difficult with greasy hands. Have you ever tried to wash hands in sea water? Don’t bother. I had no Swarfega. As my companion was wearing a white bikini the only thing on the menu now was sandwiches. I had driven from my parents’ house near Lyndhurst, some 25 miles or more away. The clutch would now disengage just enough to start the engine whilst holding the car on the brakes. Fortunately I have always practised clutchless gear changes on every non auto car, so once moving had no problem. But when forced to stop I had to find neutral and switch off the ignition; to move again select 1st (or reverse) press clutch through the floorboards and then start the engine. Despite my chivalry and demonstration of mechanical and driving prowess, I never got a second date!
Tony Grant
My first car was an A30, which came to a shuddering halt on the M1 when a big end went. It was towed back to Ealing, where it sat around Dave Jorgensen’s flat, whilst I sporadically set about repairs until Dave got fed up and did all the hard bits to help me get it back on the road.
My next car was a Triumph Herald, which I loved to pieces. Sadly, it failed its MOT, so I was left car-less for a year or two until I bought a Fiat 128 from my cousin who was emigrating to Canada. I spent almost as much time under the bonnet as on the road, as I constantly had to reset the timing, replace plugs, as well as doing routine servicing. I remember having a brake problem which involved removing the master cylinder. Reading the workshop manual indicated it was a relatively straightforward job, but what it didn’t say was that you had to remove the heater first! Could I see how this came to pieces? I eventually twigged it had a plastic cover held in place by plastic pop-rivets, but it was so dirty it looked like a single moulding – grrr.
I eventually had more than enough with it when it developed an intermittent electrical fault, and even with a meter poking around under the bonnet, I couldn’t work out where things were going wrong. Long story short – I took it to the local Fiat dealer in Beaconsfield who took 3 days to find the problem, the reason it took them so long was that having eventually stripped the whole of the wiring loom, they found wires had been joined together in the loom, the problem being that no two colours were connected to one another, thus inside the loom a green going in was yellow coming out, or maybe a red came out blue, etc. etc. No wonder I couldn’t find the answer. That cost me far more than the bloody thing was worth, so I will NEVER buy Fiat again.
But the car I really loved to pieces (yes, even more than the Herald) was my Ford Granada 2.8i Ghia X. But it had to go when I was made redundant, and I had to have a working car. Life’s not been the same since (pause for shedding of tears and blowing of nose). But having said all this, my abiding mantra regarding these vehicles is: A car is simply a tin box on wheels to get you from A to B, preferably safely, reliably and in comfort.
Now, if only we could think of a way to connect loads of them together, with a big engine on the front, oh and say put them on rails like a dolly, and tow them along smoothly and quickly and then the passengers could sit back and watch the country roll by, how relaxing! What’s that you say – ASLEF? Oh dear.
Terry Meadowcroft
I still have in my garage my second car which is an Austin 10 GS1. I did 84,000 miles in this, mostly up and down the M1/A5/M6 up to Lancaster between my childhood home and Bush House BBC, London – maximum 50mph, absolute maximum 55mph when it was vibrating somewhat. I gave it to my son some years ago, and he took both engines, which he still has in his garage in Lancaster. Both engines once rebored by a Lancaster company. Still good for a couple of rebores!
The engineless car, FTJ 729, still sits in my garage in Kirkbymoorside – all metal un-rusted (the underside was covered, very firmly, with a sand/bituminous compound which stays well adhered, before they left the factory in 1946 (the car is one year younger than I am and I bought it for£17.10s. from a school mate who had dropped it into a ditch (he liked a tipple – but not !that! sort of tipple though both tipples were connected) and it needed attention. It was cold to drive in the winter having no heater (that 5 hour drive up to Lancaster involved the normal pedal/foot arrangement until the accelerator foot started to freeze when I would swap feet, putting the accelerator foot away under the seat and brake/clutch foot on the accelerator until a change was required again, and deadly sleep was staved off by opening the driver’s window and singing at top of voice to avoid premature death by hypothermia). Probably a Beatles number!
The Austin 10 had been one step up from the first car I had which was an Austin 7 Ruby (£15). Both of those cars had hinges shared with the back doors (brass olive replaceable), so the driver’s door opened hinged at the back. I never tried it, but the driver’s door would have made a decent air brake ( the brakes, which were described in the hand book as ‘firm and progressive’) were push rod operated and yes, they would stop the car quite well if you stood on them hard enough, risking dislocation of the knee!
Still there in my garage awaiting collection by our Jonnie! The Honda Jazz sits outside aforementioned garage under a tarpaulin because it has just about the only Achilles’ heel the Jazz would have – a leaky hatch lid caused by bad sealing arrangement around the rear light cluster which sounds easy to fix but isn’t. Without the tarp. its spare wheel sits in a bath.
Dave Mundy
I remember a lift to Cheltenham in John Nottage’s Scirocco, and, having been in the landlord’s loft at the hotel, where I dismantled a double J-Beam 18-element Group C UHF aerial, which he didn’t want, persuading John to cart it back to my house! I still have it in my loft, if anyone needs one!
The Dolomite, one of my favourite driver’s cars, we got through three of them, my son helped getting rid of two! The trick was never to put Goodyear G800 tyres in them, the ‘greatest contribution to road safety’ according to the ex-chief of the Met. – they spun on driving away in the wet and had virtually no grip at any other time.
Re Sat Navs: I got a TomTom One from Ebay for a few quid which changes the speed limit as you pass the signs, unfortunately, some authorities keep changing them and I can’t update the maps due to it’s antiquity!
My son-in-law gave me his TomTom XL, which I subscribed to a half-price deal on new maps, and TomTom Home now tells me that due to it’s age it cannot be updated!
My wife bought me a Navman N40i with 2006 maps and that can’t be updated due to memory limitations as the software is so big now.
I bought a Navman N60i (16:9) from Ebay for £6.99 (described as non-working, but when charged and switched on works perfectly!) and even with its huge memory, no newer maps are available.
I get speed camera updates every fortnight and it needs a couple of clicks to install them on a TomTom, but on the Navman it takes 20 keypresses for each of 33 types of camera, but the graphics are so much nicer!
What would we do without our toys?
Tony Crake
Dave Mundy had a fairly chequered past with funny cars… Do I remember a Ford Corsair (possibly) with some interesting welding on the underside?
Dave Mundy
You are quite correct, Tony! When I had no money to buy a car, my father-in-law took pity on us and bought us a Ford Corsair V4 from a ‘bomb site’ corner near where we lived. The seller took us a ride in this heap, pumping the accelerator to get it started, and said that was the best way to get it started! When I investigated under the bonnet it became clear why it was so cheap! The carburettor diaphragms were all perforated and the automatic choke (fed by hot water from the top hose from the radiator) never opened so it was running on full choke for most of our local journeys! I was doing “Gardeners World” near Oakham and the car started running on three cylinders up the M1. I got to site on time, luckily, and on the way back to my parents’ house in Nottingham I stopped at a Ford dealers in Melton Mowbray for advice where I took the rocker cover off and found one of the rockers had slipped sideways off the valve stem! One winter’s night in Shepherds Bush the car wouldn’t start having been parked on a snow drift in Frithville Gardens, my wife drove from home in our A40 Farina, bought from Mike McCarthy, for £50, and towed me home with headlights and rear window heaters on. When we eventually got home I managed to get the Corsair into the drive but the A40 was totally dead! The generator couldn’t cope with the current drain so a mains battery charger was used to bring it back to life.
On the Ford Corsair there was a large weld running under the front seats and up to the front windscreen pillars! The log. book was a temporary one which didn’t give a list of past owners so I went to the DVLC which at that time was in Tolworth Towers, just down the A3. They couldn’t give me all the details I wanted but confirmed that the car had been a write-off and had been re-built using the front of one car and the back of another! It had been checked as roadworthy by the police and allowed back on the road!
Bernie Newnham
A cut and shut!
OBs and unreliable cars seemed to me to be inseparable in the 1970s. Driving my ancient Vauxhall Victor Estate to some cricket match wasn’t quite me somehow.
Tony Crake
I have seen that Ford Corsair… I think Dave had persuaded the transport guys at KA to stick it up on the hoist for a look-see.
