daveh
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Post by daveh on Jun 11, 2010 17:05:57 GMT -5
The Austin A40. Pininfarina designed 948cc of sheer power. This was a Mark I, not quite sure now which year - made from 1958-61. The front windows were pull down, rather than having a winder. The other quirky thing I remember was that the rear brakes had the slave cylinder on the axle casing, the final part being rod operated. It served me well for a couple of years, between about '66 and '68.
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photax
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Post by photax on Jun 12, 2010 2:41:02 GMT -5
Hi Dave ! I guess the first car you drove looked like this one . PS.: I like the Austin, it reminds me of old english B/W crime thrillers on TV. Have they also been used as police-cars ? MIK
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Post by Rachel on Jun 12, 2010 3:24:23 GMT -5
PS.: I like the Austin, it reminds me of old english B/W crime thrillers on TV. Have they also benn used as police-cars ? MIK, the police cars I recall from those old B/W films were Wolseleys. See here fwd4.me/T0C .
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photax
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Post by photax on Jun 12, 2010 8:00:06 GMT -5
Rachel, have many thanks for this link . It is exactly the "Edgar Wallace" police car ! Here is my first car ( and me in my slim younger days ): Citroen 2CV , year of manufacture somewhere in the mid 1970`s. We called this model simply "Duck". It made you feel like being a part of a french movie ( with Louis De Funès for instance ) ;D MIK
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 12, 2010 16:04:32 GMT -5
My first car was a Ford Consul. About 1954 I think. It was dull olive green and dull cream. Even the bumpers were cream. A terrible contraption that should never have been built. I got rid of it in favour of an Austin Cambridge A 55 in 1955. Light grey with red leather(ette) upholstery. It was a good car as long as one carried a bottle of rubbing alcohol for damp weather starting. Battery dead? A well used crank was supplied. I still have some of the excellent tool kit with which it was supplied.
Mickey
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 12, 2010 17:40:04 GMT -5
Mickey My first car in 1947 was a 1934 Ford Eight Y-Model. Willing enough little car but it used almost as much oil as petrol. Much later I had a similar model to your Austin but it was a four-year-old A50. I cured flat battery problems by fitting a much larger battery and a 40-amp dynamo. Damp starting problems back then were nearly always because of the poor quality ignition HT leads and damp-prone distributor caps used in the 1950s. I cured it on the Austin by using waterproof aircraft HT leads (scrounged from my RAF days and packed away for just this sort of use) and fitting a rubber washing-up glove over the distributor with holes in the ends of the four fingers for the HT leads to come out. These were sealed with self-amalgamating tape. Never had any more starting problems. I wrote about the jobs for a couple of motoring mags and, with plenty of pictures by Valerie, made almost as much as I gave for the car! The Austin was very reliable, but I got rid of it with about 80,000 miles on the clock by which time the front dampers were so worn the front wheels used to leap from bump to bump on the road. I could have fitted new dampers, but I got a Rover 90 instead. Much better quality car. After that came the first of my Jaguars, and ... Happy days! . PeterW
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jun 12, 2010 18:17:52 GMT -5
I had an A55 later on. I don't remember too much in the way of starting problems but I do remember the column gear change. I am pretty sure it had leather seats. One day I filled the radiator, using a pyrex jug to pour the water in. I noticed a couple of days later the jug was still on the front valence between the bumper (fender) and the radiator grill. I had made two return journeys to Liverpool (total of about 40 miles) with it there.
Rachel, it was the Wolseley I remember mostly as well in films and early TV . For TV programmes a little later it was the Ford Zepher. I don't think the series broke into colour till it had been running about five years.
MIK, I had a 2CV as a hire car in Spain in the late 1970s. Everything about it was wonderful, except it hadn't been properly maintained and was somewhat unsafe.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2010 21:35:30 GMT -5
My first licensed car--a 1956 Ford. Picture shot in 1964 in the foothills above Boise, Idaho. The ford was a very reliable car, although not as "hot" as the Chevrolets of the same vintage. The following year I traded the Ford in on a 1965 English Ford Cortina GT. One of the great regrets of my life. The girl's name was Linda. She was probably frowning because her boyfriend was taking the picture instead of in it with her. I'm the skinny, smirking guy on the fender. The picture was shot with my Canon IV RF on Kodachrome film. I remember reading a piece in Road & Track Magazine back in the 1960s where the writer was taking a somewhat humorous look at British cars. He said ssomething like, "I only have two bad things to say about British cars. . .Lucas Electrics.'"
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Post by Randy on Jun 12, 2010 22:04:40 GMT -5
My first was a 1961 Ford Falcon, no pics though.
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Post by olroy2044 on Jun 12, 2010 22:30:37 GMT -5
Mine was a '51 Ford Business coupe. Pics somewhere!
Wayne, I had a black '56 Ford convertible--loved that car! Got pics of that too, someplace. Roy
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Post by Rachel on Jun 13, 2010 3:56:41 GMT -5
Rachel, it was the Wolseley I remember mostly as well in films and early TV . For TV programmes a little later it was the Ford Zepher. I don't think the series broke into colour till it had been running about five years. Yes Dave, I think that Wolseleys featured in series like Fabian of the Yard and Zephyrs in Z Cars. To get back on topic my first car was a Ford Anglia 100E with the old side valve engine and vacuum operated windscreen wipers. It could barely get up to 60mph downhill. It had a two tone colour scheme grey and cream. PS ... just checked the Fabian of the Yard website fwd4.me/1Vj and that says that he used a Humber Hawk so perhaps posher cars for top rank officers.
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photax
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Post by photax on Jun 13, 2010 5:35:41 GMT -5
Hi Wayne !
Great picture, nice lady, cool guy ! Is that a can of beer in your hand ? I was just born in the year this picture was taken. My grandfather had a Cortina too. Was this the model with the tripartite round tail lights ? We also had some jokes about Lucas, the master of darkness: Graham Bell invented the telephone, Thomas Edison the light bulb and Joseph Lucas the short circuit ;D.
MIK
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Post by pompiere on Jun 13, 2010 6:26:21 GMT -5
In high school I drove a Chevy Impala that passed down through the family. The first car that I bought with my own money was a Subaru Brat. I have a picture stashed away somewhere. I had a lot of fun with it. For those who are not familiar, it was a miniature pickup truck, but with two rear-facing jump seats in the back. The US had a big tariff on imported trucks, and the seats made it qualify as a car. But how many cars can haul a motorcycle in the back?
I saw a bumper sticker with a Lucas 3 position switch: Flicker, Dim, and Off.
Ron
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jun 13, 2010 10:24:54 GMT -5
To get back on topic my first car was a Ford Anglia 100E with the old side valve engine and vacuum operated windscreen wipers. It could barely get up to 60mph downhill. It had a two tone colour scheme grey and cream. PS ... just checked the Fabian of the Yard website fwd4.me/1Vj and that says that he used a Humber Hawk so perhaps posher cars for top rank officers. Rachel, ... and the best thing about those vacuum operated windscreen wipers was they would almost stop as the car struggled up a hill. I do remember the occasional other cars for the police - Jaguars and MGs amongst them. Someone has even written a book about them, police cars of the 50s and 60s: www.nostalgiaroad.co.uk/emergencybooks-british-police-cars-of-the-1950s-and-60s-nr07-johnson-berry.html
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2010 22:54:55 GMT -5
Hi Wayne ! Great picture, nice lady, cool guy ! Is that a can of beer in your hand ? I was just born in the year this picture was taken. My grandfather had a Cortina too. Was this the model with the tripartite round tail lights ? We also had some jokes about Lucas, the master of darkness: Graham Bell invented the telephone, Thomas Edison the light bulb and Joseph Lucas the short circuit ;D. MIK Good One! That would have been a beer in my hand. Good eyes! My '56 had the small V8 (272 cubic inch). There was a 292 V8 that was a better performer and the Thunderbird 312 V8. None of the Ford V8s would rev like a Chevy 283 V8 however -- didn't sound as good, either. My Cortina was ahead of its time in some respects--front disk brakes, front McPherson struts, a special cam and and a dual throat weber carb. I believe it had the tail lights you mentioned. I paid $2,500 for it which was as much as I would have paid for a nicely appointed, full-size Ford of Chevy in those days. I would go into town on Saturday and look for six-cylinder Mustangs (the Mustang had just come out) and the Datsun Fairlady sports cars. My Cortina would smoke either from a standing start. It really enraged the Pony car owners. Then one night I accidently encountered one of the new 2000 cc Datsuns and it literally ate me alive. A few weeks later I tried to take out my frustrations on a VW Beetle I pulled up beside at a stop light. Unfortunately this particular bug had a Corvette V8 in the backseat! Talk about a Q ship! But getting stomped by a Chevy/VW didn't bother me nearly as much as it did the owners of several 409 Chevys and 406 Fords who believed they owned the local roads. Problem with the Cortina was Ford of England started selling them in the U.S. without a proper service organization. Same thing happened to Renault and Simca. VW was a success because it established a service network with factory-trained mechanics--better than a lot of the U.S. automakers had.
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