How times have changed! The oldest of my parents cars I remember in any detail was a G-plate Renault 19 1.7 TXE: that had central locking, electric front windows, electric sunroof, power steering, and it would have had remote controls for the stereo, had the previous owner not butchered the cables for some reason! They replaced that with an L-reg Ford Escort LX 1.6 16v. I still remember wondering what SRS stood for: I knew there was an airbag in the 'wheel, but was unfamiliar with the acronym, lol! The only other stand out feature of the car was the interior boot release. I was a few months away from turning 13 when my parents bought that Escort, and I'd assumed it must've been something pretty special, because it had... a bootlid spoiler!!! Wowsers!! How wrong I was, lol! :/
On the subject of kit, when I was looking for my 1st car back in 2007, cars without even a drivers airbag weren't all that ancient, and a lot of superminis still had wind up windows all round: the 17 year olds of today don't know how lucky they are with safe, relatively well kitted cars being available for £1000 or less!
Right you young whippersnappers, the first car I have any recollections of wasn't really a car at all. It was an Isetta which was my Dad's move away from motorcycles due to the arrival of his first son.....me. Its equipment consisted of er, well, naff all really. An engine, a gearbox, a steering wheel, a bench seat, three wheels and one door. Oh and it had two over-riders, one each side of the single door. Oops, almost forgot the single wiper.
What a lot of people never realised about 3-wheelers was that you could have reverse gear blanked off so it was effectively a motorcycle and sidecar, albeit with a roof that included the driver, so his old RAF greatcoat was relegated to the shed and his goggles and gauntlets to history. Because of the lack of a reverse gear the "road tax" was lower than a 4-wheeler. You could also ride it on a motorcycle licence. He told me a few years ago that when he went for his driving test he'd actually been using it with reverse for several months. As my father is pretty much the most law abiding man in the world, this was quite dodgy. As he and the Examiner got into the car he was asked if the vehicle had reverse he automatically answered "Yes". He was also the most honest man in the world as well. The Examiner asked where his accompanying driver was, my Dad said he'd gone for a cup of tea and a sandwich. The test was completed and he passed, but as he started to drive away the Examiner stopped him and asked where the accompanying driver was. "Oh, he's caught the bus home".
The Isetta was mid blue but at some stage he scraped the side on a low wall. Remember this wasn't exactly the world's widest car, but he took it to the dealer he bought it from in Salford and was given a quote. When he took it in he was told that they couldn't get the right colour and a pale blue had been sent instead. Quick as a flash he told the body shop to just paint the lower third in the pale blue. The body man wasn't so sure but my Dad insisted.
When he took it back for its service, the garage manager said there would be no charge because since the new paint job he'd had numerous requests for two tone paint job and had done quite nicely out of them. Thus, customising came to the Manchester area.
My Mum told me a story that one weekend they'd decided to go for a Sunday afternoon drive into the hills above Bury. Unfortunately after driving around a mile down a single track lane they came across a closed 5-Bar gate that had a sign on it stating that the road was closed because of lambing. My Dad decided that, being a man and therefore possessed of near mythical driving ability, he would reverse a mile back down the lane to the previous junction.
My Mum reminded him that after the incident with the wall, his driving ability was somewhat less mythical than it had been. Instead, she suggested just picking it up by the over-riders and turning it through 180 degrees, which they did, and then drove off in the opposite direction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta
As they were planning for another child, they decided that a bigger, proper car was called for and the bubble car made way for a magnificent (remember magnificent is a relative term) Austin A30. This was a veritable beast boasting a four cylinder engine of massive 803cc displacement. Not only that, but had two wipers and, wait for it, two doors, but that was about it. I don't know if it had a heater but it certainly couldn't clear the mist off the inside of the windscreen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_A30#/media/File:Austin_A30_Reg_July_1955_803cc.JPG
This didn't last long as, in 1962 with my brother approaching his first birthday my parents bought their first brand new car. The A30 went back to Green & Zonis on Bury New Road and was replaced with.....De, de, derrrr: an Austin A40.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_A40_Farina#/media/File:Austin_A40_MkII_front.jpg
This was a return to a two-tone paint job, having a black roof over red lowers. Whereas the A30 was a car for the '50s, the A40 was very much a style for the '60s. It had much bigger windows which meant that if you were only small, I was only five when this limo arrived, it was less claustrophobic than its predecessor, although in pre health and safety days that didn't matter that much as I'd just stand up on the transmission tunnel or sit on my Mum's lap, or even my Dad's lap.....while he was driving!
This motor was known as the 'Farina' due to being designed by the same styling house as countless Ferraris, as well as the Morris Oxford and Austin Cambridge. Oh well, you can't win 'em all. Although cars were styled even then, there wasn't a lot that was superfluous. It still had to function as a car rather than a fashion item, but this model had a drop down boot lid like a London taxi and a fold flat rear seat. There was also a Countryman version that had a lift up tailgate! Here was one of the first hatchbacks. This car stayed with us for about 4 years when it eventually made way for another Austin.
This time a maroon Austin 1100. It was a 1966 model bought nearly new as it had been a demonstrator at the local Austin dealer. Stylistically it was a little like an elongated A40 but with four doors and most were made this way. It wasn't until the MkII and MkIII that the two door model became common, although that body style first became available with the MG badge on the bonnet. Later versions of this became known as the Austin 1300GT but only available with the four door body only as MG began to be phased out as a badge on other Group products. A fastback design it had a lift up boot lid as opposed to the A40s drop down version but although you had to bend down to load it, it did have a pretty flat floor and gave more space than you'd think. One of my overriding memories of that car was going from Manchester to Newquay in very hot weather with a roof rack holding one suitcase and the others in the boot. Why does that trip stick in my memory? Well just ask anyone who made a long journey in hot weather, wearing short trousers while sitting on vinyl upholstery.
Instead of the all metal dashboard, with a binacle for the speedo, of the A30, and the black crackle finish of the A40's, again with a separate speedo, the 1100 had a long speedometer that instead of a needle, had a bar like device which seemed to fill up the area under the numbers. Space age or what? It was also a spacious car when compared to its rivals from Vauxhall and Ford. It also stuck in my mind as being the first car we owned with front seat belts. Mind you, we never wore them. Still, it did have a single speed heater fan, the headlights dipped by pressing a button on the floor next to the clutch pedal and the screenwash was operated by repeatedly pressing a small button on the dashboard. The single speed wipers were operated by a rocker switch and the indicators, like the A40 were operated via a small wand with a green light in the end on the right hand side of the steering column. This was like that on the A40 but different from the A30 which had a knob in the middle of the dashboard which was twisted to the left or right and operated an orange semaphore device on each side of the body. Vive le difference, eh?
One other thing that made it different from its rivals was the availability of automatic transmission. Not only was this quite unusual, but the 'box was four speed unit. Ask yourself when Ford, Vauxhall, or anyone else who made small cars, introduced a 4 speed slush box. I think it was probably the '80s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMC_ADO16
This car was kept until 1969 when it was replaced by a Viva, but by then we'd become a two car family as befitted a family moving from working class to lower middle class. By 1968 I could hold my head up with my friends whose families all had two as we played a kind of top trumps while cycling round the new housing estate we lived on.
But as we've left the Summer of Love far behind and were now on the cusp of a new decade, I'll leave the rest until I wake up again tomorrow.
Ok, you can all go to bed now. Er, hello? Where's everybody gone?
