What cars did your Dad drive?

[Alan Chatterton]

Let see how good my memory is................. starting with the last one and working backwards as far as I can remember!

Mercedes E Class Estate M44BJC
Granada Cosworth Scorpio K567TCX
Mercedes 280TE Estate 970 HGC
Granada Scorpio G999CVT
Jaguar Daimler F626XOE
Granada Scorpio E690LRE
Granada Scorpio C629BEU (spotting a theme here?!)
Granada 2.8i SAK593Y
Granada 2.8 DWG482V
Granada 2.3 XOG641T
Consul GT YDT???
Range Rover GOP999L
Cortina GT L reg I think
Cortina GT Estate POA629G


I think I missed out a couple of Granada MKI and Consul's in there, but I really can only remember back to about 1978 when I was 6!!

Utterly boring collection of Fords.......... zzzzzzzzzzz, with a couple of brief interesting interludes. The Jag was awesome, but went back due to lack of headroom issues!!

[Rob B]

Blimey this is a bit tricky for me given Dad has owned well over 100 cars (and rising all the time)!

Loads of Heralds and Vitesse's including the super rare genuine Vitesse estate, a Herald S and a very very early 948 Coupe.

A mk1 Spitfire which was number 6 off the production line

Numerous 2000/2500 of all types

A toledo, a dolly 1850, 1500 fwd, 3 Mayflowers - and those are just the Triumphs I can remember, sure there were others

Non Triumphs have included a mk2 Cortina, Talbot Alpine, Vauxhall Magnum, Morris Ital estate, Commer van

Loads of different motorbikes

Then of the more modern stuff we had a Maestro and a Montego, about 5 million Rover 45's of varying trim and engine combinations (used to get a new car every 9 months on the Rover works scheme), Rover 600 x 3, Rover 400 tourer, 2 x Renault Laguna's, Peugeot 406, Chrysler PT Cruiser and again im sure there are loads ive forgotten.

Current fleet consists of a Land Rover Freelander, Pug 206 estate, the mk1 Pi and a mk3 Spitfire

[CAR]

Got some pics from Dad

[CAR]

And my first car

[Clifford Pope]

My father didn't drive, being a railway man, but my uncle's cars I knew well:

LandRovers - steady replacements from 1948 until he retired (farmer)
Morris 8
Ford Consul
Standard Vanguard Phase II
Triumph Vitesse 2 litre
Audi something.


I drove the Vitesse. The performance was breathtaking compared with my old Mayflower and Roadster, or compared with virtually anything of the period.

[Trevan]

My Dad had a rot box of a 1959 Mini when I was born in 1969 and in 1973 he got a Hillman Avenger GT in sundance yellow. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen with its twin headlights and rear window slats. When it was about 3 years old I was fascinated to find that you could see the road rushing by if you lifted the carpets! (I think I was chasing a Jelly Baby!!) in '78 he part-exed it for the first of a string of Citroen CX estates. He also managed to get Ford to lend him a Granada 2.8i and an Orion for a year to star in a film he was making - when they went back the Granny had 20000 miles on it and the Orion had 900...

My Grandparents had more interesting stuff including:

MG TC
Morris 8
SS100
Talbot Lago
Jag MK7
Jag MK9
Jag Mk10
Jag 420G
Jag XJ4.2
Jag XJ V12
Morris Minor Traveller

Happy days!

Trevan

[Mike Stevens]

And my first car

Blimey Colin, is that more of those wretched Momos on the '35?

Cheers,
Mike.

[CAR]

And my first car

Blimey Colin, is that more of those wretched Momos on the '35?

Cheers,
Mike.

Actually Mike I can see where you are coming from with that remark.
They are actually a different style of Rostyle as fitted to early 70's midgets that I picked up in the breakers and refinished. Not the traditional 4spoke design as seen on most midgets. They were all stripped, sprayed silver and the black was done with a small brush.
Before that I had experimented with 13" pi trims, but the wheel was the wrong shape for them to fit. Here is a photo. There was a theme with wheels developing if I had but realised.

[dallliiisss]

ooo, very interesting topic this

But, my memory is awful . Fortunately my Father got quite good milage out of his cars, so my memory wont have to be that good

Starting with present car:
1972 Rover P6B 3500 S,
1971 Rover P5B 3.5 Coupe,
1970 Vauxhall Viscount,
1969 Vauxhall Cresta,
1967 Austin Princess Vanden Plas 4-litre R,
And I think several Ford Consuls?

His favourites were the Austin Princess Vanden Plas 4-litre R and Rover P5B 3.5 Coupe, the latter he'd owned for 20-years. I remember the P5B more vividly, every trip in it was a total pleasure just wafting about, superb His current car (Rover P6B 3500 S) was not really his cup of tea being a smaller sporting manual, but his P5B was on it's last legs. So the family of his late very good friend donated the family P6B to him. I'm sure this car will be around for quite some time judging by the mileage he got out of the P5B

I'll have to find out if he can remember the earlier cars

[kevinw]

Two of my Dad's work vehicles are worth a mention. One was an early series Land Rover with a breakdown crane on the back (he was working as a garage mechanic at the time). The other was a big Thorneycroft airfield crash rescue tender. At that time, he was working for the MOD on heavy vehicles and found a niche in servicing the Fleet Air Arm fire vehicles, including being permitted to road test them on the public highway. I'm not entirely sure going to school in one counts as a "road test", but we did so with "blues and twos", bells and wailing siren.

Following that, he worked for the MOD special vehicles division on Salisbury Plain, playing about with all sorts of oddities. His last "claim to fame" was removing the Alvis "Stalwarts" from service as there was no longer a role for them, they were costing an absolute fortune to maintain due to the 6 wheel drive system getting locked up and some drivers were managing to get stuck in rivers with them, including a couple of sinkings. So not quite amphibious.

Kevin