First Cars-car tales and pictures

[Gibbo2286]

I had one of those, same colour, when I bought my business back in 1965, paid £40 for it at the back of the local Vauxhall dealership, one of their not so good part exchanges that the wouldn't sell retail
My memories of it were the way the body frame creaked and groaned on the bendy road coming back from the cash and carry with grocery shop stock. I sold it on and bought my first Austin Westminster.

[Expertamateur]

My first car after coming to UK, photo taken half an hour after I discovered what those two Schrader valves under the back did when I poked them with a pencil.

[NewcastleFalcon]

My first car after coming to UK, photo taken half an hour after I discovered what those two Schrader valves under the back did when I poked them with a pencil.

Welcome to the thread. One of the jobs I did to my first car an Austin Mini 1000 was renew the subframe, replaced the front to back hydrolastic pipes at the same time, reassembled everything, and headed off to the garage to get the suspension pumped up. REsult hydrolastic fluid all over the garage floor...leak from the valve area. at one side.
I probably could have had myself a cheap fix by remaking the joint between the hydrolastic unit and the valve and wrapping the threads in plumbers tape but like the novice I was, unnecessarily got a new hydrolastic unit to fix the leak.

Neil

[CitroJim]

My first car after coming to UK, photo taken half an hour after I discovered what those two Schrader valves under the back did when I poked them with a pencil.

Oops

[Expertamateur]

It wasn't such a disaster. I quite like the look of lowered cars. Handling wise it cornered like a slot car but the ride was a little bit hard until I got is pumped up again.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Watched a video from the excellent Steph on her idriveaclassic channel on you tube on the Standard Vanguard.
If I recall right that was the car my Grandpa used to have in the early 1960's, and at this time of year he would bring the Christmas Tree on a trailer in what appeared to be a big old fashioned car. It wasn't one of the later more modern looking incarnations but probably something like this..


Standard Vanguard Estate - Flickr - mick - Lumix
Mick from England, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Quite an American looking vehicle and a nice interior and dashboard which will get an outing on that thread

Neil

[Gibbo2286]

Quite a rare beast that one, what I recall about the Vanguard was the damned column change always just a bit wrong and very difficult to adjust, a good engine though used in a lot of stuff including farm tractors run on TVO.

[NewcastleFalcon]

The Star of the Show...



The visit to a car show this afternoon brought back some memories and had a good chat with the owner.
The tale of the transition from our first ever family car to what I regarded as an awful replacement at the time is told here...

This is the first family car we had, a Ford Anglia similar type of colour to to this one, maybe not exact, but a bluey green as I recall.



I remember our previously empty garage getting that car smell-probably the product of oil and petrol, exhaust, touch-up paint, and start-ups. I think it had a large white round gearstick knob. I do remember a friend of my Dads coming round to do a cylinder head gasket, and it consumed oil. There is no other word for it, we loved that car! I literally cried my eyes out when Dad decided to get another car. Can you blame me......he had decided to buy, on the recommendation of the travelling baker shop man Maurice...who also had one of these monstrosities...

... a 1955 Morris Cowley. To make matters worse it wasn't a proper car......it was a huge hunk of black metal, the most old-fashioned shape known to man, with hideous "bench seats" in the front, probably red vinyl, and a gear stick that was on the steering column.....probably to make room for that bench seat. I think it also had the pathetic semaphore indicators (although when my eldest daughter saw my pic of the A30 Semaphore indicators thought they were cool, and asked me if I could fit some to her Clio!)

I look back through different eyes now of course but at the time the Black Morris Cowley was just awful, awful, awful!
Edit
Today's spot at the show...just like the one we used to have!

Neil

[Gibbo2286]

That's quite a late one Neil with the fluted bonnet.

[NewcastleFalcon]

That's quite a late one Neil with the fluted bonnet.

He took me through his photo file of the time since he got it to now. One of the things I noticed was the Gold Rocker Cover, so I asked him if it was a "Gold Seal" engine. He thought that at first when he got the car but after a bit of research he was of the opinion that it may have been an original out of the factory.

The reg plate places it as a Lincolnshire (Lindsey) original reg Sept 1956 to July 1957. Year of Manufacture 1956
1489 cc.

Neil

[Gibbo2286]

That's quite a late one Neil with the fluted bonnet.

He took me through his photo file of the time since he got it to now. One of the things I noticed was the Gold Rocker Cover, so I asked him if it was a "Gold Seal" engine. He thought that at first when he got the car but after a bit of research he was of the opinion that it may have been an original out of the factory.

The reg plate places it as a Lincolnshire (Lindsey) original reg Sept 1956 to July 1957. Year of Manufacture 1956
1489 cc.

Neil

New out of the factory the cars all had green engines Neil the gold engines were reconditioned factory replacements. the 1500cc engine was only fitted to the later cars the early ones had 1200cc engines.

[Gibbo2286]

Here's an early Cowley 1200

[NewcastleFalcon]

Here's an early Cowley 1200

I'm fairly sure ours would have been the 1200 version. Unfortunately my one and only picture of it probably doesnt have enough to confirm that



Neil

[mickthemaverick]

The only clue I can see there Neil is that yours doesn't have the chrome windscreen strip suggesting it is an earlier model

[NewcastleFalcon]

The only clue I can see there Neil is that yours doesn't have the chrome windscreen strip suggesting it is an earlier model

Yes that looks right, well spotted Mick

Neil