For many, including myself, one of the most memorable aspects of the 120Y Sunny are its wheel trims. Before you had a chance to absorb the subtle beauties of its quasi-American styling, there were the hubcaps that resembled pie tin lids - yet another reason why the Datsun appeared so different from its British rivals.
As any MG enthusiast will tell you, the Octagon badge is as much associated with fine saloons as it is sports cars, and so here is a quintet of FWD models from the 1960s to the 1980s that each made quite an impact on their debut.
In late 1980 there was one question constantly asked by the nation’s racing enthusiasts, fans of The Professionals , and, to be quite honest, boy-racers - how could any FWD hatchback possible match the RS Escorts?
One of the side effects of the passage of time, apart from noticing how young police officers look, is that how certain once respected cars slowly vanish from our roads.
On the 23rd January, the nominations for the 90th Academy Awards were announced, which prompted me to think of the many cinematic greats and near-misses with the name of the car in the titles.
For many of us it is the smallest details of an old car that can evoke such powerful memories – the transmission whine on a Vauxhall Viva HB, the tip-up seats on a four-door Morris 1100 – and the oval shaped interior mirror on a 1965 Hillman Super Minx.
A major joy of the classic car world is the finding of a famous or historically important model in a barn, a field or even beneath some bramble bushes. The original Saint ‘Volvo’ and the Bullitt ‘Jump Mustang’ are two famous examples and seven years before Genevieve entered production, the 1904 Darracq was found in a London scrap yard.
The 23rd February will see the announcement of the new UK Car Of The Year (COTY) – which prompts me, and many others, to recall some of the great British COTY winners of previous decades.
One of my all-time favourite film series also features my all-time favourite car marque. In each edition of the Scotland Yard B-features made between 1953 and 1961 there often is at least one highly polished 6/80 and, after 1958, 6/90 arriving at a crime scene located conveniently near to Merton Park Studios.
If you happened to glance at the Radio Times or similar publication some 57 years ago, you might well have read the following startling announcement:
Revealed: five great classic cars to buy and enjoy during the spring months. You’ll be amazed at how far your money will go if you buy well
One of my favourite automotive brochures of the 1960s features a very disgruntled looking Hugh Futcher (Carry On support actor, panicking Sapper in Quatermass & The Pit and more recently the star of a Specsavers ad) aboard a pedal car.
Put simply; these are three toys – or pastimes if you prefer – that should grace the home of any automotive enthusiast -
As I write this piece, there are any number of online reports that once-familiar sight on our roads is going the way of the RAC telephone box, the AA salute and police Wolseleys with bells – the Little Chef.
The recent news that Sir Stirling Moss ‘will finally retire, so that he and my mother can have some much deserved rest and spend more time with each other and the rest of the family’ prompted me (and, I suspect, countless years) to re-watch the footage of his racing career.
Now that once-ordinary saloons are now utterly retro and desirable, we give some tips on how to find a family-favourite classic that’s worth rescuing from extinction.
Great automotive myths of our time No.693 – all cars from the former Soviet Bloc were laughably antiquated.
During the 1970s and 1980s, you might have encountered a well-used off-roader that, from a distance, at any rate, resembled a Series II Land Rover. On closer scrutiny, it turned out to be the far rarer Austin Gipsy, the British Motor Corporation’s highly ambitious bid for the 4x4 market.
I have a theory, which may well be entirely inaccurate, that your favourite classic is frequently dictated by seeing it on screen while at an impressionable age. For some, it was watching a Polar White Ford Escort RS2000 Mk. II speed through Buckinghamshire with a perm-haired CI5 agent at the wheel and for others it was the Jaguar S-Type coming to grief in the pre-titles sequence of Stoppo Driver, one of the finest episodes of The Sweeney.
In the mid-1960s British cinema offered you a choice of two spy film heroes, both with a score from John Barry – and both with memorable official transport.
