LANCASTER CLASSIC CAR NEWS
Drive In Revisited
Drive In was Thames Television’s prestige motoring programme, commencing in 1972. The footage kindly uploaded to YouTube by Pearson describes the changing face of motoring in the 1970s.
THE EARLY DAYS OF THE MOT TEST
The MOT test has once again recently been in the news, and it is so much a part of motoring vocabulary that it is intriguing to consider its roots. The 1950s saw a vast increase in private car ownership – from 18% of British households in 1950 to nearly 40% at the end of the decade.
MEET THE OWNER – DAMIEN RYAN AND HIS AUSTIN 1800
For too long, the ‘Landcrab’ family was overlooked in favour of other BMC front-wheel-drive cars.
THE VAUXHALL CHEVETTE: A CELEBRATION
Debates about Britain’s first hatchback are often as tedious as The Best James Bond. The Austin A40 ‘Farina’ Countryman of 1959 is probably the original ‘Two Box’ car with a tailgate, while the Austin Maxi of ten years later was the first UK built FWD transverse engine hatch.
MEET THE OWNER – TIM GIDDY AND HIS JENSEN-HEALEY
I used to have a TR6 back in my youth, which in my mind, is a good comparison car. I would say they are like different generations, the Triumph is very much harking back to an older generation, and the Jensen-Healey feels much more modern.
MEET THE OWNER – PAUL THOMPSON AND HIS PEUGEOT 304 CABRIOLET
In the early 1970s, Paul Thompson was an apprentice at a Peugeot dealer, and one of the regular customers drove a 304 Cabriolet. “I sat in it at dinner time, and that’s when I promised myself I’d get one, one day - but on £14 a week I thought it would have to stay a dream.”
THE VAUXHALL MAGNUM – A CELEBRATION
Last year we celebrated the fiftieth birthday of the Firenza, which neatly brings us to the 1973 revision of the Vauxhall’s HC family.
FIVE ENTRY LEVEL CARS
Aka who needs electric windows, a fuel gauge, windscreen washers, a boot floor?… 1953 Ford 103E Popular. Sixty-eight years ago, Ford proudly boasted that for just £390, you too could own the cheapest ‘full size’ new car in the UK.
THE PRIDE OF OWNERSHIP WINNER; JAKE CLAPPISON’S TRIUMPH SPITFIRE 1500
One of the 2021 Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show’s highlights was Jake Clappison’s 1979 Inca Yellow Triumph Spitfire 1500 taking first place in the Pride of Ownership.
IT WAS A DIFFERENT WORLD – TWENTY FACTS ABOUT LIFE IN 1952
1) There were circa 2.5 million cars on the road in 1952. 2) Only one in twenty Britons had access to a car. 3) Some British car marques of 1952 that are no longer with us: Armstrong Siddeley, Austin, Hillman, Humber, Jowett, Morris, Singer, Standard, Sunbeam-Talbot, Triumph, Riley and Wolseley.