Favourite Car

dinosaw

dinosaw

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When I used to look through family albums there were always pictures of people either in or gathered around the family car, whether it be on a camp site or a picnic or just outside the house. People always seemed to have a story that would revolve around some kind of mishap or nice memory involving their vehicle. They were crap when compared to cars of today, less safe and less reliable but you did actually have to put some input and effort into driving the things. And while sitting in the thruppeny bit cab of my dads leyland van could be any combination of freezing and deafening or sweltering and deafening due to the engine block being in the cab itself, it was way more interesting experience than sitting in a modern transit. For a start it was like sitting in a moving goldfish bowl.

So I was wondering what your favourite cars have been, based on the feeling you have for them rather than how good they actually were. My favourite as a kid was my dads Daimler, mainly because whenever me and my sister were in the back and he saw a hump in the road he would accelerate into it so that our stomachs dropped like on a roller coaster. For owning myself it is a Fiat Panda Bianca which was the first car me and my wife owned together when we were starting out, I got it because it was dirt cheap and had 1 year warranty with it (which we needed within a week because the water pump went.) It was white and had this huge double sunroof that used to leak in heavy rain but which when you pulled it back made it look like the Popemobile. The electrics were temperamental and we often found that our headlights would end up blinking instead of our indicators. i think the worst experience we had in it was coming back from a football match in Scarborough through N Yorkshire, coming down a load of steep gradients the brake fluid overheated and we lost the brakes, best James Hunt impression I am ever likely to do going round some of those corners, luckily I had already gone down to 3rd gear. Funnily enough we took it to the peak district on our honeymoon later in the year and had no bother at all. All in all a crap car on the face of it, but nippy and fun to drive, could still do 80 on the motorway and lots of good memories. Only 3 left now, despite it being an 80's car.

Anyway it's one of those things that will either enthuse you to reply or bore you rigid, but I'd love to hear your faves and stories about them.
 
"Hump back bridge! Wooahhh!!" :D
My favourite car was the 2CV and the Dyane. Had the Dyane after I passed my test. There was grass growing out of the chassis and it was squashed by a Volvo that jumped the lights in Hillfields, Coventry. Literally, the front squashed flat and the Volvo didn't have a mark on it as it did a runner! The 2CV was much smarter and we took it camping all over - over Dinas Mawddwy without anyone having to get out and push! Did have to stop once on Long Mynd with the breaks smoking.
The funniest car was a Volvo I had with a bad head gasket. It went fine but all of a sudden the temperature would go into the red and we would have to put the heating on full in the summer and wind down all the windows to keep going. It didn't last long!
 
Did you ever manage to overturn the 2CV and claim your million francs??? :D. It was a rock solid design, a truly great car. Those old Volvos never came off second best to anything less than a ten ton truck so you are probably lucky to still be alive and kicking. I had a 79 Escort van that had a similar overheating problem, 150 quid and it did 6000 miles shuttling me between Newcastle and Leicester one summer so I suppose I can't complain. No radio mind so at 2am after 240 miles it was cold blower on full to stay awake. The outer sills were mainly made of tin foil folded over with filler in the middle!! (guilty). Ah to be young and fearless again.
 
No, I never did! :D Apparently it was possible at full speed reverse then hard lock the steering (never quite daft enough to try that!) Hey, when your parents car had a smallish hole in the floor and you could see the road whizzing by - exciting stuff for kids!
To be fair though, I think my Mum must have had a strong word because soon after we got a new car - a new Lada (some serious steel weight!)
 
Never owned a car. But my brothers first car was a Standard Vanguard. If I’d known words like “design classic” that’s how I would have described it.
In my 20s my rich mate had a Morgan. Couldn’t help but admire it. It always seemed so much more refined than all those penis extensions that existed back then.
 
I'm assuming you got some stick for having a Lada. It's funny because they were a very sensible car that has actually aged a lot better than a lot of it's swisher contemporaries. Still, if your parents wanted to make your life hell I think the only better options available to them were the Skoda and the Reliant Robin, which did have a following up our way.

There have been many moments in my life when I wished I had never owned a car. The original Standard Vanguard must have been quite a sight when it was launched and looked ultra modern compared to the other British cars which dated from before the war. The later ones not so much though they are nice to look at. I love this picture of a later one, possibly the fiercest looking front grille ever put on a car.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Vanguard#/media/File:Standard_Vanguard_4-Door_Saloon_1958.jpg

Morgans are still the preserve of the rich, I think they are now effectively a 1930s body with a modern engine and underpinnings, as you say they are nice looking cars but I cringe at the thought of trying to get out of one.
 
I remember a friend of ours being very excited by being asked out by the boy of her dreams, then he turned up in a Reliant Robin, she got him to drop her at the end of the road when he brought her home.
Another friend on passing her driving test in later years, came home and her two teenage sons said "great now you can get a car we can borrow it" she got a Skoda at a time when no teenager would be seen dead in one. They never did go out in it.
Now days all kids seem to get a brand new car, gone are the fun days of the old banger all patched up
 
I have seen recently, living in a farming community, a number of sort of upgrades of a quad bike which look fun. Luxury cabs, six wheel drive etc. I understand they are street legal.
 
If only there had been footage of the mating behaviour of Bower Birds broadcast in the 70's - the unfathomable rules of the game would have suddenly made perfectly natural sense! Having said that - an incredibly popular and stylish young lady once persuaded me to allow her to be transported to a party in Leamington in the boot. Obviously I pointed out how reckless and undesirable that would be but none of the car-less dudes in the passenger seats offered to change places.
 
I was going to post a few days ago and got distracted, but I see you have all wandered off where I was thinking. My favourite car was my first one, Gerald the Herald. All white bumpers and bits of chrome. He was big enough to put a bicycle in, but no synchromesh for first and no reversing lights, which was a bit of a pain as I lived and parked on a busy road. My next favourite is my last car, a Hyundai coupe, which looked the biz, but was no good for speedsters as my Mondeo would go faster, but I really liked it, a pleasure to drive as well as being practical (big enough for 2 x bikes this time!) However, thinking about it, the car I'd like next is the one I learnt to drive in, but updated so it wouldn't conk out or be full of filler. I'd like a mini please! Great roadholding and its what all the boys had when we were 17 and living out in the sticks, fast, great roadholding, cheap and in hindsight, not very safe, but we lived to tell the tale.
 
I loved the car I had just before I got married in the early '90s. A white Renault 4 named Heidi. The floor was so rusted that you could watch the road whizz by under your feet. The brakes sometimes didn't work. Elderly, temperamental but I loved her. And now, here I am, heading towards being elderly and temperamental myself! [emoji23][emoji23]

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A friend had a Talbot Horizon named Emma - short for emmental because she was full of holes!

My favourite car has to have been my Peugeot 205 XS. After my first car (a Talbot Samba) the 205 was lovely & nippy. It reminded me of my Dad; I loved it to bits but it was hopeless at mornings:-)
 
My first car was a Hillman Imp. My partner at the time was an absolute genius with engines. The Imp had the engine in the back. They were notorious for overheating. My partner, in frustration one day, opened the back, and I could hear him out there pondering for ages. Finally, I heard "uh huh. Right. That'll work."
He stripped it right down, and although I didn't understand everything he did, he reversed the fan belt that was there, put a second fan belt going in the opposite direction, and did several other "adjustments". When you turned on the ignition, the car made a sort of ascending whooshing noise, like a helicopter starting off, but it never overheated again!
 
Hen-Gen said:
Bit of a divergence but thinking of cars what was the name of that woman whose long, floaty scarf got caught in the wheels of a car and strangled her to death?
Click to expand...
According to Google, it was Isadora Duncan, in 1927.

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Of course, I remember now.
But how did you find that on Google if you don’t know the name to search for?
If anyone is interested in unimaginable pain and tragedy read the account of her life in Wikapeodia.
 
Hen-Gen said:
Of course, I remember now.
But how did you find that on Google if you don’t know the name to search for?
If anyone is interested in unimaginable pain and tragedy read the account of her life in Wikapeodia.
Click to expand...
I searched "death- scarf caught in car wheels" [emoji846]

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