Old motors you have driven

[Cartman]

We touched on this in the Jigsaw thread under Sweeney series 1 and I have been trying to remember some, if not all, of the 60s and 70s which I have owned or driven over the years and have come up with these:

BMC/British Leyland Group

Mini, T regd
Austin A40, 1967, my first motor. Bought it for £250 in May 79 and had it 5 years, it was just brilliant, practically 100% reliable
Austin 1100, J regd, Dads car, I passed my test in it in November 77. Loved this too, it was a lime green colour, very 70s!
Austin A60 Cambridge, our next door neighbours, like a tank, but very comfortable 
Marina 1.3, not great, but nowhere near as bad as that w*****r Clarkson makes out
Triumph Dolomite 1500
Triumph Stag, what a goer this was!
Triumph Spitfire
Jag XJ6 2.8. Sheer class. 

Ford

Cortina mark 2, 1300 H reg, my project car, sold it a few months back. Nice, but several mechanical issues and lost my garage
Cortina mark 4, 1.6 S regd. Drove this a couple of times for work as the office had a fleet at the time, felt like I should have been in series 4!
Mark 1 Escort, my second car. Nice runner
Consul mark 2, 1959, loved driving this, did a bit of work on it for someone I knew that was into them, and got to run around in it for a couple of weeks, three speed gearbox with steering column gear lever
Capri 1.6, it was silver! Felt like Bodie and Doyle!

Vauxhall

Viva P regd
Victor 101 1964, another three speeder with column gear change, wasn’t as good as the Consul
Cavalier T regd, a nice car I thought

Others

Hillman Hunter M regd, liked this too
Lada 1200 OK ish
Polski Fiat 125, pretty similar to the Lada
Mazda 1000 
Datsun 120Y
VW Golf GTi, V regd another goer!

Anyone else driven any old stuff? I’ve not included 80s ones, anyone else can though!

[D.C. Burtonshaw]

Well the pre 1980 cars I've driven any length of distance on the public road;

Triumph Herald 13/60 saloon, Conifer green H reg. My mate lent it to me in 2000 when my Escort was off the road having some bodywork done and panels fitted at the time. Quite rattley but otherwise fine to drive. Sometimes fancied a convertible version or a Vitesse after driving that!

My first ever car was a V plate 1.3L MK2 Escort 2 door in dark metallic bronze. Had for 3 years but the body rotted out sadly, as mechanically it was still superb.

Then my (still own it) 2nd car a strato silver MK2 Escort 1.6 Ghia 4 door 1979 on a T plate, some of the members have seen it. (As well playing a part as a "Squad car....."

Also driven a mates Cordoba Beige with brown vinyl roof 1979 V plate MK2 Escort 1.3 Ghia 4 door, which has been in his family since 1982, although it needs some serious bodywork now. I drove it in 1995 once, and its been off the road since end of 97, his brothers got it somewhere I think now.

Another mates 1971 K reg Marine blue MK1 Escort 1100L estate one night as a test drive, back in '95 too.

Briefly drove out of a parking space to the entrance to the road, a mates 1964 Austin A60 Cambridge in grey with I think a white stripe and lovely red interior, - was very nervous driving that and its my mates pride and joy, and justly so! (Same car as in the Sweeney episode "Pay Off in the early blag scene but his is in better nick! And the same as the ropey taxi in the Minder episode!!!). Heavy tank but I could get used to it!

Briefly driven across a field a pale green K reg FD Vauxhall Ventora, rather nice, and could get used to owning one of those! A friend of a friend from Norwich, kindly let me have a brief drive at a classic show in 2014.

At the same show I also went to fetch a white Jaguar 420 1968/69 for my local mate that owns it across the field too. Again anyone who has seen the "Sweeney tribute film  - Theives and Weirdos" will know it........ Was the blaggers star car, the owner played a character in the film.

Couple of other cars I've driven briefly a few yards on private land include a 1948 sit up and beg Ford Anglia E04A and my oldest ever car I've driven;

A 1937 Wolseley 14 which my mate has since sold due to his divorce. I drove it in about the late 90's at his unit. Same bloke also owns the little Anglia mentioned above, he's had that since 1994 and this is a bloke who started with souping up MK1/2 Escorts in his youth.....

There's been a few ho-hum 90's and later cars too but they're probably too common to mention although not seen often now was a car I borrowed a few times, my brothers first car - a 1984 A reg MK1 Vauxhall Astra 1.6L 5 door hatch. He had it from 1994-97.

Cheers all!

[Del Boy]

A bit bland is my experience with older motors :
1975 1100 Tobacco Brown Allegro that was given to me and was going to be my first car. I drove it on private land but sadly
(or fortunately) it was vandalised and I never turned a wheel on the public road. God it was bad though heavy and slooooow
and as for that bloody Quartic steering wheel ... 

I had two Mk1 Fiestas. One a 1100 X plate and the other a 1300 Vreg that i made into a XR2 lookalike
Used to drive a Mk2 Granada 2.8 of my mates now and then. Loved that  motor but I couldn't afford the insurance at the time
So couldn't buy one.

I had a C reg Mk 2 Carlton 2000 that was a very nice motor. Lovely comfy interior and a nice drive that car was. Well worth the 
£500 quid i paid for it.

[Bojan Scores]

Not got a history with old cars, though I hanker after a Morris Minor saloon.
I’ve had two bikes that are right up there as classics mind. My first ever big bike was a Yamaha RD350LC, very fast for its size with an unbalanced feel, and rubbish brakes. Now much sought after, and very expensive. They were just old bikes nobody wanted when I had mine at 19 years old. I had the YPVS version after, and that was an excellent machine, a little less character but a much more complete package. I’ve happy memories of hunting down big jap sport bikes in that red hot summer of 1995.
Then I got myself a Triumph Bonneville 750. The bike I wanted all my life. It was everything I wanted and a complete bastard in equal measures. It’s torquey engine, good looks, good handling and brakes, and all round ability is the template for the current rash of best selling retro machines. It taught me a lot about spannering, preparation and organisation. You need to be committed to own a Bonnie. Whilst it’s mechanical gremlins were one thing, it’s ability to make you feel like a million dollars was something else, as I’ve always been drawn to the romantic outsider type of biker, and the Bonnie is that bike to be existential on :D

[Sam Tyler]

Much like Bojan Scores, much of my history of older vehicles was on bikes though there are a few motors also worthy of a mention.

Most of the late '70's and early '80s I spent on bikes and aside from the smaller bikes ahead of my Suzuki GS550EN (of which I have an identical one again now) I also got to ride a Suzuki GS850 shaft drive, Kawasaki Z650, Z900 A4, Z1000 A2, Z1000 E1 shaft drive, Moto Guzzi V50, 850 Le Mans mk2, and California, Honda CB900F, Yamaha RD400, XS500, XS750, and a Laverda Montjuic.

Classic cars started with the 105E Anglia, a Morris Oxford series VI, MG Magnette mkIV, mk2 Escort 1.3L, Vauxhall Viva HC, Bedford CA van, Hillman Imp, my mk4 and mk5 Cortinas, and then more recently my mk2 Granada 2.3LX.

Sam.

[Cartman]

Hi Sam, see you’ve had experience of the Oxford/Cambridge cars too. The one I drove was the Austin version and it was in the same sort of nick as the one in the blag in Pay Off! They were one of those cars that if they were very well maintained would last a long time, but if not, seemed to deteriorate very quickly. I can remember you used to see a lot of them on the road in the 70s, probably just into the early 80s, and most of them used to be pretty rusty, even when they weren’t that old, by the mid 70s the newest ones would only be 4 or 5 years old as the last ones were J regd, with the very occasional K. 

Ive owned a couple of mark 5 Cortinas too, and they are a great car. Fords best ever IMO.

[Sam Tyler]

Indeed, the Morris Oxford / Austin Cambridge / MG Magnette were big cars for their engine size. The Morris Oxford that I drove was a manual whereas the MG Magnette was a column change auto. Very comfortable ride in them too. The Magnette was also equipped with an 8-track cartridge player which to me at the time was rather novel.

I loved the Cortinas that I had but must say I preferred the mk4 to the mk5. The mk4 was a Ghia whereas the mk5 was the end-of-line model Crusader that also came with the Ghia interior, but as the mk4 was a 2.0 auto compared with the mk5 being a 1.6 manual with the VV carb which did it no favours. The mk5 also used to get through sets of points in no time so I ended up fitting a decent electronic ignition and at the same time also fitted the 2.0 camshaft to give the valves a bit extra lift and duration, and the better carb from a 1.6 Ghia. It was a bit more lively after that.

Sam.

[Cartman]

The MG Magnette was an attempt to make a sports saloon from the decidedly unsporting A60 range! There was another twin carb version too, called the Riley 4/72. 

On the Cortinas, I agree with Sam on the mark 4, I slightly prefer it to the 5 as it has a slightly more 70s look to it, also, they didn’t have the VV carb, which could give trouble, although mine never did.