First Cars-car tales and pictures

[CitroJim]

Jim , you had hair back then ....

[Gibbo2286]

No pictures back then but this is what I bought first, £5 to buy £5 for a used engine £5 for a respray £3 for odds and sods, on the road for under £20.

[myglaren]

No pictures but dad's first car was a Standard eight (or possibly ten).
Mine was a Hillman Minx. Two hundred quid in 1978. A heap if ever there was one.

[CitroJim]

No pictures back then but this is what I bought first, £5 to buy £5 for a used engine £5 for a respray £3 for odds and sods, on the road for under £20.

What was that Eric? All cars of that period look the same to me... A bit like they do currently!

[mickthemaverick]

Looks like an Austin 10 to me Jim!

[CitroJim]

Looks like an Austin 10 to me Jim!

When I was little, we used to have the remains of an Austin 10 in our field. Our chickens lived in it...

It was kept company by an Austin 7 Ruby and an Austin 7 special... All were scrapped when we moved to house with less acreage in 1967...

The Ruby was a runner and would occasionally be fired up for a trip around the field... Huge fun. Those three cars were my early toys

[Gibbo2286]

It was a 1937 Austin 10 Cambridge, the company I worked for took it part exchange as a non-runner, the crankshaft was broken across the web,
Would get booed now for the reg no BNP14.

[CitroJim]

Would get booed now for the reg no BNP14.

Quite...

Back in the days when vehicle registrations were first introduced (1904?), Dorset were allocated BF. This, at the time was seen as outrageous and all vehicles so registered had new numbers issued to them.

Once such case was an Ormonde Motorcycle originally issued BF1. It had it withdrawn and replaced by Y5, a Somerset allocation.

This bike is in the Haynes Motor museum back wearing its original BF1 plates although they may not be genuine. BF1 would likely have been reallocated when the fuss died down...

Thing is, nobody but nobody knows to this day just why BF was so offensive and outrageous in the early 1900s...

Sorry for going off-topic...

[Forrester123]

My first motor was a 1937 Standard 8 tourer with a hood. It had flaps beneath the front windows so you could make the appropriate hand signals. It also had wooden floorboards which the water used to spray your feet,when it rained. I used it for a holiday to Torquay, but had to stop every 80 miles to let the oil cool down!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Even if photographs are missing, small mementoes of first cars may still survive. Lob them into the thread.
Searches have failed to turn it up, but I am pretty sure I have the chrome petrol cap from my first car.


My first car was a 1969 Austin Mini 1000 in Tartan Red, Complete lack of photographs of it unfortunately but I do have the Handbook, and its first ever Tax Disc in my ownership.

Obviously started off in minimum initial outlay mode with Tax for 4 months. Paid more in tax on that in 1978 for four months, than I do currently on my Leaf in 2023 for the full year



Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Thing is, nobody but nobody knows to this day just why BF was so offensive and outrageous in the early 1900s...

Possible answer here
viewtopic.php?p=782323#p782323

Neil

[Gibbo2286]

My first motor was a 1937 Standard 8 tourer with a hood. It had flaps beneath the front windows so you could make the appropriate hand signals. It also had wooden floorboards which the water used to spray your feet,when it rained. I used it for a holiday to Torquay, but had to stop every 80 miles to let the oil cool down!

We had one of those in the workshop back in the fifties it had sagged in the middle and the doors wouldn't shut.

[Nunthewiser]

Sorry no pictures exist.
My very first car (in the US) was a '69 Austin America automatic in BRG (you perhaps know them better as an MG 1300), which were fairly popular in the US at that time. This car had a curious arrangement where the engine oil and transmission were run from an 8 quart common sump. I was a stupid teenager and didn't get the cassette oil filter seated properly once and when I started it I had about 4 quarts of fresh oil running down the driveway. Never made that mistake again.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Sorry no pictures exist.
My very first car (in the US) was a '69 Austin America automatic (you perhaps know them better as an MG 1300), which were fairly popular in the US at that time. This car had a curious arrangement where the engine oil and transmission were run from an 8 quart common sump. I was a stupid teenager and didn't get the cassette oil filter seated properly once and when I started it I had about 4 quarts of fresh oil running down the driveway. Never made that mistake again.

Welcome to the FCF and this thread. Worth giving it a revival. Always new contributions to be made, and a new audience to reach. Plenty of threads to enjoy in the Off-topic section of the forum, even if everything car wise is going smoothly.

Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

I look back through different eyes now of course but at the time the black Morris Cowley was just awful, awful, awful! and my dad bought it off a field of cars at a scrapyard/makeshift garage in Durham known to locals as Olaf's.

Next one was a white Vauxhall Victor Super-that was better. Still column change and bench seats but...cooler by miles. We got a recon engine for that one and used one of those stickers which you just never see these days "Please Pass-Running in" Remember them

...and what should turn up at Mathewsons for their forthcoming sale at the weekend only an example of exactly the same make and model in gleaming white as family car number 3 was and looking pretty good in the still pics from certain viewpoints Far more appealing than the Black Cowley!

Lot listing
https://www.mathewsons.co.uk/auction/lo ... 8&pn=1&g=1

Still pic


Moving pics Sound and Vision


Neil