Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Riley Blue]

I'm too young to have driven in the 50s and 60s but I remember my Dad driving from where we lived in Mablethorpe (Lincolnshire) to Hampton (Middlesex) where my grandparents lived. The car was an Austin A40 and it's the only car of Dad's that I can remember the registration - EDN 945.

We used to leave very early in the morning, around 5am to be able to arrive before nightfall as it was a very long trip, all of 165 miles. I was usually asleep, wrapped in blankets, on the back seat when we left (no child seats or seat belts in those days) but awoke by the time we reached Boston - sometimes being sick soon afterwards...

After our first stop (we made lots of stops so that Dad could check everything was OK with the car) I was allowed to sit in the front where I had my own steering wheel that had a rubber sucker to stick it to the dash so I could 'steer' - though use of the horn button was banned as I drive my Dad wild, beeping all the time. We motored on via Peterborough to join the 'big road', the A1. I still remember driving through Biggleswade (which always gave me the giggles), Baldock and Stevenage (where I asked who Steven was) and the red and black LBC (London Brick Co.) lorries grinding along.

Eventually we reached the outskirts of London where I had to be totally silent while Dad negotiated the dreaded North Circular to arrive at Hampton to a huge hug from Granny and having my hair ruffled by Grandad - good times....

Yesterday I did a round trip of 330 miles, starting at 9am and getting back by 6pm. I visited three people, spending an hour with one of them, twenty minutes with another and half an hour with the third. I stopped for a pub lunch which took another 45 minutes and got stuck in traffic for about 15 minutes - how driving has changed since the 1950s!

[Jim.Walker]

This tale might appeal to you Riley541 as a 1959 driving experience from your current locality.
A hearse and 3 cars left Chesterfield early to complete a funeral in Blaineau Ffestiniog in Wales. A round trip of nearly 400 miles in the day. The whole trip, inluding the burial, being completed without incident.
Evidence of the longer journeys that were undertaken in the 60s.
I remember that the Ffestiniog narrow gauge railway had been severed by a new reservoir in those days and the only evidence it ever existed (at that end) was a derilect steam engine mounted on a plinth.
Although such a funeral was rare it was quite common for the hearse to undertake round trips of over 400 miles in a day to bring deceased loved ones home for burial.

I now have the car I drove in my garage, having "saved" it when the well known local firm of Bower's founded by my great great grandfather was forced to close when the Inner By-pass obliterated it in 1982. There is a photo of the car, probably of about the same age as your dad's A40 (1951), somewhere on this Forum.
Jim.
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Quote from my late Dad:- You only need a woman and a car and you have all the problems you
are ever likely to want". Computers had not been invented then!

[Riley Blue]

Nice tales from the past which have prompted me to dig deeper into my memory....

My Dad had a 1956 Morris Minor Traveller which, in 1965, the whole family (Dad, Mum, my twin sisters, me plus a dog) relocated to Germany. The roof rack was so laden that its bars kept banging on the roof of the car. I remember driving over some Belgian roads that threatened to shake the whole car apart and Dad got out to check the roof rack was still secure afterwards.

Same car but a few years earlier. The wood frame of the rear doors needed replacing so Dad and I dropped the doors off for repair, returning home in an open back Traveller with me riding in the luggage area pulling faces at following drivers and generally acting the maggot...

Same car, about the same time. When returning from choir practice one night I asked whether the headlights were needed and wouldn't sidelights be enough (thinking I could see well enough when riding my bicycle after dark). Dad immediately switched off the headlights - fortunately it was a straight road as we couldn't see a thing...

Dad was never 'into cars'. He only ever bought two new, a Hillman Super Minx Estate that we went by train to Ostend to collect. On the drive back to Germany Dad forgot the handbrake handle was on the right of the drivers seat and rolled back into a Belgian lorry whose driver was not amused.... on the same trip we were stopped by the Belgian police for driving in fog without headlamps on - Dad had reckoned he could see far enough and was 'saving the battery'.

His other new 'car' was a Suntor Marina Campervan which he bought at the London Motorshow just because my Mum liked the oil painting they were giving away free with it. They camped all over Europe in it with my teenage sisters in a nearby tent - fortunately I'd flown the nest by then.

[pigtin]

I started with a motorcycle in 54. The main hazard on my journey from Streatham to Brixton, where I worked, was the wooden block and tram-lined road past St Leonard’s Church.

I fell of twice in the wet but the traffic was so light, even at rush hour, nothing hit me.

First bike was a 1937 Panther 250, for £10, insurance. £3/10s. If I wanted to do more than 30 mph I had to go as far as West Wickham or the Kingston bypass in the other direction.

There always seemed to be a Triumph mounted speed cop who could spot a 1 mph transgression from a quarter of a mile away. They were always enthusiasts and after a brief warning would always stay and talk bikes with you, while you tried to stand where you could conceal the expired tax disk.

My first long trip with a car was from Ashford Kent, to Mitcham. It was 1958 and I had a 1933 Standard Big 9. It cost nearly £1 to fill up the tank for the journey there and back.

Flasks of coffee and sandwiches were taken because it was an epic journey, over 50 miles on near deserted roads. Driving was really fun in those days with every trip an adventure, and if you should break down… someone would always stop to help.
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Due to the onset of my mid eighties I'm no longer sprightly and rarely seen in my Austin special. I have written a book though. https://amzn.eu/d/7rwRRqL