Festival of the Unexceptional: ordinary old cars

Right.. it was Ashes to Ashes! ... excellent series, and IMO better than LOM.
Re the Audi- he had to get something flashy to compliment his now famous boots!

 

These were never destined to be classics, and certainly not movie stars, but I have fond memories (and some not-so-fond) of the original Honda Civic. I learned to drive a stick on one of these little 4 speeds, and I also learned about understeer, which is much easier to describe by saying 'the front end slides first'. I'm still convinced people become better drivers when they have to try harder in a small, underpowered car. Us kids thrashed the heck out of Mom's poor car, stuffing it with camping gear, finding its performance limits in all conditions, and finally blowing the engine when we failed to monitor the oil level. But it served us well.

 

My first car was a 1979 Chevette 4 speed. That little thing was indestructible.

 

My wife and I took our 1968 VW Beetle across country and back in four weeks in 1972, driving over the Rockies at 12,000 feet (before the Interstate was finished). The only maintenance was an oil change in Los Angeles halfway through the trip.



The route (Southern out, Northern back, starting and ending at Long Island, NY):

 

My Aunt had a green one of these File:1963 Ford Falcon.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and a maniila envelope colored station wagon too. Probably 2 speed autos but in WV back then where would you use 2nd?

 

Does it. I'm trying to work out how to ask them if they fancy doing it again and having a Pommie +1

 

A few more notes on the trip:

I didn't yet have my license, so my wife drove all 8,000 miles of the four-week trip herself. We left Long Island on August 20th 1972 and drove straight through to Fort Wayne, Indiana, on the first day - almost 700 miles! From there we followed the route with no particular timing, except we needed to be in Los Angeles at the beginning of September.

As well as the full map above we used an early form of navigation system, the Automobile Club (AAA) Triptik. This was a custom-assembled set of strip maps for the entire route, each about 9" x 4" with a comb binding across the short end. Each map was highlighted with that section of the route, a foldout showed more details, and the back listed area cities and attractions. Our trip had about 80 of these; the AAA must have stocked thousands of them to cover the entire USA and Canada.

The hotel in LA, and stops to see relatives in Oregon and Canada, were the only definite arrangements we made. We would get up early each day and hit the road, taking in the sights as we found them. Late afternoon we would find a motel, get dinner, and lay in supplies for the next day - ice for the cooler and a packed lunch. The cheapest place we stayed was $4 a night!

Gas was about 32 cents a gallon - we were horrified to have to pay 48 cents on an Indian reservation.

My wife and I are still together 42 years later, but I'm not sure about doing it again, especially with a couple of passengers...

 

Funny how that works. Eyes only gather the light - it's our minds that 'see'.

Here's another bland but purposeful entry. The design was 'faux sporty', but it was a practical and reliable car. I especially liked the hatchback design; part of the reason I bought a Prius so many years later. The rear seats weren't very comfortable for sitting or anything else, but it was a great two-seater-with-a-cavernous-cargo-space kinda car. I recall the ventilation being especially good, mostly because I could reach the rear vent window from the driver's seat. I bought it from a foreign student who was returning home, and sold it a few years later for the same price I'd paid for it.

 

Dodge or Plymouth Arrow! If you can find one today they are going up in price. These are considered one of the vintage Japanese cars to be of collector value.

 

That looks like the Coupe version of my first car; a Datsun Violet (stock picture - it's not me lol)

 

Yes Chrysler and Mitsubishi worked together on a few cars in the 80's and 90's.

 

Yes, but as they all rotted away about 25 years ago I have no point of reference

It's a shame Saab have gone pop too. I used to crave a 900 Turbo back in the day They're quite a rare old beast these days. In fact I don't think I've seen one around for years. The trouble with the new strict MOT is that it's killing all old classics left, right and center.



Hkmb, The old tax disc in the corner of the passenger screen will soon be a thing of the past. They're phasing it out from October this year. You still have to pay but it is just logged on the Police computer along with MOT and insurance info. I guess if you clone the plates of another car Plod will never know nor care. My tax is due the end of September so I'll be one of the last but as it's free for the Prius, I don't mine that annual bill any longer. I remember when I first got the Prius and the nil road tax had just been introduced and the first reminder asked if I wanted to pay £0 for 6 months or £0 for 12 months? Hmmm, let me ponder on that one for a while lol.

Vehicle tax changes - News stories - GOV.UK

 

Yes, it was a Mitsubishi. I wouldn't have bought a Dodge/Plymouth/Chrysler otherwise.....