Cars from your childhood

[OldFred]

I love watching Celebrity Antiques Road Trip where they get to drive really cool classic cars.
Some cars really take me back to my childhood in the late 70s/80s.
My mum had Datsun Cherry and dad drove a beast of a BMW which resembled a tank.
My brother had a Ford Capri which I loved.

What cars were a part of your childhood?

My first car was a VW Fastback which had the engine at the back like a VW Beetle

I would race you down to the seaside in our Anglia.

We'd probably find ourselves sitting one behind the other in the queue to get across Rochester Bridge, before the M2 opened.

Your Anglia was a nicer colour than our Hillman.

My parents had a Chrysler Alpine in the late 70s/early 80s. Then they had a Vauxhall Astra saloon. I think they had a Hillman Minx in the 1960s

We had a chevette which we called shoveit because thats what we spent a lot of time doing.

Both of my parents have passed in the past 5 years, in their 90s, so they had good long lives. They worked hard to give us a bit more than they had in their childhoods. Dad was so proud of that Anglia. Just saying.

There were other, much cooler cars around but I am still very fond of the two Ladas that we had in the family (contrary to popular opinion).

They always started up in the winter.

My parents had a Maxi, which kept going wrong; it broke down twice in a road trip across France. It had no rear seat belts, but we had “straps” fitted (probably DIY), and our seats were telephone directories wrapped in cloth. The car suddenly caught fire one day (battery short circuit); the arrival of the fire engine was very exciting when I was five years old.

my dad always had citroens, cream or brown

Early 80s, dad had a Nissan (Datsun) Sunny, one of his friends had a Nissan Cherry, and another friend had a Nissan Bluebird. Remember it like yesterday.

I also remember walking to school in the 80s and 90s, and seeing Ford Fiestas everywhere.

When I was very young, I remember the 3-wheel motability cars.

First car was a mini metro van

It Was lower geared than a standard metro so would get to 10mph quicker than most things so I used to thrash it off the line at the traffic lights, yay go me.

Had a top speed of about 55mph mind.

Ford Capri was a really good way to end up in a ditch if you weren’t careful. Which is precisely where we ended up when my mate decided to floor it coming out of a roundabout…

Mum had a Mk1 (manual choke!) and then Mk2 Golf, and we had an amazing VW campervan for a while. Dad always had company cars so reasonably new but fairly dull saloons - I remember a Peugeot 405 in navy with a red stripe and a dark red Rover of some kind. My grandparents didn’t drive and so during the holidays which I spent with them we would go every Wednesday to Sainsbury’s (J SAINSBURY then) with their neighbours in their Ford Capri.

I’ve been loving all the cars in Rivals which has had me browsing Autotrader - such an amazing range of classics available, some for a very modest amount of money! Have a long wish list…

My parents never had a car but my first car was an Opal Manta with a sheepskin rug on the parcel shelf. I loved her. I had a ford cosworth after that an Astra gte. My friend still has my cosworth, he keeps it in his garage with his XR2 and a few other classics, I occasionally go and sit in Colin the cosworth.

My Dad got a two door red Mustang in the 70s (we lived in the US). Sooooo cool! Not very practical for a family with three kids though…

My mum came to pick me up from school in her new black mini ,early 70s with a Welsh dragon on the car door ! My school was a private convent and even now my friends from school consider my Mum am absolute legend 😂

Ford Sierra

Red mini Austin
Vauxhall Victor in two shades of ugly green
Vauxhall Viva - tan with a black stripe sling the side
Vauxhall Chevette - white
Vauxhall Viva Estate - bright metallic blue
Audi - orange

My parents had a Hillman Minx but it was the later model, F reg, which later evolved into the Hunter. Before that, it was a Ford Anglia estate and nine of us would squash into it for visits to the seaside when my aunt, uncle and two cousins, to whom we were extremely close, were staying with us. The two men would sit in the front, the two ladies would be in the back seats with my brother, sister and male cousin. My female cousin and I sat in the estate compartment as we were the oldest and “sensible girls.” It was great fun but a modern day health and safety nightmare. Later on, my Dad had three Morris Marinas, one after the other. When l was very small, my grandfather had a Zephyr - a huge, luxurious car and later on he and my uncle had Austin Maxis. Happy days.

My dad had a dark green cortina, then an
orange marina, then a white marina coupe

Growing up we had a cortina , a viva , a cavalier , a marina , a whole variety of Datsuns , 2 Ladas ( like a pp I have a soft spot for them ) . My first car was a beetle , followed by a Renault 12 . My first brand new car was a Renault 5 .

An Anglia with a hole in the floor (you could see the road from your perch on the back seat), a Cortina, a Renault 4, a mid 70s VW Beetle, a Mini Traveler - the cars of some of my relatives.

I remember cars without seat belts :-)

Dad: Austin Cambridge, then a couple of Rovers, a Granada and then the Jags, all company cars.

Mum: A white mini, a green mini clubman estate (neither of which had rear seatbelts). I recall the white mini didn't have door handles inside, you pulled on a string thing.

My boyfriend had a Reliant Robin!
He also had 2 motorbikes. One was a really old Triumph. The other was a Suzuki which we went out on.
I rode it off rode with him on the back, great times.

My mum had a Ford Cortina. It was huge. No power steering and getting up her narrow drive was a nightmare.

My uncle had a Lotus. It was about 3 feet from the ground. If did have back seats but only us, very thin, kids could fit into the back seats and then you were absolutely crushed. Each seat was completely separate with arm rests. My uncle was virtually horizontal driving it and it roared along the road growling.

Does anyone remember those sticks across the windscreen with the drivers name and the passenger’s name? I was a child at the time. People also had furry dice hanging from the mirror.