Useful Video for 1980s Street/Vehicle Reference

[PatB]

I wasn't quite sure where to put this, as I can't seem to find a road vehicle specific subforum (I'm sure there used to be one), and I'm not sure it truly fits in the largely railway related video section. Mods please feel free to move if there's somewhere more appropriate.

 

Anyhow, during a nostalgia trawl for 1980s Newcastle material I stumbled on this. Not in itself terribly interesting but it offers several minutes of useful reference material, showing a typical mix of vehicles on suburban streets in the early 80s. Not sure of the exact year. The latest plate I could reliably make out was a Y, which says August 1982 at the earliest.  Were there really so many BL Wedges around once upon a time :D? Those looking to realistically arrange parked vehicles might find it helpful too.

[Mike Storey]

Thanks for this - good selection of early 1980's cars and a few vans and buses. Very useful for modelling. Strange absence of lorries, on the main roads.

 

One of the posts (fourth down) below says this is a selection of films made between 1982 and 1987.

 

[PatB]

16 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

Thanks for this - good selection of early 1980's cars and a few vans and buses. Very useful for modelling. Strange absence of lorries, on the main roads.

 

One of the posts (fourth down) below says this is a selection of films made between 1982 and 1987.

 

 

A bit of searching through related footage revealed a couple of mentions of Friday 13 May 1983 for one clip and, coincidentally, Fri 13 December 1985 for another, perhaps less vehicle rich, clip. Good material for late BR Blue and Large Logo era modellers anyway.

 

On lorries, I was interested to see a couple of Austin/Leyland FGs or similar. Whilst I remember them being everywhere in the 1970s, I thought they'd pretty much all gone by the 80s. Goes to show that memory can be unreliable.

 

BTW, thanks to the Mods for putting this into the Road Vehicle section I'd failed to find.

Edited May 29, 2019 by PatB

[BernardTPM]

3 hours ago, PatB said:

On lorries, I was interested to see a couple of Austin/Leyland FGs or similar. Whilst I remember them being everywhere in the 1970s, I thought they'd pretty much all gone by the 80s. Goes to show that memory can be unreliable.

The FG was built up to 1980 so there were plenty around in the 1980s.

[RANGERS]

12 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

The FG was built up to 1980 so there were plenty around in the 1980s.

Interesting that there were some registered in 1981, possibly into 82 on X plates. They were seemingly destined for export but 30 or so never made it, York Truck Equipment (who did numerous conversions and bespoke fitting jobs on all manner of Leyland trucks) had them in a compound adjacent to their Corby plant right through the summer of 1981but they gradually disappeared over the autumn months. Can’t be certain but some or all might have been left hand drive which would account for them being sent to York’s for conversion. 

 

Years later I was talking to a colleague who had been in truck sales for Ford & Slater in the early 80s and he recalled the batch coming on to the market via an independent dealer. The replacement for the FG was nominally the Terrier but buyers eagerly snapped up the FGs, much to his annoyance, largely on account of the heavy discounts applied to what was already a £1000 plus price difference in the FGs favour.