Garage forecourt car sales 60's/70's, photos sought.

[Neil]

In connection with my garage scene for Morfa, I'm trying to find images of car sales on garage forecourts. I seem to remember cards in the front windscreen which said 'car of the week - £ ....' but despite giving google a good work out I'm struggling to find any images to work from. Any suggestions gratefully received.

 

Many thanks.

[Merfyn Jones]

On my flickr site, may be of help

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/merf29/sets/72157626580094733

 

Merf.

[shipbadger]

In connection with my garage scene for Morfa, I'm trying to find images of car sales on garage forecourts. I seem to remember cards in the front windscreen which said 'car of the week - £ ....' but despite giving google a good work out I'm struggling to find any images to work from. Any suggestions gratefully received.

 

Many thanks.

Neil,

 

Wasn't this about the time that rules on HP were relaxed (in the 60's) and the finance companies had their name or logo on a plastic frame in which individual nembers were placed to make up the price a bit like the hymn numbers in church :-)  These were then propped up and kept in place using the sun visor.  I also remember placards which went on the roof, a frame with two bars at the bottom at right angles to the frame and big white rubber feet to stand on the roof.  Not sure how they were fixed, clamp like the contemporary Desmo 'Continental' roof rack or rubber bungees.

 

Tony Comber

[Mark Forrest]

Practical Classics mag sometimes features a couple of old photos of classic motors - sometimes a garage forecourt. Sadly I got rid of most of my back issues a few years ago, but I'll have a look at the few I have left to see if they have anything that might be useful.

[Guest stuartp]

I'm not sure this answers your question exactly Neil, but there's 35 minutes of pure class here:

 

http://ssa.nls.uk/film.cfm?fid=7342&search_term=garage&search_join_type=AND&search_fuzzy=yes

[SM42]

Neil

Have you tried asking at a local long running car dealership. they may have some archives lying around You never know.

 

The photo archive may also be able to help at the local library.

When I last used this for research I was amazed at the bizarre things I found photos of.

 

I'll keep my eyes peeled for you

 

Andy

[Armchair Modeller]

Modelling a rural location, then a main dealership is unlikely to be what you need (though there must have been be exceptions, particularly before the 1970s when the big marques started rationalising their dealerships and charging the earth for enforcing the corporate image)

 

Is it really a big garage you are after, or a tiny one-man operation in the middle of nowhere, where things might not have changed much since the 1930s - apart from the cars on sale?

 

Faint memories of such places in the 1960s include prices whitewashed on the windscreens, bits of old cars strewn all over the place, agricultural machinery covered in weeds, hand-painted signs etc - but I have no photos to help.

[crompton 33]

in the late 60's i worked at a ford dealer. they had sign's that you stuck on the inside of the windscreen. price/auto/ low mileage/ that sort of thing. in the early to mid 70's they had price tag's that hooked on the sunvisor .

[Neil]

Once again many thanks for all the suggestions; it's more of a backwater/one man operation that I'm looking to depict rather than a main dealer. if I've got the link thing correct then clicking here should take you to a couple of pics of the model.

[Mark Forrest]

Here's a scene, complete with Imp:

Old School Garage by 40019 Caronia, on Flickr

 

I know you aren't looking for a main dealers, but some nice Fords here    :

More from the Draw Farm Garage by salopbus, on Flickr

More from the Draw Farm Garage by salopbus, on Flickr

[PatB]

My memory of cars for sale on the forecourt in the 1970s includes prices on windscreens that were made up from individual digits printed, usually in bright yellow, on clear plastic film and adhered to the inside(?) of the glass.

 

As for the arrangement of vehicles, there usually seemed to be a row of four or five (maybe more at a bigger place) down the side of the forecourt.  I remember at least one country garage which had a tiny "showroom" in its shopfront holding a single car.

[BrushVeteran]

Here is a photo of my late Father's Morris 1100 for sale on the garage forecourt of Hartwells, main BMC dealer, taken in May 1966. I remember my Dad haggling over £10 with the part exchange on a new Cortina 1500 Estate for over an hour on the Easter Saturday. In the end the car salesman, the well respected Peter Carmichael, gave in and gave Dad £435 for his car.....................and they were then selling it for £445 two months later. I bet he went a bought a set of golf clubs on his commission!

 

[Neil]

Fabulous photos chaps, many thanks for taking the time and trouble to upload them here.

[PhilJ W]

Practical Classics mag sometimes features a couple of old photos of classic motors - sometimes a garage forecourt. Sadly I got rid of most of my back issues a few years ago, but I'll have a look at the few I have left to see if they have anything that might be useful.

They also produced a book entitled 'Classics on Every Corner' a couple of years back. This has several photos of exactly what you are looking for and it can still be found in some branches of W H Smiths. (If your local branch does not have it they might be able to locate a copy.) 

[Armchair Modeller]

A few photos here, which I found by accident when looking for something totally different.........and then one thing led to another!

 

http://home.btconnect.com/swmcompaniesltd/aboutus.html

 

http://vintagegarage.co.uk/garage%20photos/gaspumpgary%20collection2.htm

 

http://www.ljrichards.co.uk/hist.htm

 

 

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSA00988

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/5842121984/

 

 

http://hhfs.org.uk/hhfs/wp-content/flagallery/garages/smiths_garage_1960s.jpg

 

 

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/12690925

 

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/318669

 

 

http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/693842/small-garage-tiptree-essex-1960s/

 

 

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/swindonlocal/tags/garage/

 

 

http://www.ourmansfieldandarea.org.uk/page_id__193_path__0p38p19p20p.aspx

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/icu2photography/8162481074/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Armchair Modeller]

And a few more...

 

http://www.badsey.net/wickhamford/leystone/index.htm

 

http://www.robpendleton.co.uk/Motorsport.htm

 

http://www.yorkstories.co.uk/blog/2013/02/19/when-petrol-was-plentiful-1/

 

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1183140@N20/pool/?view=lg

 

 

http://www.lentontimes.co.uk/images/gallery/clifton_boulevard/clifton_boulevard_1960s_3.jpg

 

 

http://www.photobydjnorton.com/GTC/SellyOak.html (scroll down - there are several images)

 

 

and I couldn't resisit this one, even though it is not UK

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47661552@N00/5707063588/

 

Some are a bit early for your period, but rural garages tended to change a lot more slowly than busier, more urban ones anyway.

[Neil]

Thanks for the suggestion Phil; I'll take a look in Smiffs when I'm next in Aberystwyth.

 

Armchair; you've been a busy chap, thank you. The York photos were a pleasant trip down memory lane, the Stocksbridge garare looked like it should be in Darjeeling and those street photos of Selly Oak are magnificent. Brilliant stuff.

[PhilJ W]

I've been looking through my copy and theres only 3 photos of garages in it so you might consider it not worth the expense. One photograph has a garage with notices for Green Shield Stamps, something that was very common in the 60's. Hornby used to make a garage kit in their 'Town & Country' series that is very typical of the period (# R485).

[Fat Controller]

Whilst many small rural garages have disappeared, their fuel customers lost to the supermarkets and their service business lost to main dealers, because of all the electronics on modern vehicles, some survive (and apparently prosper). This is the garage that services our vehicles:-

http://goo.gl/maps/OhcjW

When we first moved to the area twenty-odd years ago, the area to the left was the second-hand car business (it's now a carpet warehouse), whilst the big buildings were the workshops. There were fuel pumps, in use, in front of these until the mid-1990s.

Since the Google photo was taken, they've gone back into selling second-hand cars, so the forecourt is a lot more crowded.

It's been startling how many places, even on busy routes, have gone. Lyminge apparently had two filling stations, the one that did servicing lasting into the 1980s. Elham had a garge with fuel, repairs, and occasional sales, on a site in the middle of the village until the end of the 1990s.

One thing I do remember from a lot of 1960s car sales sites is that they seemed to have screen-printed cards, with individual ones for each digit of the price, and others for 'car of the week', 'automatic' and so on. 'Magic Markers' had yet to become common, so the other option was to use whitewash to paint the price on the windscreen- quite what happened if someone wanted to road-test a vehicle, I don't know.

[Orinoco]

Here's one http://www.lymington.org/historypic2/843.html

 

and another http://www.lymington.org/historypic2/754.html

 

Both 1960s

[Neil]

Thank you Brian and Orinoco. Brian your post reminded me that my favourite garage in N Wales can be seen on Google too; here's the wonderfully distressed establishment.