For those interested in old cars.

[boxbrownie]

16 hours ago, johnlambert said:

You beat me to it with the Ford Heritage comment, I recognised the Model T.

 

I drove that Model T some years ago and must have met your mate; I remember getting a run through of the controls from someone called Ivan.  You need a lot of instruction the first time you drive a Ford Model T as it's control layout is completely baffling to the uninitiated. 

Yep that’s the one, on Dunton track........

 

I hate to think the number of times we needed to do wet track work and got soaked trying to get the spray (irrigation pipes) system to stop leaking enough to get the nozzles to wet the track to spec’.........that’s if we could get the old pump engine working in the first place........great days 

[boxbrownie]

16 hours ago, big jim said:

 

I put 75L in it on Saturday, and my wife went crewe to Middlesbrough and back then I got as far as Llandrindod wells today before refilling it with 65L of fuel which at 415 miles averaged out at 29.5 MPG which is not too bad! 

Serious question.......how is the body condition underbellow?  We have been thinking about getting another RX as stand by emergency long distance machine, and the Murano has always been of interest but not sure how they fair on the rust front, as a lot of the Japanese stuff is not too well protected underneath.

[big jim]

It seem solid, I’ve never really looked properly but the times it’s been on ramps for brakes or mot etc I’ve had a quick Reccie and it seems solid, certainly nothing ever been pointed out on the MOT 

 

one thing to watch is the CVT gearbox on them if you get an abused/hookie one they will go around 90-100k miles, I bought mine at 180k miles with the paperwork confirming the car had a new box at 90k under warranty, I believe they were replaced by a better unit which should see the car out

[Joseph_Pestell]

On 17/02/2019 at 15:55, boxbrownie said:

Must have been all those duplicate licence plates they had laying around at the studio 

 

Some of you may recall an episode of Inspector Wexford in which an Alfa Spyder (or perhaps a GTV) was blown up. That's still on the roads today. I don't recall whether it was carrying its real registration during filming though.

[Joseph_Pestell]

On 18/02/2019 at 18:34, RANGERS said:

I always liked the Murano, perhaps the car which kicked off the trend towards "Crossover" SUVs. I always fancied one but they were priced outside of our company car criteria at the time, even though you could buy one for an awful lot less such were the level of discounts available. The other matter of fuel consumption was a bit of a show stopper as well, I had one as a hire car for a couple of days when my BMW was in dock for one of its many misdemeanours and it it consumed around twice the fuel the Beemer would have done. From memory it was good for around 22-25. In an era when diesel was in the ascendency, the petrol only Murano was always on the back foot, the V6, lovely though it was, proved to be its achilles heel as far as the all important fleet market was concerned.

 

My neighbour at the time had a keen eye for a bargain and bought one when they were on the run out, he loved it but traded it before it reached the end of its PCP, the replacement diesel X Trail lasted a lot longer with him.

 

I quite fancy a Murano too. But the road tax is off-putting.

 

A local colleague bought one new for only about half book value. So they were not a good seller.

[Joseph_Pestell]

17 hours ago, johnlambert said:

You beat me to it with the Ford Heritage comment, I recognised the Model T.

 

I drove that Model T some years ago and must have met your mate; I remember getting a run through of the controls from someone called Ivan.  You need a lot of instruction the first time you drive a Ford Model T as it's control layout is completely baffling to the uninitiated. 

 

I think that it was not until the early 1930s that controls (pedals) were standardised across the world. We have an elderly neighbour who has three vintage cars, each having a different arrangement for the main controls. I think it wonderful that, at 85, Stephen can still drive all of them. I don't know that I could.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Going through old files on another laptop, I came across some family (in-laws) holiday photos. Thought this one might please enthusiasts for 1970s cars. How many different marques/models can you find? Some very rare nowadays due to rust. Bet some of the Volvos are still with us though.

 

From the other photos on the file, I would guess that this is from 1978 and there is an S suffix registration visible. Location - somewhere in the Lake District.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Don't know why text has disappeared from posting above.

 

Thought that 70s motor enthusiasts would enjoy this holiday snap which dates, I think, from 1978 (credit: Derrick Parker, my father-in-law). Lots of marques that no longer exist and vehicles that are now rare due to rust problems.

 

Quite a few Volvos that may still be with us. And a CX estate for Horsetan.

[boxbrownie]

Most like;y only three or four of those still on the road as classics nowadays........sort of a shame, but for some of them definitely not 

[MJI]

I saw an Allegro last week

 

Side of road and bonnet up

[peanuts]

2 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Going through old files on another laptop, I came across some family (in-laws) holiday photos. Thought this one might please enthusiasts for 1970s cars. How many different marques/models can you find? Some very rare nowadays due to rust. Bet some of the Volvos are still with us though.

 

From the other photos on the file, I would guess that this is from 1978 and there is an S suffix registration visible. Location - somewhere in the Lake District.

i note no bmw only the odd vw very little from outside of the eu and the multitude of colours .would be dominated by vag products in monotones of white grey and black today

[Fat Controller]

9 minutes ago, peanuts said:

i note no bmw only the odd vw very little from outside of the eu and the multitude of colours .would be dominated by vag products in monotones of white grey and black today

I wonder what the event might be? The way the cars are clear of that central area, and the presence of the building resembling a cricket pavilion (with a temporary stand next to it), reminded me of a Scottish games; the sort you see on BBC Alba.

[Northmoor]

Amongst the fondly remembered cars in that photo, the Austin 1100/1300, Triumph 2000, Moggy Traveller, VW Camper, Rover P5 Coupe and my personal favourite, the Dolomite bottom left (my first car was a brown 1850).  There's a Renault 12 estate which must be incredibly rare in the UK now (probably with good reason) and I think the light green car in the front row, slightly left of centre is a Renault 6.  Can't remember when I last saw one of those?

 

The less said about all those Vauxhall Vivas, the better.......

[big jim]

3 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

I quite fancy a Murano too. But the road tax is off-putting.

 

 

I was lucky, mine was registered about 3 weeks before the tax laws changed so it’s only £330 as opposed to £550 had it been registered afterwards!

 

 

[Hobby]

3 hours ago, MJI said:

I saw an Allegro last week

 

Side of road and bonnet up

 

Alongside all the other British built cars of that time... it was no better or worse, just didn't look too brilliant. Dad was a commercial traveller in the mid 70s and did 50k a year in his Allegro. As long as they were serviced regularly they were fine. But it was just the same with Ford and Vauxhall products. If you wanted mechanical reliability then you chose Japanese which is what my driving instructor used. Though I passed in Dad's Allegro!

Edited February 20, 2019 by Hobby

[johnlambert]

6 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

I think that it was not until the early 1930s that controls (pedals) were standardised across the world. We have an elderly neighbour who has three vintage cars, each having a different arrangement for the main controls. I think it wonderful that, at 85, Stephen can still drive all of them. I don't know that I could.

I volunteer in a car museum and you can see the evolution of all kinds of things including the control layouts.  I don't think anything influenced the Model T and I don't think anything was influenced by it, at least as far as the control layout is concerned.  On the T the accelerator is on the steering wheel, there's a pedal for reverse, one for low gear and a brake pedal (in that order, left to right as far as I remember); to the driver's right (on RHD cars) are levers for brake and one I think was a sort of clutch.

 

By the 1920s I think it was fairly standard to have pedals for accelerator, brake and clutch but the accelerator was sometimes between the clutch and brake rather than being on the right.  I've heard a couple of explanations for the brake being on the right; to make the brakes easy to find in an emergency, in the narrow footwells of cars at the time (just move your foot over to the right as far as you can and press); the other is that heel-and-toe operation of throttle and brake together (when changing gear whilst braking) is easier with the accelerator in the middle.

 

Then there were gear levers that could be central but were more often to the driver's right (on RHD cars) and the pattern might be back-to-front or mirror image of what is now conventional.

 

As Top Gear said, it was probably the Austin 7 that popularised the now familiar layout of clutch, brake accelerator. 

 

You've made me wonder when the last car was made with a centre accelerator.  I suspect some expensive European sporting cars were still offered with centre throttle in the 1940s and the layout may have persisted even longer on racing cars.

 

[Porcy Mane]

I always thought the Triumph Spitfire a bit of a hairdresser's car, a bit of an affront to the name "Spitfire".

 

So here's that well known Spitfire pilot narrating on the Spitfires entry in the 1965 Le Mans. Oh and there's "The Belgians"!

 

 

P

[PhilJ W]

The last vehicle to be built AFAIK with the accelerator between the clutch and brake was the Fordson E83W van until 1948 when it changed to the more conventional layout. However LHD versions persisted with the central accelerator until the end of production in 1957.

[Joseph_Pestell]

17 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Amongst the fondly remembered cars in that photo, the Austin 1100/1300, Triumph 2000, Moggy Traveller, VW Camper, Rover P5 Coupe and my personal favourite, the Dolomite bottom left (my first car was a brown 1850).  There's a Renault 12 estate which must be incredibly rare in the UK now (probably with good reason) and I think the light green car in the front row, slightly left of centre is a Renault 6.  Can't remember when I last saw one of those?

 

The less said about all those Vauxhall Vivas, the better.......

 

I noticed the R6 as well. Even they are beginning to be collectable now in France.

[rockershovel]

The Model T was a dead end in terms of its transmission layout, and its unique control layout derived from that. No one followed suit, because the technology moved on. 

 

The Stutz Bear Cat had brake and clutch pedals reversed by modern standards, because of its original form with the shifter outside the body, and it wasn’t unique. 

 

The Austin 7 was the first British mass-production car which didn’t have its origins in the various historic traditions of external shifters and handbrakes, because it was specifically designed to have a closed body with a door each side, and to be built in RHD and LHD drive versions using a minimum of different parts (although LHD Sevens were never common, the technology carried forward). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[New Haven Neil]

OMG, Renault 12 - my first car.  DS brown, and rust. Comfortable though, compared to what else you could buy for £80 at the time.  Never broke down.

 

Here an 1100/1300 spotted a couple of weeks ago in a car park in Kirk Michael, it is a flattering photo as there is quite a bit of rot in it.

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

The Model T was a dead end in terms of its transmission layout, and its unique control layout derived from that. No one followed suit, because the technology moved on. 

 

The Stutz Bear Cat had brake and clutch pedals reversed by modern standards, because of its original form with the shifter outside the body, and it wasn’t unique. 

 

The Austin 7 was the first British mass-production car which didn’t have its origins in the various historic traditions of external shifters and handbrakes, because it was specifically designed to have a closed body with a door each side, and to be built in RHD and LHD drive versions using a minimum of different parts (although LHD Sevens were never common, the technology carried forward). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps not very common, but LHD Austin Sevens were made by BMW.

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

 

The Austin 7 was the first British mass-production car which didn’t have its origins in the various historic traditions of external shifters and handbrakes, because it was specifically designed to have a closed body with a door each side, and to be built in RHD and LHD drive versions using a minimum of different parts (although LHD Sevens were never common, the technology carried forward). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Perhaps not very common, but LHD Austin Sevens were made by BMW.

The Austin 7 was also produced in the USA as the Bantam. Rather unusually although the internals of the engine were identical the camshaft, carburettor and manifolds were moved to the right hand side.  Bantam became independent of Austin and their cars although retaining Austin features became more Americanised. Bantam also built the prototype of what later became the Jeep. AEC also produced 'mirror image' engines, originally for the side engined Q type bus and later for left hand drive half cab buses. The engines in the Q type buses also rotated anti-clockwise unlike most engines which rotated clockwise when viewed from the front.

[johnlambert]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

 

The Austin 7 was also produced in the USA as the Bantam. Rather unusually although the internals of the engine were identical the camshaft, carburettor and manifolds were moved to the right hand side.  Bantam became independent of Austin and their cars although retaining Austin features became more Americanised. Bantam also built the prototype of what later became the Jeep. AEC also produced 'mirror image' engines, originally for the side engined Q type bus and later for left hand drive half cab buses. The engines in the Q type buses also rotated anti-clockwise unlike most engines which rotated clockwise when viewed from the front.

 

The BMW Dixi version of the Austin 7 also has its manifolds reversed, no idea about the engine internals. 

 

Thanks to all who have responded on the subject.

[johnlambert]

14 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The last vehicle to be built AFAIK with the accelerator between the clutch and brake was the Fordson E83W van until 1948 when it changed to the more conventional layout. However LHD versions persisted with the central accelerator until the end of production in 1957.

 

I'll try and commit that bit of trivia to memory.

 

I had a feeling competition cars were different and the Maserati 250F of the 1950s had the centre throttle. 

 

http://www.grandprixhistory.org/mas250.htm

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by johnlambert
Add grand prix car info.