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The non-railway and non-modelling social zone. Please ensure forum rules are adhered to in this area too!

For those interested in old cars.


DDolfelin
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Most 'American' cars with right hand drive are in fact Canadian built, Ford and GM models in particular. One of the most difficult vehicles to convert to right hand drive was the wartime Jeep although a few were converted in Australia, apparently to swap the instruments over they turned the dashboard upside down. Until recently the number of right hand/left hand drive vehicles manufactured throughout the world was more or less equal. Only in the last 25 years has that changed due to the demand for cars from Russia and China. In fact until WW2 the left hand rule of the road was predominant, with countries such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia all driving on the left. Many South American countries also drove on the left up until the 1930's, as did China until the late 40's.

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From memory, the rule for keeping a car LHD (in NSW at least) is the vehicle can be no younger than 30 years of age.

We certainly do have plenty of LHD cars down here that fit into this description. Mustangs, Corvettes, Chargers, Firebirds etc., just to name a few off of the top of my head. I will try and find the ruling.

 

Edit: Here we go
http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/documents/roads/safety-rules/standards/vsi-40-left-hand-drive-vehicles.pdf

Edited by 69843
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  • 1 month later...

Love that Chevy pick up, gorgeous!

 

Funny thing, searched out this thread yesterday as I thought I must have stopped getting notifications for it - good to see it re-awaken!

 

Looking forward to more pics!

 

keith

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Bit late here, but Australian LHD laws are a bit of a mess, thanks to being administered at both Federal and State levels. However, having worked in Departments of Transport at both levels I can offer a brief summary.

 

Anything manufactured on or after 1st January 1989 must be RHD in order to be road registered. There are some minor exemptions for very specialist vehicles but, by and large, that's a firm line in the sand.

 

Pre-89 vehicles are administered by the States. In some states (Western Australia being one example and the one with which I'm professionally familiar) a pre-89 LHD private vehicle can be road registered and used without restriction, like any other vehicle. Trucks and buses can't. Not for actual commercial use, anyway. Historics and such like are OK. In other States, LHD vehicles can only be road registered under certain conditions. That generally means that the owner must be a member of an eligible club and the vehicle can only be used in sanctioned club events.

 

To complicate matters further, the rules change over time. WA used to be one of the latter cases but is now  the former, for example.

 

Along with all that, I've had some first hand experience dealing with the companies doing RHD conversions on things like late model Corvettes, Camaros and Ford F trucks. As a result I wouldn't touch one with a bargepole.

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Is that a wooden chassis Marcos?

 

No. [subject to provisos]

 

A quick check shows the car to be registered in 1970. Whilst it is entirely possible that a plywood chassied car remained unsold from when Marcos ceased using plywood [1969 or thereabouts]...it's a fair bet this is a steel chassis version. It is listed as having a 3500 cc engine..probably later fitted with a rover{?} V8?

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The Morris 8 at the bottom is definitely a Cornish car, with the AF plate...

Has it had some more effective headlights fitted to make it safer in those pitch dark deepset Cornish lanes?

My Grandad updated from his Morris Cowley flatnose to a pre-war series E in about 1952/3 - but I remember the headlamp glasses canted back at about 60 degrees to follow the curve of the wings.

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Went to a large Country Show in Cornwall.

Lots of old cars so I'll let you have them in small batches!

 

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Nice looking Karmann Ghia there. The type 1 was much the better looming of the two types. Coincidentally visited a VW dealer with my son today and in the showroom were two air-cooled Beetles and a type 3 Karmann Ghia

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The AC  Cobra [289 cu in ?]...is the gem here......with its classic, unbeatable body design...which really cannot be beaten for form & function....no matter whose badge is on the front? The oval tube centre section, the flattened tube front wings, with similar but shorter design rear wings is a standard seen right throughout the world's sports cars of the era 1950-1970.  Ferrari, Maserati, etc, to name a couple, al used a similar basic body shape for their more competitively-orientated models......right down to some of the kitcar body shells sold to fit onto Ford Pop chassis. Even the iconic Lotus Se7en used the oval tube shape for the body section...and the flowing nature can also bee seen in such design icons [my words?} as the De HAvilland Comet [around the engine nacelles?]

 

No wonder the Cobra [and the less bulbous AC Ace and Aceca]  is possibly the most replicated kt car there is?

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On the A41 this morning was a 1968 Farina-bodied Wolseley 16/60, with two old fellas up front having the time of their lives.

50 years ago, some of my mates had turned 17 and with dad's help passed their test. One such thus had access to his parents' MG Magnette -a high-wing Farina. I recall in the July we took it out, and on a back road saw an indicated 87. That Summer, the MG was traded in for a Zephyr 6, which managed 93 in the same place. Sadly, my friend Michael has been gone a few years thanks to cancer, but these days I would not fancy much exceeding 60 along there!

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You should see what they dump into the New Zealand market!

There is a surprising number of Japanese cars in Malta that have been imported second hand from Japan. The biggest market for such cars, India imposes tough import duties but most of South East Asia is 'drive on the left' the only exceptions are Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Myanmar changed the rule of the road as recently as 1970, a bit of a surprise as all of the surrounding countries drive on the left. China used to drive on the left but this was changed in 1946 but Hong Kong being a British possession kept with driving on the left as did Portuguese Macao.

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