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Is This Your Motor?

I think I may have posted this before, but I had the experience in the late 1960s of the car park in the Bullring losing my car. They insisted then in taking it away and parking it for you and then bringing it back for you when you returned. Trouble is they lost it and had me waiting for ages (half an hour?) till they found it. Then, initially tried to charge me for the half an hour I had been waiting!
1595914228173.pngI had one of these. one day in a Bham city multi-car park i parked it went shopping. on return, i went to the floor where i left it. it was not there, i looked around no way. so i went to the police and told them my car had been stolen. At 7OCLOCK that night i had a call from the police. telling me my car was on level 3 one floor above.were i thought i had left it. WHAT A PLONKER
 
Here's a different one.........

Any idea what this vehicle was? ADF 265. A Humber, perhaps?

The sequence shows it being converted (very probably) into an armoured fighting vehicle for Home Guard purposes. Date: 1941 or 1942 in the workshop of Cutler's Garage, Chester Road, Streetly. No pictures of the finished article. And I suspect it never got completed. Otherwise Streetly would have had its own, personal tank.

VehicleSequencew1500.jpg

Looks quite a nice car, being wrecked at a relatively early stage of its life.

Chris

(Grateful acknowledgement to KS)
 
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The only Humber with a grille like that is the 12, which would fit the date, but the design of the boot looks wrong. There was a variant with a larger boot, called the Humber 12 Vogue, but again not quite right.
 
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Parked my Vauxhall Chevette on a hill while visiting local take away, came out to find gone. Ran home and reported car stolen, 15 minutes later police came around telling me they’d found my car and to come with them to collect It, turned out when I got out of the car the handbrake cable had relaxed and allowed the car to run back down the hill between two keep left bollards and came to a stop resting against a wall. No damage at all but still fined £20 for insecure handbrake. I’ve never left a car in gear because that was a no no when I was trained as a mechanic as you often started a vehicle without sitting in the drivers seat, just thought I’d mention it as someone was bound to ask why I’d not left it in gear.
 
I don't think it's a Snipe, maybe a Pullman limo, certainly has the Humber look about the grill, maybe even a Hillman Hawk of the same era.
 
I never leave cars in gear for the same reason Nick, one of the staff at the motor auction got both legs crushed between the bumpers when a viewer tried to start a car in the line up.

You car rolling away happened to me with my CX in a pub car park, I'm in the bar having a cooling soft drink, a man comes in "Anyone own a Citroen? It's hanging in the chain link fence at the bottom of the slope."

A mechanic at a Brum garage was leaning over the engine on a Ford Zodiac doing the valve clearances, dabbed the starter solenoid button to turn the engine over and it took him and the workbench out through the wall into the car park.
 
I posted this in the High Street Saltley thread but worth bunging in here too. I would have thought with the pavement and shop step it was a tough ask to get the cars inside this small showroom. Photo is 1960 but the newspaper article is dated January 15th 1963 ....

Abbott.jpg
 
I can’t really see the one in the back corner of the showroom, but we have a ragtop Austin A90 Atlantic in the front, and a Triumph saloon facing the camera. The Triumph was registered in the County Borough of Sheffield, in January 1951. At that date it will be a Renown Mk1, using the same design of 2088cc engine and three speed column change gearbox that you would find in the contemporary Standard Vanguard, reliable, but not very exciting on 68bhp.

The Austin was only produced as a convertible in 1949 and 1950, and the hardtop version in 1950 to 52. It was aimed at the USA, where it didn’t sell because it was too small, so they tried to sell it in UK, but it was too big. The 2.7 litre 4 cylinder engine went on to redeem itself in the Austin Healey 100/4, but there was no redemption for the rest of the car, so production, even of the hardtop version, had stopped by 1952.

Not one of Leonard Lord’s better ideas, at that time Americans bought American cars, Brits bought small cars, this was neither, and pug ugly as well.

P.S. With the iPad brightness turned up to Regulo 11, the lurker in the back corner is, I think, a Vauxhall Wyvern or Velox from the late 40s or very early 50s. This was a 1938 car design dressed up with a new front end and curved boot to preserve sales until the new models were available.
 
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I can’t really see the one in the back corner of the showroom, but we have a ragtop Austin A90 Atlantic in the front, and a Triumph saloon facing the camera. The Triumph was registered in the County Borough of Sheffield, in January 1951. At that date it will be a Renown Mk1, using the same design of 2088cc engine and three speed column change gearbox that you would find in the contemporary Standard Vanguard, reliable, but not very exciting on 68bhp.

The Austin was only produced as a convertible in 1949 and 1950, and the hardtop version in 1950 to 52. It was aimed at the USA, where it didn’t sell because it was too small, so they tried to sell it in UK, but it was too big. The 2.7 litre 4 cylinder engine went on to redeem itself in the Austin Healey 100/4, but there was no redemption for the rest of the car, so production, even of the hardtop version, had stopped by 1952.

Not one of Leonard Lord’s better ideas, at that time Americans bought American cars, Brits bought small cars, this was neither, and pug ugly as well.

P.S. With the iPad brightness turned up to Regulo 11, the lurker in the back corner is, I think, a Vauxhall Wyvern or Velox from the late 40s or very early 50s. This was a 1938 car design dressed up with a new front end and curved boot to preserve sales until the new models were available.
Ouch a harsh judgement on the A90 Austin Atlantic, car of my boyhood and so much more exciting than the other cars being produced at that time and this from a man who owned in quick succession a Standard Vanguard mk1 (!948 reg), 2 x Jowett Javelins (both 1948, but one with a Jupiter engine) and a 1946 VW Beetle, split rear screen and roller accelerator pedal 6v electrical supply, a knowledgeable mechanic thought it needed a new battery, so fitted a 12v one!!!!. Your comments on my other favourite Austin product the Nash Metropolitan. Unfortunately I always preferred American cars, in fact parked in our yard at this moment is a 1935 Chevrolet Master de luxe saloon.
Bob
 
Sorry Bob, I know that one should never criticise the other bloke’s car, and must admit that the Atlantic was unmissable when you saw one coming the other way. The problem was that it just didn’t appeal to the market at which “LPL” aimed it. The average British bloke really wanted (but couldn’t get) a Morris Minor or an A30, especially with petrol getting close to five bob a gallon, not an A90 at less than half the mpg, and, to quote my book, the average yank didn’t want to pay Buick prices for a 4 cylinder car.

Never had a Javelin, but always wanted one, but I did have a six volt Beetle, 1960 though, which met its end in a W’ton back street being t-boned by a Corsair 2000E. I then got into Lancia, but that’s another story.

BTW, took my test in a Vanguard, a Vignale Estate.
 
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Sorry Bob, I know that one should never criticise the other bloke’s car, and must admit that the Atlantic was unmissable when you saw one coming the other way. The problem was that it just didn’t appeal to the market at which “LPL” aimed it. The average British bloke really wanted Morris Minor or an A30, especially with petrol getting close to five bob a gallon, not an A90 at less than half the mpg, and, to quote my book, the average yank didn’t want to pay Buick prices for a 4 cylinder car.

Never had a Javelin, but always wanted one, but I did have a six volt Beetle, 1960 though, which met its end in a W’ton back street being t-boned by a Corsair 2000E. I then got into Lancia, but that’s another story.

BTW, took my test in a Vanguard, a Vignale Estate.
Corsair 2000E & Cortina 1600E, always loved those four dials on top of the dashboard. Lancia, ?synonymous with rust? My father in Law loved them had a pre war Aprila. My first car was going to be a Crossley Silver Cross (No Alan, not a bus) which had a Wilson CV preselect gear box. £35/00 but Dad (who was always right) would not let me buy it. His first car was a Morris Minor Series M, front lights in the mudguards not on top, he then had Mini Ch N0 89, in November because he was friends with the dealership owner right after the Motor Show, I think from Startins (if they were BMC), chopped that in for a Wolsley 1500, which he could wind up to 100mph on the straight from Water Orton to Castle Bromwich and finished with a Triumph Herald and that marvellous turning circle. But what I have just written proves your point, that was what the British public wanted.

Bob
 
Both my Lancias were 1960s Fulvias, they weren’t any worse for rust than any other car of the period, it was the Beta which fell apart so badly, about 72 or so, after the Fiat takeover. They (Fulvias) were very individual cars, with twin cam V4 engine and two twin choke carbs and the 1100 cc Saloon was very nearly as expensive as a Mark 2 Jaguar. Following marriage, things calmed down a bit with a succession of company vehicles usually accompanied by a cheap grass hill climb car, the last being a Triumph Herald 1200 coupé which showed its disapproval of being drive up hills by falling apart.

The motor sport then stopped in favour of racing boats, which I have now been doing for about 50 years.
 
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The first Fulvia. I felt like a millionaire after the 1960 Beetle, but this car nearly finished me off, well, the car and one of Lord Lichfield’s oak trees.

7826C773-697C-425F-A1DB-A19CCE93CCD2.jpeg
 
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DFE - Lincoln Borough Council 1948/9. 785 number suggests 1949, and the car is a Ford, probably an Anglia so a 933cc sidevalve engine and not very quick. £90 seems a bit on the dear side, my 1953 Popular cost £55, and was in better nick than that old dog. The two-tone was non standard making me wonder if it was a pre-war Ford in disguise. It happened! There is also no front bumper, and the position of the number plate suggests van parts have been used to modernise the appearance.

Looks like an Austin A40 in the shadows.

I have never seen an open Austin A30 like that in the previous picture.
 
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Earlier on, in the Austin Atlantic discussion, Bob said what about the Metropolitan?

I suppose it would appeal to the hairdresser’s brigade, but not to me. It seems that the design was presented to various of the British manufacturers and Austin got the job of building it. The later iteration using the 1489 cc version of the B series engine was the better car, but not really my style.

 
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