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They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

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Oisin said:
The car is some sort of shooting brake (as estate cars were called in those days), with the woodwork an obvious forerunner of the Morris Traveller.
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Shooting Brake - I hadn't heard that description for years. I couldn't resist a Google search and found out a new description 'Woodies'.
Looking at the one in the pic (which has a battered rear mud guard) it might be a 1946 Alvis TA14 Shooting Brake, just the job for shopping in Erdington !
 
hi
I think the shooting break was not like the one that was usually between the seats, but
was fitted to many cars in the 50s and early 60s. they were on the Ford consul's and
zephers and zodiacs. It was located to the left of the steering wheel from under the front dashboard.
You just pulled it up and you could hear the ratchet, to release you could just twist it
and let it go and it would shoot back in and release the breaks, hence i believe that is why
it was called a shooting break.

regards to all stars
 
Stars. You are confusing the hand brake with the type of car body. See this definition from Wikipedia

Shooting-brake, shooting brake or shooting break is a term for a car body style that has evolved through several distinct meanings over its history.
Shooting-brake originated as an early 19th-century British term[SUP][1][/SUP] for a vehicle used to carry shooting parties[SUP][2][/SUP] with their equipment and game. The term brake[SUP][3][/SUP]was initially a chassis used to break-in horses—and was subsequently used to describe a motorized vehicle.
 
Yes, station wagon was the term in the USA. Originally it was a horse drawn covered wagon. It has to be remembered that railroad stations were often considerable distances from where some folks lived and room for luggage was essential. Many will recall, from older films - such as White Christmas - how the station wagon met the trains and loaded the luggage to be taken to the hotel.

My last vehicle of that type, of 1965 vintage (oh boy! I wish I had it now) was a Singer Vogue Estate. At the time it was ideal for moving my young family around.
 
I remember the "Shooting Breaks" in the mid fifty's, they had an Austin one I believe, and a Ford, but most were imports from the States.paul
 
Looking at the shooting brake in the photo, it might have a military origin; with the rather wide tyres and track. There would have been many around after the war...Humbers and the like. Maybe an Allard with codged up rear fenders.
 
They wore nice hats in Newtown Row in 1898 was there a posh school nearby ?
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I used to sit on the mudguards. I had a Matchbox American Ford Station Wagon and a Chevrolet Impala, Nan called it a Chev Vrollit Impla.
Parents had a Morris Minor and a Standard 8, then a 10, dad went on about Dickie Seats. Grandad got old cars and did them up just for hil amd us though. They were never happier him and my mum under the car doing oil changes etc.
Perhaps the toffs went out shooting in the shooting brake. I remember the word chara charabanc. or Bang. Gran said you had to get out and push on hills as the poor horses couldn't make it.
 
In this 1935 pic in Church Rd Yardley, he looks like he has never seen a camera before... I can see bread in a bread basket, but the pail, is it for milk ? I can see the buildings in the centre of the pic on Streetview and he would probably recognise the middle one today, it has hardly changed although maybe the gravestones have.
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There's flowers along the wall now and its still a pretty place to walk...I remember the old forge from many moons ago.
 
oldMohawk said:
In this 1935 pic in Church Rd Yardley, he looks like he has never seen a camera before... I can see bread in a bread basket, but the pail, is it for milk ? I can see the buildings in the centre of the pic on Streetview and he would probably recognise the middle one today, it has hardly changed although maybe the gravestones have.
img705.jpg

The original pic is in the post https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=38737&p=431273#post431273
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The wall is still the same but the top is missing and the gravestones have gone and...it's where i live. Wonder if the bodies are still in situ:uncomfortableness:
This shot is about where the chap is standing and the snowman sat on top of the wall last winter:pride:
Yardley Old Village.jpg yardley 153.jpg
 
I remember those old hand brakes ... on my older brothers Consul - much better then the levers I reckon and much much better then the hand brake buttons now. And love the description of the hand brake even if it isnt 100% correct :-) ... brought back a great memory for me TY.

The school children that commute along Stratford Road today still walk in twos with a teacher in front and one at the back :)
So some ideas are still there.

Funny how we view our earlier times with a smile.
 
Not better than a lever...not enough simple mechanical advantage and difficult to operate. However with a bench seat, which the Consul had, it was a solution for an operating mechanism.
 
Mum had a shooting break, the break was so stiff she couldn't lift it to put it on once and had to come back home. She also drove to Weymouth and got hit by a milk float. It knocked the steering out and she couldn't go round corners!
 
'Shooting Brake' denotes the type of vehicle and has nothing to do with the braking system whatsoever. Visualise a van with windows in wooden sides and rear doors. Better still...Google the term. Station wagon is a similar (American) term although not used with wooden sides anymore.
The rich folk would drive to the Grouse Shooting location in one of these...hence the word shooting...maybe others know what brake denotes. Perhaps you opened the back doors and served Champs to the shooters.
I think the under dash pull mechanism was called an Umbrella style...possibly. Yeah, they did require a bit of muscle.
 
In the pic in post #41 a man seemed out of place, the man in this pic looks in place but interesting.
It is Stratford Road/Stoney Lane in 1952, the camera was ready, the street scene was set as a uniformed man rides in on his motorised bike.
He has large leather cuffs on his sleeves, badges and shiny buttons on his double breasted jacket, he stares at the camera, I wonder what he was thinking ? I can't seem to place the uniform maybe he was a tram driver, but I remember those motorised bikes, a postman in our road had one and I used watch him going off to work pedalling furiously to get the motor started.
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from https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/old-street-pics.38737/page-2#post-430265
 
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It certainly looks like a Morgan. What about the interesting looking car behind the cyclist ?
I'm still puzzled by his uniform, he seems to have a typical round number badge I remember bus drivers and conductors wore, but he looks to have epaulettes with buttons and I don't seem to remember them.
 
oldMohawk. The cyclist appears to have a number/registration plate on his cycle handlebars. Any thoughts? jimbo
 
jimbo said:
oldMohawk. The cyclist appears to have a number/registration plate on his cycle handlebars. Any thoughts? jimbo
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Hi Jimbo - He has a number plate because a petrol engine is driving a small wheel which contacts the back tyre and propels the bike. I can see some sort of throttle lever on his handlebars. Presumably because it was motor driven he had to register it and fit the number plate. The motor was probably like the one in the pic below.
oldmohawk
1raleigh_all_steel_minimotor.jpg
 
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