As I get older, I feel modern cars are just crap. I mean, they look dull, sound dull and make you seem like a dull person. At least, this is my rationalisation of trying to console myself that I have to use public transport these days. Trams can be sexy, right?
All the same, cars seemed more exciting when I was a child. I used to love long journeys down to visit family in Milton Keynes (English viewers may be raising an eyebrow here at the idea of anyone being excited about going to that place) for the reason that I would see lots of cars on the M6 and M1. Credit to my pop to keeping his patience when we were stuck in a 15 mile tailback at Birmingham and I was bopping around in excitement at having seen a BMW 2002.
In the years before I was arrived, Dad had owned a couple of VW Beetles, the second of which had to go as you couldn't fit a pram in the front boot. Therefore, he made the insane decision to ignore further dabblings in German engineering and buy British. Only weeks before my birth, he picked up one of these (pics nicked from Wiki):
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| Check out the curves on that baby. Wow. |
Yes, a Vauxhall Astra. Except he chose one in brown, and we all know the connotations of that colour. My principle memory of it was during a holiday down to Torquay. Along with my recently arrived brother and my parents, my older cousin accompanied us on what seemed like a 15 hour drive down to the English Rivera, where we met my aunty, uncle and their three daughters, who had entrusted British Rail to get them there. At one point, all of us managed to squeeze into the Astra. That's four adults, and six children, aged from 12 to one. If anything had happened, the social would have had a field day.
At some point, I think dad realised the British generally knew fuck all about making a half decent family car. I can recall the day at some point in the late 1980s where we went up to some garage near Maryport to pick up a new set of wheels - a Fiat Uno.
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| Compact Italian quality. Or something. |
To this day, I'm unsure why he traded in for a smaller car. 1000cc of raw power got us from 0-60mph in around the same time it took me to get out of bed on a schoolday. In hindsight, I wonder if my dad was having a bad time at work, which makes me feel bad for all the times I hectored for a new set of football boots. Still, it cannot be said it was a nice car to look at. Or hear, as on the rare events it seemed to get to some kind of "top" speed, it screamed like a bunch of woodland creatures trapped in a blender, to which it's somewhat dubious "stereo" system would fail to drown out.
Luckily, needs eventually necessitated a bigger car - that being my brother and I had inherited some "tall" genes and were growing to the point that being crammed in the back of the Uno was going to result in some kind of bone deformations not seen in this country since the Victorian era. And so, the Ford Mondeo entered our lives.
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| Made in Genk, Belgium. What a great name for a city. |
Now, this was more like it. Sure, it looks fairly functional, but it was comfortable enough to have two lanky teenage lads in the back, with enough room for them to swing a few digs at each other and our mother to turn round and whack us both for misbehaving. My dad said it was the best car he'd ever had up to that time and actually kept it going for a decade with no major problems - in fact, it was offered down to me after I'd just moved to Manchester, but I couldn't afford the insurance.
Nowadays, my ma and pa scoot around in a Ford Focus diesel, which is very pleasant and efficient, but I find myself unable to give it a personality the way I did 20 years ago.
So - readers, did any of your folks own a particularly dreadful set of wheels that made you cringe when they stopped by to pick you up when you were out with your mates?
