Dad's cars

Blame Bexit. I think the BBC used a Dutch advertising company. UK adverts must be stuck in Dover or Calais. 😁

I watched it, and I had two of the cars featured. The Cortina and the BMW. Never had a Fiesta.

My dad had a succession of Volvos, 144s and 240s preceded by a Wolseley 6/110 and a couple of Zephyr 6s.

There are trailers all over BBC iPlayer. Fortunately pressing Enter on my remote makes them go away.

Dad had a very good business selling heating oil in the 60s and 70s, so dealt with a lot of car dealers. He would change cars frequently if anything took his fancy. He would drive home when I was a kid (even under ten), throw the keys at me and tell me to read the manual and find out how it all worked.. Hence my ability to drive before I was 12. I was driving HGVs in his yard at 13. If we throw Mum's cars into the mix, we can add another fewcars in the last 50 years including:

Renault 4 x 2
Simca 1300
Fiat 128
Polski Fiat 125
Honda Civic (can't believe the first Honda Civic arrived brand new in 1979!)
Honda Civic Shuttle x 2
Suzuki Wagon R+

Oh and I forgot the Honda CRX Vtec in Dad's list...

My dad died when I was nine so there aren't too many I can remember. The first I can remember what it was was a VW Beetle which then went to my brother.

After that we had an Audi of some sort and I don't think it was as small as the 80. That had a trick of flipping the bonnet up wen driving at speed!

That was replaced by the Triumph Dolomite I think which had to tow a huge caravan. Our last family holiday together. Someone had told him a good shortcut to where we were going near Bournemouth.... lots of hills for the poor thing to drag the caravan up and down!* Finished off when in the local garage when it fell into the pit! Mechanic had left the handbrake off or something.

Final car I don't remember the model/make but it was a huge black thing with an auto gearbox and a front bench. Very much a three box design. I might recognise if I saw one. That was sold back to the person he bought it off. This had replaced the Triumph.

* I put the * because he was a coach driver with an excellent sense of direction so the route might have been what he planned... But a small engined Dolomite and a 4 berth caravan were not an ideal match. I remember the story of him getting his first bus driver job by him following the owner who had the new bus and my dad had the older one. Went to some random place and told to get to place x as quick as he could. He was there before the owner and got the job. I suspect he speeded. Because before I was born he took part in a amateur rally with on and off road stages - we won in his Mini. Then they worked out he could not have finished in the time he did without speeding on the roads so was disqualified.

My Father’s motoring from the early 70s to the early 90s didn’t have much variety:

Ford Escort (J plate)
Ford Escort (L)
Ford Escort (R)
Ford Escort (V)
Ford Fiesta (A)
Ford Fiesta (E)
Ford Fiesta (F)

Fairly representative of Britain at that time? All bought used (2-3 years old) except the last 2 Fiestas (new). The local Ford dealer (now closed) supplied 4 of them.