Lovely scenery
Found this in an old local paper oddly enough itās from the same month and year I was born (Jan 1955)
Love the phone number 86
Man, thatās hilarious. 86 ha.
And 21 HP is good for 0-60 in 2 1/2 minutes. Funny, the lifestyle and things that were going on when we were born. Iām 1956.
I went to buy one about 20 years ago I was going to use as part my business, but I went to drive out the driveway and nearly run into a car middle lane. No power steering thatās when men were men.
Ah yes I remember it well. We used to call that Armstrong steering.
But the old pickup trucks as theyāre called here, like Ford and Chevy, are still very cool. My son-in-law has an old Ford pickup with a straight six that of course still runs great. Thereās so much space around the engine, you could get three engines in there. Easy to work on, for sure.
Theyāre popular here as well, thereās an old Ford 150 (early 80s) I see regularly itās in a two tone red/white looks very cool.
Right, I remember that two-tone red white paint on the Ford pickups.
My son-in-lawās is just red.
And @Pete_the_painter is that 21hp a bhp figure or a tax formula based on cylinder dimensions for example? My grandfather had the 1954 Vauxhall Velox here in the UK with a 2262cc in-line 6 which was smooth and sweet but not powerful. More than 21 bhp Iād think though. With the GM connection Iād expect there was some overlap with the Holden.
ā3 on the treeā transmission with no synchro on 1st so my dad used to double de clutch. However he was trained to drive everything that way.
The Velox did 37mpg (4.545 litre UK gallon) during the Suez crisis with my father using his thinnest socks to drive it!
It will most likely be a tax formula.
Round about that same year my father had a Morris (Minor I believe), here in Canada, that he just loved and always talked about afterwards. I never saw it cuz I was only one or two, but I must have ridden in it.
He commuted from a house in the country into Toronto everyday and it wasnāt a short drive.
A iconic car. They are charming, tasteful and have a cult following here. Not fast though in original spec.
TBH, Iām taken aback that the Minor was sold in Canada. Iād just assumed that at 1 litre and with a smaller bodyshell it wouldnāt have caught on compared to the more local products.
For British people that had re-located here, I donāt think there was a lot of choice except some poorly made, gas-guzzling, American cars. A few years later, when I was about ten, we had an Austin 1100 which was also excellent.
Then 10 years later I bought a Mini Cooper S (with the slider windows), and my wife and I a bit later had a Mini 1000. Very fun cars.
Thereās a lot of great jokes about the Lucas electrics, but the Brits always knew how to to design cars that embodied passion. The MGs, Spitfires, and TR 4/6s were also great.
But the headlight toggle had three settings: off, dim, and flicker ā¦
Lucas jokes abound but my teenage experience is that it didnāt matter which make you drove, electrics were a weak spot.
Thereās a great YouTube video with Norman Dewis telling the story of delivering the second e-type to Geneva in 1961 via an overnight drive from Coventry to Dover and Ostend to Geneva. When you dig into what that involved it was quite a feat. All on Lucas electricals Iād think.
No pictures to show unfortunately but this thread prompted me to reflect that Iāve always lived with a couple of miles or so from an airport and mostly within a mile of railway lines. Over the course of my life Iāve seen quite a few interesting civil and miltary aircraft and a few vintage trains of one kind or another. Iāve always had an interest and still keep my eyes peeled for anything a bit unusual.
Unusual one this. We visited Sarajevo, which was interesting in itself. On the corner of the street we parked on, the Zelenih Beretki is thisā¦.
It is a replica of the Graef & Stift double phaeton in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were murdered and is stationed by the spot from which that fateful shot was fired.
Nice tractor!
Chuffed past this morning