A tour of Colchester from 1986 - Mega shite content

[trigger]

A friend over on facebook posted this video up this morning, It was filmed by a Australian back in 1986 to take home to his partner as he was thinking of moving to Colchester at the time, The car is a Ford Fiesta, This is one of the best videos I've seen as i know all the roads he drives along at it's chock full of shite old cars, Well worth watching!

 

Part 1

 

Part 2

 

Part 3

 

Part 4

 

Part 5

[mk2_craig]

Thats freaking awesome. Fifty seconds into the first part and I had already mistaken the white Cav sportshatch for a 207 or something

[ProgRocker]

Was that learner car in part 1 (5 minutes in) a DATSUN STANZA ?! OMG! Think the reg was A??? SHK

[RoadworkUK]

Wowsers. I'm listing the way things have changed as they come up.

 

CANDOR Ford Trucks on Ipswich Road, now gone.

The garden centre on Ipswich Road roundabout, now a pretensious housing estate.

The Shell and Total petrol stations on East Hill, which were ridiculously right next door to each other, now both gone and flats put there instead.

Keddies department store on Queen Street, empty for years and about to be pulled down,

The patch of wasteland visible during the 3-door Stanza action sequence later had a four storey NCP built on it, which is ironically up for demolition soon!

Culver Square was obviously being constructed, hence the tower crane.

High Street is virtually unchanged.

Amazing how different the Hythe is without the road through opposite Autobreak.

Must have been filmed on a Sunday. It's ten times that busy any other day.

 

Thanks for posting this, Trig. Awesome.

[RoadworkUK]

Was that learner car in part 1 (5 minutes in) a DATSUN STANZA ?! OMG! Think the reg was A??? SHK

 

Yup. 3-door, too.

[trigger]

I forgot how wide and quiet the High Street used to be!, There's another covering Highwoods which is great, all the houses are still being built as well as Tesco's, There's a few old fashioned garaged out Rowhedge way as well and look at the shite cars most people drove, not like today.

[boobydoo]

Nice one, Trigglesworth.

 

Is that an Alfa Romeo Arna in Video 2 at 6:54?

[hairnet]

thats did noone get up ona sunday lol

 

how many freakin marinas <3

[trigger]

The days before Sunday Trading, Me and my work mate was talking about how much the Hythe has changed also how clean the town looked back then, not like now.

[Woody]

High Street is virtually unchanged.

 

Apart from being one lane now instead of two. I remember cruising round the town centre 'circuit' on a Friday and Saturday night in my Mazda 323 (white with white wheeltrims!), and racing the car in the opposite lane between traffic lights

 

The Shell and Total petrol stations on East Hill, which were ridiculously right next door to each other, now both gone and flats put there instead.

 

I lived there! Well, on the housing estate which the road between the petrol stations led to. And my primary school backed onto the Shell station.

 

Talking of petrol stations, I don't even remember the BP (?) one on Hythe Hill. And the Hythe area looks so different to how it does now.

 

Thanks for putting these up Trig, fascinating!

[RoadworkUK]

I lived there! Well, on the housing estate which the road between the petrol stations led to.....

 

I had mates up Brook Street and a girlfriend on East Hill. Some epic parties in that neck of the woods, late 90's, early 2000s....

 

Sigh.

[Woody]

late 90's, early 2000s....Sigh.

 

About the time I moved down to Clacton. Typical, I always miss the good stuff!

[RoadworkUK]

About the time I moved down to Clacton. Typical, I always miss the good stuff!

 

Yeah, we'll I'm in Frinton. You have to go to Colchester in order to meet anybody with a pulse.

[trigger]

I've just spent the last hour watching them all via my Blu-Ray player in the living room on a decent sized TV and it's much better, The Beige Datsun is A265 SHK and lasted until 1994 which wasn't bad going, Part 2 which is filmed around Rowhedge is great, the side streets are full of chod, the garage has two early Sherpa Luton vans and there's a Mk1 Escort with a massive front spoiler drive past, It's brilliant stuff!.

[oldford]

I used to frequently go to the Europcar office at Crescent Garage in the 1980s at the top of Pownall Crescent. The showroom was filled with the owners car collection, which were old even then, I recall a Jaguar SS.

 

I'll have a good watch of these at the weekend, thanks Trigger.

[Spottedlaurel]

Yes, I’ll make an effort to watch those over the weekend too. I visited Colchester regularly as a youngster, took driving lessons there from 1987 then worked there for a bit so it should be interesting and nostalgic viewing.

[rover420]

Great videos, Colchester was so much better in 1986 than it is today.

[trigger]

This is rather brilliant, the youtube uploader has now made another video retracing the same route as he done in 1986 and cleverly edited the original video in the corner so that you can see the differences today.

 

You'll need to watch it to understand what I'm on about but it's well worth a look!.

 

[In The Pit]

I love how he purposely clonks the handbrake up at the same point in the new one just like he did in 1986 (behind the Stanza).