Childhood memories/your parents cars

[RobT]

In chronological order from 1975 onwards, mk1 Escort van ex-works one (we used to sit in the back on old sofa cushions, pre 'elf n safety days), Reliant Regal, Maxi 1750, then 1982 on Dad used to get a series of company pool cars including a Renault 18 estate, Mk1 Sierra Ghia, Alfa Sprint, Mk2 Cav estate, Renault 25 GTX which I loved, Renault 21 Savannah and a BX GTi that I used to thrash around the local hospital car park aged 14. He bought the R18 off his company he liked it so much and it was a comfy old thing, but was written off by some twat in an Anglian Windows van not looking where he was going.

[sheffcortinacentre]

i own more cars at present the my dad had throught out his life.

 

when i was born in 66 he had an early morris mini minor, replaced soon after by a beetle, then around 1970 a dark green corsair GT, then in 74 a K reg red mk3 1600L 4 dr cortina & lastly in 81 a dove grey mk5 1600L 4dr (which i still own) the only new car he ever bought & drove upto his death in 03.

 

i remember the bay city rollers cartridge in the 8 track in the mk3 & hearing "true or gold" by spandau ballet instantly takes me back to being in the mk5 on fri eves as a teenager travelling to our caravan at chapel-st-leonards on the east coast near skegness.

 

they where all just transport to him,so don't get my car obsession from him?

 

must be from all the 70's tv shows & a fascination of how things work & that they give you the freedom to go when & where you want.

my love of  mk3's esp prefacelift ones comes from muscle cars & not being able to affford one!! my 5.0 V8 2dr is my interpritation of them.

[trigger]

It's like a nostalgia fest on here tonight!

 

Having being into cars from a very early age and helping my dad in his work shop fixing his own cars as well as his friends cars, I've always paid a keen interest in what he's owned, the first car I can actually remember was this VX2300, this was in 1983 when I was 3, I still remember the blue velour interior and being travel sick in it.

 

Me and my dad October 1983. by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

You can just make out the Renault garage across the road in this photo, that had a big influence in my life too as my bedroom was opposite and I used to sit there watching all the cars come and go.

 

Me and my dad October 1983. by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

I can then remember a Gold Cortina GLS but I don't think we had that very long but I remember us having a blue Y reg Cortina 1.6 Crusader for a few years, something like 1986 to 1989, It never got used as my dad had a works van and mum couldn't drive at the time though.

 

I recall it looking like this but without the pinstripes.

 

 

After this dad bought a nearly new E reg Sapphire 1.8 LX with the full RS bodykit and Radiant red paintwork, Man i loved that car so much and it also explains my love for red RS bodykitted Fords now, we only had it a short while as for some reason the exhaust wasn't extended past the rear skirt and we all got carbon monoxide poisoning on the way to see family in Cambridge and passed out on the side of the A120, Dad got shot of it quickly after that.

 

 

It looked like this but with more spoilers.

 

For a brief while we owned this Metro, my dad hated it but my grandad, who ran a garage in Wales, sold it to us cheap for my mum to learn to drive in, I remember us doing the Horseshoe pass in it, 4 up and a weeks holiday luggage on the way back to Essex, it was hell.

 

1988 Austin Metro 1.0 at Feering 1990 by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

After that dad bought a blue Escort 1.3L Estate on a E plate, I still don't understand why they bought it as we never had it very long.

 

 

Again it was just like this but without the alloys and on the E plate, it came from Trimco's in Chelmsford.

 

dad then bought this Escort which we had until 1995, it was still going strong 3 years ago when i saw it a few doors up from a friends house.

 

Mum and Dad's old Ford Escort 1.3 L by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

After that they had a K reg Escort as seen in this photo, they had that until 2000 when they split up.

 

My old Ford Escort 1.3 Eclipse by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

[overrun]

Between my parents, I recall a mk2 Cavalier, a mk1 Fiesta Sandpiper, a mk2 Mini 1000, a mk1 Orion, a mk1 Sierra Laser estate, a couple of liftback Corolla's, a Pulsar GTi, a Corolla GTi, a mk5a Escort, a mk1 Mondeo Si, a Rover 420 GSi and a Freelander.

 

Woah. I always thought they didn't care about cars.

Granted, not much exciting there, but a lot of variety none the less.

[Junkman]

Aside from what I may or may not feel about Junkman's mother, my main emotion on reading this thread is one of envy for some of your childhoods.

Don't.

 

Even by the demanding standards set by British intellectuals, you could say my parents are outstandingly eccentric. However, they were hard working (in fact, my father still works at age 73) and both had their own businesses, not because they were shrewd entrepreneurs, but simply on the grounds that nobody would have hired such fruitcakes. My childhood was mainy spent in the bizarre world of fashion, yes, with models and all that shebang and fanfare (My mother: "What? Christmas? Again? We had Christmas last year, this year, we need something different!"), people of all sorts (if you get my drift) hanging about the house and all that sort of rot. I knew the scent of weed from an early age. It was a bit less dramatic at my father's, who had a dafting office for architecture, but that was located in the city centre, not a place where I could just venture after school. One of the guys that gave me some sort of a safe haven was Herr Heilmeier, I don't know his first name and I think nobody else did. He was a bit elderly and he worked for my mother as some sort of guy for everything, i.e. painter, decorator, electrician, plumber, driver, everyoneisfullofshithereteller if things became too colourful, etc. He was a chauffeur for some big Nazi brass back in the days ("Back then, one was somebody, but look at things nowadays!") and his little office/workshop down in the cellar was some sort of a refuge for me and a few of the kids from the hood. He also was a die hard Jazz fan, the real stuff, like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman and Charlie Parker and Herbie Hancock and Dave Brubeck. He retired when I still was a kid and I missed him ever since. When I saw the Blues Brothers movie the first time in 1980, Cab Calloway's character 'Curtis' reminded me a lot of him. Then there was Frau Zankl, she was from Czechoslovakia and literally jumped the wall during the 1956 uprising, still a student back then. She was still in her late 20s in the late 60s and worked as a model and seamstress for my mother. She can also be seen in the tights advert featuring my mom's Plein Air (I know who most of those women are). She could tell wonderful fairy tales she made up in her mind as she told them.

 

So. Mother is a fashion designer. Father is an architect. Boy is a petrolhead. Not a fucking chance in hell. When I announced that I want to study car design and mechanical engineering, I kicked off a bloody palace revolution. I then pursued a career in the automotive field in earnest and just because of that my parents have always disapproved of everything I ever did in life.

 

Sorry for boring you to death, but this thread reminded me of all this.

 

However, there are several relatives in my family that I love/loved and they had some wonderful cars. Shall I open a new thread for 'Childhood memories/your other relative's cars', or simply post them here?

If it's not too boring that is.

 

Oh, and Wilko: Your parents had a bloody nice car and I bet they are sound people.

[beko1987]

I do have pictures somewhere but:

 

Grandparents -

Mk2 Escort 3 door (don't remember that, seen pictures of me sat in the boot in it though)

Dreg pea green Nova 3 door which was part-exed for...

H reg Nova Deluxe Saloon in Blue (was fucking mint). Traded at 40k for...

X reg Astra 1.8. Traded as it was too fast for...

61 plate Kia something, which they still have. I give it a clean for them once a year!

 

Dad - (From when I was born)

D reg 2.0 Granada saloon, cloth interior

D reg Mk3 diesel escrot 3 door when the granada blew up

M reg Mondeo 2.0 (first company car)

V reg Galaxy 2.0 petrol (went to france every year in that, poor thing got abused)

52 plate Nissan Primera

Then he quite, set up on his won and got:

52 reg Alfa 157 (think) 2.0 twinspark

The nwhen the business sorted itself out he set up a company car account, and chopped the nackered clutch-less alfa for

56 plate Saab 9-5 Aerowagon, which turned into

58 (I think, he's had a private 52 plate on since the alfa) VW Eos, which turned into

2012 Ford S-Max

 

Stepmum

When dad met her, she had a Preg 1.8 golf

Then she had her mums 1.0 AX Spree

She had  2CV Dolly for a month or so as well, didnt keep it for long though

Smart ForFour Brabus (Lovely thing that was!)

54 plate Yaris (then she got a private plate too, saddo's)

09 plate Golf R32 on the company car scheme (Was nice as well, but still bland and boring)

Now she has a VW Touran.

 

Stepdad - 7

 

Had a sierra at some point, as the spare keys and manual are in the garage somewhere, as well as a towbar...

Had an escort at some point as he told me he rebuilt the engine in a weekend when it started eating oil

A cortina which he rolled in the early 80's

and from when mum knew him, he had gone boring with his director spec company car scheme and had:

V reg Red 1.8 Zafira

01 red 1.8 zafira

05 reg 1.8 red zafira (which was set on fire at just over a year old)

06 plate red 2.0 ecotek zafira, which he kept for ages as his company started being tight

and due to a switcharound at work he took delivery of a 100k 11 plate black CDTI zafira.

Next one will be red again, or he will retire and either give up driving or drive whatever small cheap, probably red car I can find him

 

Thats about it, my mum doesnt drive so she was boring!

[Tetleysmooth]

My mum and dad never ever owned a car.

Neither of them could drive.

So, as a consequence, I will not be taking part in this thread.

[JohnDeere]

My dad's been scanning his old slides, so I found some pics of automotive childhood.  Dad's always been a buy new, trade in after 4 or 5 years guy - not the Autoshite way.

 

The first car I ever drove, as a 2-year-old in 1973 was this beautiful* H-reg cable-shift Maxi.  It was traded in as a straight swap for the MGB-GT that preceded it (CUP 8G) as apparently my carry cot didn't fit in the back.  No shortage of room in a Maxi, though.  An 1100 ("rusty after a year") and a Midget came earlier.

 

 

This must have been just before the Maxi was chopped in for the BEST EVER car, a Citroen GS, RCT 84M.  In fact it must have been good as it was kept right through till 1980 - more on that in a sec after some pics of the 1100 (1965) and Midget (1967) before I was hatched - both quite arty pictures I think - 1100 is near Worksop, Midget near Arkengarthdale, North Yorks.

 

 

 

So to the air-cooled wonder of the GS.  My dad always tells the story of giving his work mates a lift to some meeting or another and them trying to stub out their cigs on the handbrake.  Happy days deserve a few photos...  First in Dewsbury, 1978.

 

 

And camping in Southwold (long before it became trendy...) I think this must also have been 1979, by which time you can see the GS starting to get a bit scabby along the door bottoms

 

 

Bonus Land Crab and general BL shite in the background in the second pic

 

 

Stay tuned for part two with even better camping chod...

[makum101]

[JohnDeere]

I promised more camping chod - and in 1978 this marvellous* 1968 Bedford CA Dormobile OVN 123G was procured - I think it lasted one season before the family discovered that it's a bit tedious packing everything away every single time you want to go anywhere.  And even more tedious driving to Wales in a reliable* 10-year-old van.  I remember it catching fire at one point, but only a bit.

 

 

When it was sold the lucky* buyer asked my dad what was underneath.  My dad replied "rust", which seemed to satisfy the purchaser and he drove off in a cloud of Luton's finest iron oxide.

 

Then the 1980s arrived and the GS (see previous post) was traded for an even better French car - a Renault 14.  MFW 241V came from Pocklingtons in Louth and lasted in the fleet for three years and three summer holidays to France, progressing from pulling a box trailer to a trailer tent and then a Casita folding caravan.  Over the Alps.  Which it managed with only a couple of warning lights coming on.

 

Here is is in 1980, a few months old on its first trip back home:

 

 

And three years later in Switzerland with the Casita, a train, and a brand-new Lada belonging to a fellow camper:

 

 

After that trip my dad decided that a bit more grunt was needed for towing, and the 14 was followed by a leap upmarket to a new 1.6L Cavalier in Reed Green from Twells of Billinghay.  First pic shows it brand new, camping in the snow in Youlgreave, Derbyshire.

 

 

And a great photo a few years later in 1986 in the Col de Cayolle in the French Alps

 

 

By 1987 though the caravan had grown to a full-size Swift, so the Cav was swapped for a rare (for my dad) second-hand purchase - but definitely posher - the arrival of the Ovlov 740GL saloon, B738 GVL from Deacon Motors in Lincoln.  This did a much more exotic trip to Hungary in 1987 - pic below - needless to say a Volvo stood out quite a bit on an Eastern European campsite filled mostly with Trabis and Skodas - unfortunately I don't have a pic showing the 740 surrounded by Commie Shite.

 

 

And the final car before I left home was a new 740GL estate, G849 VTL - I don't have a pic to hand but you know what they look like.

[fotorabia]

Junkman and i ..hmmmm.. Architects as fathers...but my mine was a safe Public Works Govt type...we lived in rural NSW-Australia..and whilst other families had Mk10 Jags and other cool shite... tight arse Scots George went for Anglicised shite...I was brought home from the depository in one of these..Austin 1100 in green....which he had for a few years....we came across it broken down..and Dad helped the fella push it off the road..had been fitted with red seats..later on the fella died iin it..

note..that is not my Mum...

 

Then he ordered a brand new Austin Tasman..just as Australian Leyland was about to die...and Mum went and got thrown off a stallion ..broke her back..so he had to get special orthopedic seats which cost an arm and a sore back..

 

When Mum was better..she divorced poor old father George..left him with his already failing Austin..and we came back to Scotland...where i was bedazzled by Granddads V12 fuel injected E-Type roadster..Granny's 1275 GT Mini..and the Boss 302 Mustang which my auntie used to borrow off a friend...Mum needed wheels..so the scrapyard in Ft William provided us with one of these...

 

This t-rusty old van eventually was covered in Jim Russel Racing Driving School stickers where my aunt worked as a skid pan instructor..and it even made it all the way to Norfolk once...eventually the rear suspension went thru the floor...so Grand-dads engineering firm gave us a Mini Van..which had been resprayed a Royal Blue espesh for us...u could still see the original sign writing underneath..rego...WWS623K...a true wonder of a car that rarely failed us...

 

Mums boyfriend John wrote off a baby blue 4dr Mk1 Ford Escort whilst on the piss...that was temporarily replaced by a rotten Riley 1500..Mum gave him the boot and then in 1981 she married me step-dad and I was shipped off to Australia to live with father George...no comment...apart from Mazda 323's and a Subaru Leone Coupe 2WD..urgh...

 

Then I came back all street experienced aged 18 and Mum and Chris had one of these ..a dizzler ..fantastic car i was never allowed near...

The End

[srad34]

Growing up in the 1970's and 80's was shite tastic!

 

Mum & Dad

• White Maxi - written off by a caravan in Cornwall (good)
• Dark Green Morris Marina - scrapped
• Beige Mk2 Cortina 1.6 super - scrapped
• Red Mk2 Escort 1.3L, mint, sold to my Aunty who promptly wrote it off (cow)
• D reg Beige Sierra 1.6 estate - ex company car....scrapped after it was 75% papermache...
• Following this was a selection of mid late 90's Ford shite....ending up with a 98 Focus Estate with dodgy electrics...   

Grandparents

• Gold Mk3 Cortina 1.3
• Copper orange Talbot Alpine 1.6 rattlebox,
• MK5 Cortina 1.6 bidmobile in beige
• Renault Clio 1.2 shite

Pretty grim stuff really. The only one I wanted was the Red Mk2 Escort. I used to clean it for an old lady we bought it off, it had 23k on the clocks and was mint. We sold it to my aunty (much to my disappointment), even more so when the daft cow wrote it off    

[oman5]

My dad had epic shite over the years.

I was bought home from hospital in a 1958 Cresta PA. this was 1974, so it was already terminally rotten. got scrapped after someone rear ended it. the garage  tried to jack the damage back out and the jack punched clean through the body.

 

1970 Hillman avenger 1250. lasted all of 6 months before it shat its bottom end out. notable because it came from the factory in dogshit brown with a custard yellow roof.

 

1968 Escort 1100 estate. scrapped at 10 years old as terminally rotten.

 

1973 Vauxhall Vx490. an epic car and the only one I remember fondly. lasted 4 years before being traded in for 50 quid (it was rotten and only did 24 mpg) against a 1974 mini 1000.

 

The mini lasted 4 months before being written off in an RTA.

 

Morris 1800. an utter POS. it had a lump of wood holding the headlamp in where the inner wing was rotten. shat its waterpump, alternator and clutch master cylinder all within a week. got scrapped, unsurprisingly.

 

1972 Mk3 cortina estate. this was an amazing machine. bought for 250 quid in 1985 and lasted with minimal maintenance until 1991.

 

1983 Austin Ambassador. It was very rare when something wasn't wrong with this. it had a habit of popping out the bottom suspension mount. that one got swapped for a 1979 Princess.

 

Once I was old enough to drive I started finding cars for my dad. I found some decent ones too which dad still managed to ruin.

 

I got him a 1981 Metro. amazingly rust free and tidy. my younger brother borrowed it and crashed it.

 

also found him a mint one owner mk3 escort 1100, someone drove into the side of it and wrote it off.

 

SD1 2600. another good car that lasted for ages on minimal maintenance. scrapped due to advanced body rot.

 

1986 audi 100 used to be mine, gave it to dad. lasted 2 years before he ran it out of oil and killed it. after that it was anonymous stuff like sierras, pug 106, that was reliable just time expired by the time he got them.

 

His last car was a 1997 Golf 1.9d estate. I was asked by the family to sell it on after he passed away and it's still going strong on 180k.

 

I have many happy memories of time spent in AA trucks and stranded on hard shoulders. god bless ya dad. 

[Keymaster]

I never realised at the time, but my dad is a bit of a shite hero... none of the pics are his actual cars unfortunately

 

not long after i was born in 1980, he invested in a sensible family car, a P reg white avenger estate similar to this. I have no memories whatsoever of this car other than looking at pictures of it.

 

 

he took over the family greengrocers, so briefly had a sherpa minibus for lugging the stock about, all i really remember of it being perilously balanced on the seats in the back & the smell of dirt & cabbages!

 

 

Then with business booming, he went all "posh" at my mums insistence & bought a nearly new Lada. I recall going to the dealers with them... even at the age of 4 i knew this was a bad idea & wanted him to get a red mk2 escort. They just laughed & gave me an orange flavour lollipop. My future taste in cars was unfairly influenced from this point forward...

 

 

My grandad somehow managed to snap the axle on the Lada, killing it off. So for a very brief period of time I was delighted as my dad was running around in my uncles TR7. Pop up headlights FTW & I had images in my 6 year old head of solving Liverpool's crimes knight rider style. Sadly though, this wasnt to be, as 2 seaters are no good for a family of 5... S reg Fiat 128's on the other hand were ideal according to my dads warped mind... I think rust killed it within a year... I recall vividly him rebuilding one of the back doors with chickenwire, newspaper & wob. Win.

 

 

By now, its 1987, the Fiat is dead & the business has failed. My dad is a skint student trying to support a wife 3 kids a cat, dog and hamster. His choice of transport is severely limited by a lack of cash... resulting in him turning up one rainy winter night with what was almost certainly a cut & shut Mk1 Cavalier 1600L... resplendent in 2 shades of maroon, a 1800 engine & a GL interior. I'm pretty sure it turned out the rear footwells were made out of cardboard and underseal. This car gave me my first experience of scrappies, when we went to one on the dock road to get a "new" radiator fan. I was using the scrapped cars like a massive climbing frame, happy days.

 

 

 

The Cav was with us a couple of years, but the boot couldnt take the strain of a growing family, so around 1990 a deal was struck with my uncle... cash plus car for a 3 year old C reg Lada Riva Estate in autoshite beige. The Lada had recently survived a front end smash with a Fiesta... the steel girder front bumper was dented but that was it... the Fiesta was written off. One consequence of the crash was that the horn went off whenever we turned left....

The Lada was with us forever, or at least it felt that way. Until very recently it was probably what he would insist was the most reliable car he had... it never needed anything other than basic maintenance & the only reason he sold it was cos a Russian exporter knocked on the front door & offered to buy it for much more than it was worth, in fact more than my dad paid for it 4 years earlier. Turns out they thought it was a G reg, but the front number plate had delaminated & the prefix wasnt readable ha ha!

 

 

So in 1994 the Lada was replaced by a 1988 BX 16RS Estate in cream. It was ace, but an unreliable POS, loads of electrical gremlins, the suspension wouldnt raise to top height, heater matrix failed, the list was endless. After a 2 week camping holiday in France we got off the ferry at southampton... 3 miles into our 6hour drive home at 11pm, the rear subframe failed... the recovery company sent Terry Nutkins to pick us up & drive us back to Liverpool... no problem except he told us he had just got back from Edinburgh & hadnt slept for 20 hours. BX was repaired & killed in 1995 when my dad rear ended someone after "being distracted by some birds"

 

 

Next up a 1987 Renault 21 1.7 TS. This was surprisingly reliable for a Renault. I hated it. It only had 1 speaker FFS! Thankfully, it died within 2 months of me getting my licence with OMGHGF.

 

 

1998 By now my dad had paid off his student loans etc so treated himself to something that was at the time half decent.. a 1993 ZX 1.9D. It was a great car. Even for an 18 year old driving his dads car it had a bit of kudos with my mates... stardust music sounds better with you on loop in the tape player. It lasted 7 years, had covered a total of 190,000 miles & apart from 3 clutches (my dad has a famously unsympathetic left foot) needed nothing but basic servicing & consumables up until the engine failed in 2004. 

 

 

Since 2004 he has been running a V reg Almera 1.4 that he bought from me. Its the most reliable car he has had, it has taken untold punishment on a daily basis from me & my dad for the last 11 years & has never needed any major mechanical work. Only now is it reaching the end of its life... its sills needed to be done for the last MOT & rot is starting to take hold, I reckon its got a couple more years in it though!!

 

 

Boss.

[Stroller133]

When I was born my Dad had a Bond Bug, but shortly after/just before bought a Bond 875 3wheeler as a "family friendly car" Then a late trotter spec regal van in a creamy brown colour - an L reg if I remember correctly. The first car I remember him buying was an early Reliant Robin super 750 estate GUK xxxN in fetching bright yellow. I remember expecting a rear door on only one side as u was told it was a three door - in my defence I was only 3!

 

At this point the Bond Bug, Bond & Regal were all still parked outside the house - we must have been popular in close where the houses were only built 3 years earlier in 1979.

 

The Robin had numerous issues and was often off the road, my dad had a brand new Honda C90 for work but at this point he often borrowed a Regal saloon off his mate for family duties - it was hand painted maroon/purple.

A couple of years later another yellow N-reg Robin was acquired and by now the Bond Bug had been sold to a guy who used it to build some extreme custom car.

 

The second Robin was a saloon (actually a hatch but only glass lifted) in the same yellow colour. It was also temperamental and often in need of repair. The plan was for Dad to build up and fit a later, more powerful* 850 engine in one of these Robins. Every Friday a chap used to call round and drop off a different component - we lived in Tamworth and this chap worked at the Reliant factory, draw your own conclusions?

 

By now the drive was full, so my Dad hacksawed up the Bond and then the Regal van in the drive and loaded up the dustbin each week until they were gone!

 

My memories of the Robins are of tearing my legs off the vinyl seats during hot summer days and thinking that 50mph was a fast exciting speed! Dad claimed to have had 85 on his way to work out of the saloon, I remember see 65 once and thinking we might end up in a different time zone.

 

In about 1987 my Grandads W-reg Yellow Marina 1300L that he had nearly new was a bit shabby. He paid £300+ for a dodgy respray and nearly didn't get the car back as the bodyshop went bust. Within months the rust was coming through, so actually a factory standard respray. Shortly after he bought a nearly new Montego 1.6 HL saloon. He was only offered £50 p/x so gave it to my Dad.

My Dad only had a bike licence so couldn't really drive the Marina, but the following week the working yellow Robin broke down and the Marina became the new daily. Me and my brother genuinely thought it was sheer luxury with its velour seats, back doors, armrest and a wheel at each corner - burnt my finger checking the fag light worked.

Can't remember what happened to the Robins - I think one was sold as scrap and the other may also have been hacked up and binned. With no use for the 850 engine by the time all the bits were amassed this was sold cheaply to his mate who lent us the regal. He had a Robin by now and my Dad seemed to spend every other weekend fixing it for him so let him have the new engine to reduce the amount of attention it required.

 

The 4 wheeled years to follow....

[inconsistant]

...a bit less dramatic at my father's, who had a dafting office for architecture, 

 

Given some of the questionable stuff that gets put up these days I'm not sure if this is a typo or not?

[Junkman]

Not sure whether I understand what you are referring to.

[Stephenb]

On 10/21/2013 at 8:50 PM, JohnDeere said:

I promised more camping chod - and in 1978 this marvellous* 1968 Bedford CA Dormobile OVN 123G was procured - I think it lasted one season before the family discovered that it's a bit tedious packing everything away every single time you want to go anywhere.  And even more tedious driving to Wales in a reliable* 10-year-old van.  I remember it catching fire at one point, but only a bit.

 

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5512/10390695983_afe395aa16_c.jpg

 

When it was sold the lucky* buyer asked my dad what was underneath.  My dad replied "rust", which seemed to satisfy the purchaser and he drove off in a cloud of Luton's finest iron oxide.

 

Then the 1980s arrived and the GS (see previous post) was traded for an even better French car - a Renault 14.  MFW 241V came from Pocklingtons in Louth and lasted in the fleet for three years and three summer holidays to France, progressing from pulling a box trailer to a trailer tent and then a Casita folding caravan.  Over the Alps.  Which it managed with only a couple of warning lights coming on.

 

Here is is in 1980, a few months old on its first trip back home:

 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7343/10390327186_51aa7ebac4_c.jpg

 

And three years later in Switzerland with the Casita, a train, and a brand-new Lada belonging to a fellow camper:

 

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5484/10390575443_592e993e05_c.jpg

 

After that trip my dad decided that a bit more grunt was needed for towing, and the 14 was followed by a leap upmarket to a new 1.6L Cavalier in Reed Green from Twells of Billinghay.  First pic shows it brand new, camping in the snow in Youlgreave, Derbyshire.

 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7393/10390552583_88d0dd231e_c.jpg

 

And a great photo a few years later in 1986 in the Col de Cayolle in the French Alps

 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7346/10390426413_cbc51a27ec_c.jpg

 

By 1987 though the caravan had grown to a full-size Swift, so the Cav was swapped for a rare (for my dad) second-hand purchase - but definitely posher - the arrival of the Ovlov 740GL saloon, B738 GVL from Deacon Motors in Lincoln.  This did a much more exotic trip to Hungary in 1987 - pic below - needless to say a Volvo stood out quite a bit on an Eastern European campsite filled mostly with Trabis and Skodas - unfortunately I don't have a pic showing the 740 surrounded by Commie Shite.

 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7396/10390444123_b613aa0efc_c.jpg

 

And the final car before I left home was a new 740GL estate, G849 VTL - I don't have a pic to hand but you know what they look like.

my father bought this car in 1999, and sadly in 2000 the head gasket failed and she went to the scrap yard, thses photos was taken a few months before