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Eye-catching black and whites


forddeliveryboy

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21 minutes ago, JeeExEll said:

AZbcaXn.jpg

 

Amazing stuff. What is very noticeable is how many cars have been personalized or altered in some way - the Cortina for example has some sort of sports steering wheel - unless it is original? And note the ariel punched through the scuttle.

Or the cars have bodged repairs. There are very few 'old cars' - 50's and before and where the are to be seen they are in scrap yards.  Some of it to do perhaps with the local climate - me starting driving in the 70's - there were still quite a lot of 50's cars about in London -I had a few and they were not difficult to find. But its drier here and less salting of roads in winter. Going from Manchester up towards the Pennines  the weather can be brutal - and it must have been so for many rust-trap cars.

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12 minutes ago, artdjones said:

Have some of these pictures been made to look grimmer than they really were?Or maybe the photographer only took photos on gloomy days.If you look closely,this is quite a nice road 

You are right - it does depend what the photos were taken for.  If they were taken say by the Manchester Corporation official photographer they could have been to do with redevelopment - pictures of the worst grot- spots or areas earmarked for demolition or identifying other problems. All photography has a 'point of view'.

An amazing snapshot of a time and place - how easy to forget how different the recent past often was. In contrast David Bowie was singing Ziggy Stardust around the time some of these were taken.

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So much to enjoy in this thread.

The Daimler, Pontiac, Zodiac convoy looking like something out of Get Carter or Robbery.

The Ashley or Fibresports or whatever hardtop on the Spridget.

The Lancia 2000 Berlin’s behind the P5B and Sovereign ( and Skoda) probably more rare and expensive as the big Brit bruisers when new.

And I’d agree with @lesapandre about the effects of environment on longevity, in 1975 we moved to West Wales and at first I thought everybody was much richer than in Birmingham, until my Dad pointed out cars just didn’t last as long there, hence I wasn’t seeing the old Farinas,Crestas and the like I was used to. People tended to have newer but equally scruffy Escorts  etc .

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The other thing that struck me is how the area was a bit of a graveyard for (then) undesirable cars.

You'd think there would be more economy cars in this poor-ish area, but my memory of the 70's that the really cheap cars were the less economical middle ground stuff - Audax Minx's were usually super cheap - I had a couple of £35 ones drive away, likewise Humbers, bigger BMC cars etc. 'Oddball' cars were usually a bargin too - hence the Skodas other  perceived high-maintenance 'foreign cars'. 

Some of that was down to image, but quite a lot down to fuel consumption - petrol was, in relative terms, expensive in the 70's. Mini's and the like were therefore more valuable and sought after - and those seeking the cheap got the undesirables instead.

I can also remember non-MoT unpopular cars literally being given away.

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2 hours ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

So much to enjoy in this thread.

The Daimler, Pontiac, Zodiac convoy looking like something out of Get Carter or Robbery.

The Ashley or Fibresports or whatever hardtop on the Spridget.

The Lancia 2000 Berlin’s behind the P5B and Sovereign ( and Skoda) probably more rare and expensive as the big Brit bruisers when new.

And I’d agree with @lesapandre about the effects of environment on longevity, in 1975 we moved to West Wales and at first I thought everybody was much richer than in Birmingham, until my Dad pointed out cars just didn’t last as long there, hence I wasn’t seeing the old Farinas,Crestas and the like I was used to. People tended to have newer but equally scruffy Escorts  etc .

And yet on the East Coast I can remember going to Frinton, Walton and especially Clacton during the eighties and early nineties and it wasn't uncommon to see retirees still driving sixties cars. 

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3 minutes ago, Amishtat said:

And yet on the East Coast I can remember going to Frinton, Walton and especially Clacton during the eighties and early nineties and it wasn't uncommon to see retirees still driving sixties cars. 

I was in Walton on the Naze last week and I they still are !

Probably not as much salt and shit ( literally) on the roads , also in rural Wales lots of distance covered in day  to day life. 15 miles to school, 10 to shops, 5 to the pub etc is not uncommon.  Mostly on single track roads, pulling into verges and muddy gate was to pass , etc.

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