Top 10 Sixties Rep-mobiles

[forddeliveryboy]

He didn't mean it as an accolade though.

 

No, but Betjeman's use of words to be scathing doesn't detract from the fact that he introduced the name 'Cortina' into his work. The other poems with motors referenced (he didn't dwell upon motor cars) are usually posh ones.

 

Gabled lodges, tile-hung churches

Catch the lights of our Lagonda

As we drive to Wendy’s party,

Lemon curd and Christmas cake

 

is from one of his better known works of poetry, Indoor Games Near Newbury.

 

He saw the revolution the motor car caused England and railed against the Cortina types, with all they brought with them:

 

Encase your legs in nylons,

Bestride your hills with pylons

O age without a soul;

Away with gentle willows

And all the elmy billows

That through your valleys roll.

Let's say goodbye to hedges

And roads with grassy edges

And winding country lanes;

Let all things travel faster

Where motor car is master

Till only Speed remains.

Destroy the ancient inn-signs

But strew the roads with tin signs

'Keep Left,' 'M4,' 'Keep Out!'

Command, instruction, warning,

Repetitive adorning

The rockeried roundabout;

 

from Inexpensive Progress.

[Sudsprint]

Betjeman's now nearly forgotten poem:

 

 

'Ode to this Sceptred Isle' 

 

'Forget the train, it's slow and boring

 Buy a Sceptre they're worth restoring

 

 Minx and Hunter are Arrow straight

 And an H120...now that is great

 

 Stuff the countryside and its birds  

 Buy Rootes cars, the rest are turds 

 

 Oh, and St Pancras needs flattening'

[brickwall]

Not sure you're altogether right about that, my grandad was an aircraft engineer living in a Northern engineering town and bought a Merc in the mid-sixties. I remember its total starkness but sense of indestructability and quality in the mid-seventies when it was still running like clockwork with well over 100,000 miles on it (almost unheard of at the time, it hadn't rotted, either). It raised a few eyebrows but he was a fairly well-respected guy and abuse didn't materialise, apparently.

 

Back then, German cars makers were still recovering after the war and their products weren't to everyone's taste. Even in the mid-80s, German meant very German. VWs and Audis had crap brakes, the gearing was often all wrong, BMWs only got going above the sort of revs most people were used to using when deliberately trying to wreck an engine and handling was designed without bends in mind. The only sop to the British market was swapping the steering wheel over.

 

Before that lie of all political lies when we joined the 'Common Market' in 1973, anything from our Euro chums had loads of import taxes slapped on it so choosing non British was an expensive option. A 1600cc Alfa may see off most UK motorway plod with ease (apparently you needed a two-litre one to outpace the stock Buick-engined Rovers, though - although I've heard of one P6 with 300hp under the bonnet on the M62 in the early 80s), who would also have had great difficulty keeping up with faster French shite both on and off the M-ways, yet foreign cars weren't just expensive and niche but complex, highly-tuned exotica which only wealthier or more eccentric types drove - those who didn't really have their feet on the ground. We even had special BritFords, designed down to match the Englishman's expectations and lack of sustained high-speed driving, in return for no import taxation. Even to this day, there are some - especially in the agricultural community round here - who perceive something French or German as very subversive.

 

 

My dad says that since their company did much MOD and other government departments' work, they would only have British cars and it would have been foolish to do otherwise.

 

"Don't piss off a minister"

[Sudsprint]

My uncle was not a rep' but probably one of that first generation of rail commuter, in that from the early 1960s he travelled 40 miles every day into the centre of London.

 

Through the 1960s and 70s he had:

 

Cambridge

Riley 4/72

Corsair 2000E

Hunter

Cavalier 

 

With its vinyl roof, metallic silver paint, auto transmission and wooden dashboard the 2000E was a lovely thing.

 

I can remember Easter Monday family outings to Seasalter (nr Whitstable) and Lenham with Ray puffing away on his pipe like Sid James. 

[aldo135]

I love Triumph 2000 mk1s, for the usual reason that my Dad bought a 16 year old giffer spec one in 1985 when I was 6, he thought it was a sports car after years of imps and A40s! I have loads of happy memories of this, which were tarnished a bit when I bought one myself about 10 years ago, as mine was a banger, rotten with near constant clutch hydraulic problems. So I did what 'shiters do up here, sold it and bought a Volvo 960!

 

I still love them, I'd just like the next one to be a good car! They look and sound great, and are a very comfy place to wait for a recovery truck...

[ProgRocker]

Back in Germany, there were various repmobiles in the 60s. One of them was the VW Beetle. The other one was the VW Beetle. And then, there was the VW Beetle, for all, who didn't like the aforementioned ones.

 

What about the Type 3s and Type 4s?

[gtd2000]

One of my dads pals (a pharma rep.) had a series of Hillman Hunters in the earlier part of the 1970's and saw out the decade with a Datsun Violet, a car that he still slates to this day as complete garbage, it's the only Japanese car he's ever driven...

 

He really has a thing about Japanese cars for some reason. Were the Violets really that bad? I suspect not!

 

After the Violet he had a never ending series of Cavaliers...

[Ratdat]

One of my dads pals (a pharma rep.) had a series of Hillman Hunters in the earlier part of the 1970's and saw out the decade with a Datsun Violet, a car that he still slates to this day as complete garbage, it's the only Japanese car he's ever driven...

 

He really has a thing about Japanese cars for some reason. Were the Violets really that bad? I suspect not!

 

After the Violet he had a never ending series of Cavaliers...

 

I don't quite understand how he'd think it was complete garbage. Uninteresting maybe. Slow, very probably. But like all Datsuns of that era they were very well built and unerringly reliable in a way that European manufacturers and particularly British ones could only dream of. Most of the ones I have had have been SSS coupes, both early and late, but I have had a couple of 710 saloons. The driving experience is somewhat underwhelming. Reasonably competent but the steering is quite woolly and certainly the 140J is SLOW. Maybe a 160J might be alright but the 140J really took a fair bit off effort to make progress. OK once going but really gutless at low speed. No idea what a late A10 Violet saloon is like as I've not had one but I suspect it might be a bit better as it's probably lighter. 

 

Datsun never quite conquered the Rep or Executive market despite some decent offerings. I don't think they were actually all that cheap and import quotas after '76 probably meant there was no realistic prospect of making fleet sales until the Sunderland built T72 Bluebird came along.

[gtd2000]

One of the things that he complained about was the lack of power....It may be that he went from driving a 1.8L Hunter to a 1.4L Violet?

 

He does say that it couldn't cope with being fully laden, like other cars could, but his explanation that heavier loads didn't affect them, defies the laws of physics.

 

I know that until my dear old dad bought a Datsun Sunny in 1983, all of our cars were famous for poor starting in the winter months.

 

Before the Datsun came along, it was a series of MK1 Cortinas then a Fiat 126 (I hated that car) during the fuel crisis period then a MK2 Escort Estate and the final Ford was a MK3 Cortina.

 

After the Sunny my dad bought a Nissan Bluebird 2.0SGL (C505SSG) which felt very posh indeed at that point in time

 

He was going to get the 2.4L Laurel but they had the Bluebird pre-reg'd (but un-used) for the dealer Manager or some nonsense and offered it at a price he couldn't refuse.

[brickwall]

I think the population at large need to understand that this was Post War Britain. A good jap/jeerman car was still "rubbish" even if it was good.

 

My mum would never ever have a German car until one day she drove an Audi 100 Quattro Avant - the car was duly purchased.

This was 1992 iirc, and she justified it to her conscience by telling me that because you could buy shares in the owning company it wasn't really  completely  German. It also had some Lucas parts in it too, which I think made her feel better.

 

She has never looked back.

[Sigmund Fraud]

I can't believe they have not included those marvellous machines :

 

 

Obscure and undesirable a few years back, they are now moving towards £silly rather fast.

[Squire_Dawson]

The good old Landcrab. The zenith of Issigonis' career.

[brickwall]

I always preferred the MK1

[Sudsprint]

I can't believe they have not included those marvellous machines :

 

 

Obscure and undesirable a few years back, they are now moving towards £silly rather fast.

A car with condensation on the inside and the outside ....now that is the sign of true autoshite.

[Junkman]

What about the Type 3s and Type 4s?

 

Interestingly, those were mainly bought by small business self employed types, particularly the Variants, which seemed to outsell the other body styles.

Especially the Typ 4s were also extremely short-lived. They only really appeared around 1970 and by the mid-seventies there were already hardly any left.

[RichardMoss]

60's repmobiles are more likely to be Standard 10s, Ford prefects and whatever base spec Vauxhalls could avoid rusting long enough to get on the road.  Later ones would have been stuff like HA Vivas, 1100cc Escorts or ADO16s, I'd have thought.

[AnthonyG]

Rover and Triumph 2000 were a class above 'repmobiles' and were also considered better than cars such as Westminsters, Crestas and Zephyrs, due to the quality of materials and build, and the thought that had gone into their design.

 

Very, very few non-British cars would have company bought until the mid 1970s. The NSU Ro80 is just about the most unlikely, as it was horrendously unreliable as well as foreign.

 

In the mid 1960s fleet managers were still suspicious of FWD, one reason the A60 Cambridge family and the Minor survived until the 1970s.

[AnthonyG]

Back in Germany, there were various repmobiles in the 60s. One of them was the VW Beetle. The other one was the VW Beetle. And then, there was the VW Beetle, for all, who didn't like the aforementioned ones.

The Opel Kadett was very popular as well. As as for the VW 1500 type 3 it was comfortably outsold by the smaller engined Ford Taunus as well as the Kadett.

 

The relative lack of success for the Type 3 was the first indication to VWs mgt that further development of air cooled cars might not be the answer for the long term prosperity of the firm.

 

The 411 confirmed this in a very dramatic fashion by being an absolute failure, a showroom dud in every market. The K70 was a toe in the water (it was designed by NSU), the Passat followed three years later.

[Junkman]

VW didn't have any management, it had a boss. And for Heinrich Nordhoff, it was air cooled flat four in the back, or walk.

Only after he died in 1968, VW could move on to different concepts. Had he lived longer, there would have been a Typ 5 that would have flopped even more dramatically as the Typ 4 did, and VW would have gone bust. Imagine how much nicer the world would be, if VW had folded in 1974, instead of launching this dreary Golf.