Unlikely Autoshiters

[Junkman]

Billy Joel has a 2cv.

 

Apparently not anymore.

 

[AnthonyG]

Either Tessa Jowell or Harriet Harperson had a Mk1 Rover 800 fastback, which must have been at least 18 years old when I saw it on the news as she was being door stepped by a journo over something or other.

 

Other politicos:

 

Peter Mandelbum - Rover Sterling

Tony Bliar - H reg Montego estate, the Mirror papped it in a church car park in 97 and ran a quick article on 'Blair's banger' (it was a bit of a shed with a dented wing)

Norma Major - B reg Montego which she turned up to the 1991 G8 summit in

Liam Fox - Rover 75

Ed Miliband - 2000ish Ford Focus.

Thatch was given a Maestro by BL when they came out, not sure if she ever used it (or if Denis pranged it after a couple of gins down the club)

Winston Churchill 'owned' an Austin Cambridge in 1964, given he died a year later and was famously averse to driving it is unlikely he was aware of it, although he may well have been ferried around in it.

Ted Heath had a Victor FB in the 1960s.

Clement Attlee had something pretty basic which he and his wife drove around the country when campaigning for the 1945 election. I think it was a Hillman Minx or similar.

[AnthonyG]

The late great Norman Wisdom had a few Sunbeam Stiletto,s to hoon about in even when he could afford far better .

I think Norm was 'in' with the Rootes Group, or the family, as one of his films featured a Hillman Imp when it was very, very new, i.e. probably filmed before the official launch.

[Angrydicky]

I'm sure I remember reading about Saddam's vast collection of old motors he kept in a bunker in Iraq, in Practical Classics. They interviewed a US soldier who was instructed to destroy the cars soon after the 2003 invasion. He said he was "heartbroken" at having to destroy a '57 Bel Air, which he ran over with a tank or something.

[saucedoctor]

Denis Thatcher at one point had a pretty ropey looking boggo mark 3 Cortina estate. Denis was fabulously well-heeled.

 

The Chingford Skinhead had a MG Maestro (possibly 2)
 

 

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1983/09/16/AS160983014/

 

[Ghosty]

When Jimmy Carr went on Top Gear he admitted to driving a Rover 75 - I wonder what he's in now?

[Taff]

_{I have a vague idea that the singer from Def Leppard had a Renault 12 estate?}

[Timewaster]

Steve "love the show" Wright has got a P38!

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1205133/How-Steve-Wright-workout-just-Range-Rover-garage-hand.html

 

I don't see him posting that pic on his Soshal Meedjah!

[Sloth in a bowl]

Jools Holland has a history with bad cars, from the interview with him at http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/features/motoring/cartorque/10086356.print/

 

What was your first car?

THE first car was a Rover 110 from 1964 and it coincidentally cost £110. It was guaranteed for three years or 300 yards, whichever came first. It was bought down the docks from a scrapyard in what is now the home for the O2 dome. Before all that was built it was Blackwall Reach and it was in the little warren of scrapyards and second hand car part places that used to be down there. It was glistening, even though it was a bit rusty, and I saw it and fell in love.

Tell me one driving anecdote from your past?

Years ago we made a film in New Orleans and we had an Oldsmobile 88, a 1970s one, which had a 7.0 litre engine in it. It was a fantastic 1970s gas guzzler, but we wanted a convertible so we got Lee Dorsey, the noted New Orleans singer, who also happened to have a garage, to cut the roof off for us. As the film progressed the car, because we didn’t have the chassis strengethened, was slowly buckling up. By the end of the film you couldn’t open the doors.

[Sloth in a bowl]

There is some odd random stuff on this http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/features/motoring/cartorque/

 

SALLY Boazman is perhaps better known as BBC Radio 2’s “Sally Trafficâ€Â...

 

What was your first car?

My very first car was a Hillman Imp, above, the one with the engine in the boot and the boot in the engine. I bought it before I took my test, so we bonded from an early age. Once I passed my test, I drove all over the country embracing my new found freedom. When the time came for it to go to the knackers yard, I sat in it for at least an hour, in tears, explaining why it had to die.

[Justin Case]

Jools Holland has a history with bad cars, from the interview with him at http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/features/motoring/cartorque/10086356.print/

 

No mention of his Mark 1 (?) Transit Luton, just like when he first started touring, his A110 Westminster which appeared in one of his telly programmes, or his Rover Jet 1 copy. Does he still own them?

[robinmasters]

I had a VW polo that was once owned by Paul O'Grady. It had been written off in a front ender.

 

 

There's a very un-PC joke in there desperate to get out.

 

Tina Turner once bought an Avenger from me.

Did it have damp carpets? That would explain the Steamy Windows.

[sheffcortinacentre]

june brown had a yellow 100E at one point.

Patrick moore had an E493A prefect upto his death.

jon culshaw has 2 mk3 Cortina's & a mk1 Granada.

[Stroller133]

Junkman Wrote:

"Michelle Pfeiffer collects Letter Series Chrysler 300s and does a lot of work on them herself.

I once ran into her when she was rummaging for parts at my then favourite scrapyard in Yermo, CA."

 

This really made me laugh, brilliant!

[DSdriver]

Ray Davis of The Kinks (Waterloo Sunset and other notable ditties) used to, maybe still does, have a Light 15 Traction Avant Citroen.

 

I used to have Peter Frampton's push bike.

[DSdriver]

Junkman Wrote:

"Michelle Pfeiffer collects Letter Series Chrysler 300s and does a lot of work on them herself.

I once ran into her when she was rummaging for parts at my then favourite scrapyard in Yermo, CA."

 

This really made me laugh, brilliant!

It sounds like something out of that radio programme where they had to guess which of three outrageous sentences was true.

[Junkman]

It sounds like something out of that radio programme where they had to guess which of three outrageous sentences was true.

 

It looks like all of them are.

[Essex V6]

Didn't Patrick Moore have a Triumph 2000?   Willie Rushton, the late satirical writer and some-time panellist drove a battered P4 Rover long after he could have afforded something else.   Both these gents seem to represent the archetypal owners of such cars, too.

I seem to recall him also having a Mk1 Fiasco which was quite elderly in years

[HillmanImp]

The late great Norman Wisdom had a few Sunbeam Stiletto,s to hoon about in even when he could afford far better .

Used to live near him when I was young, I think he had got shot of them by then as I sadly never got to see him in them.

 

He did come through my checkout when I was a drone at Sainsburys once. I was a little dissapointed that he simply paid for his food with a cheque and went on his way instead of shouting 'Mr Grimsdale! Mr Grimsdale!" and then throwing himself on the floor.

[Slappy]

Forgive me for this one, as it would have been fairly new at the time, but about a year or 2 after Little Britain started, and revived his career, Tom Baker used to pop to my cousin's butchers in a Citroen Berlingo Multispace. I also remember him passing by once with a massive pot plant sticking out the sunroof .

 

I hope he still has it.

[Essex V6]

Forgive me for this one, as it would have been fairly new at the time, but about a year or 2 after Little Britain started, and revived his career, Tom Baker used to pop to my cousin's butchers in a Citroen Berlingo Multispace. I also remember him passing by once with a massive pot plant sticking out the sunroof .

 

I hope he still has it.

The pot plant or the Berlingo?

[Slappy]

Gah, twas far too early on a Friday morning for pedantry!

 

Erm, both!

[HillmanImp]

Pot plant as in the plant was pot or it was a plant in a pot?

[Pillock]

That article on Steve "only 14 stone, honest" Wright clambering out the boot of the P38 is proper funny....

 

Also funny is my phone wanting to autocorrect his name to Steve Weight.

[sierraman]

Didn't Ricky Tomlinson have a clapped out astra?

[Felly Magic]

What about Richard Hammond and his love affair with a battered Opel Kadett, which he got shipped home from Africa? I'm sure he had a sooty cock after that African jaunt

[Jon]

In 2009 I worked on a short film which an emerging director produced to show his capabilities to those interested (none, I'd image - it was a pretty crappy experience). The lead actor was Patrick Baladi (had to IMDB his name), who played the bloke called Neil who was the rival manager at Wernham Hogg in the second series of The Office. Turns out that the limelight of projects past had allowed him to buy a diesel 206, which he used to tow his trailer tent with, according to an eavesdropped conversation with another cast member. My admiration for the man increased a little at that point.