That vandalised Ambassador...

[RichardK]

Really should drive one of these one day, if only to understand what my dad was thinking getting a new one in '82

[Inspector Morose]

There not that bad. Ride was sublime and well up to the standards of the day although the rest of the car did feel a little dated (not enough for it to be an issue) I used to own the white VP that was at the NEC this year. I bought it with a little under 3000 miles on it in 1999 from the wife of the first owner. It was as close to a brand new ambassador as there was at the time - even the exhaust was still silver in places. (It was bought as part of a bet between my dealer drinking buddies at the time to find the lowest mileage classic - I beat a 17000 mile ado16 automatic but was beaten by a 1700 mile ital. strangely all three cars were white)

[Guest Breadvan72]

Having recently experienced a two litre O Series (singe carb) for the first time, I have been impressed by what would I think have felt modernish in 1980 ish.  

[RichardK]

If it had been injected...

[Mr_Bo11ox]

And had a half-decent gearbox.....

[RichardK]

Even quarter decent, from what I've heard.

 

My dad's one lasted six months; it followed a sequence of:

Marina 1.8TC, Marina 1.3 + Mini 850 (the Mini lasted '79ish to mid '80s), Allegro Estate, Maxi 2 1750.

All bought because my uncle worked at Cowley and there were deals to be had. Of course the cars were varying quality - the 1.8TC was good apparently, the 1.3 went rusty and fell apart, the Mini was good, the Allegro was - I think - good, the Maxi was good, the Ambassador was terrible.

 

The Ambassador's plus points, as I recall, were power steering and the hatchback. The power steering leaked constantly. The suspension popped. At that point, the coal board exec he knew was upgrading and had a shiny Audi 80 that was available - Amby went, and the sequence after that was Audi 80, Passat 1.8 hatch + Polo, Passat GL5 estate + Golf GLi Cabriolet; VW lost him with the bootless B3 and the ugly Mk 3 Passat.

[Guest Breadvan72]

My dad sang the praises of his brown Princess, and it never let him down.  It belonged to BL, as he was at the time teaching Industrial Engineering at the BL Staff College (Haseley Manor near Warwick), and later was posted to run a Unipart subsidiary making exhausts in north Oxford (factory now a housing estate).  Then he was given a black Ambassador, and he thought it good at first but it let him down often.  He did not have it long, as BL wanted him and other managers to test the Maestro, so he got a red (or was it black?) one of those, which he drove like it was a rally car.  Then he opted for a mid to low spec 1.6 Montego in a sort of crimsony colour and kept that when he was paid off and re hired in the same job as a consultant.  He briefly had an allowance for two company cars, so my mum got a VdP Metro, which she kept after BL. 

[RichardK]

If your dad was working with Unipart, he probably knew my Uncle who did logistics for Unipart after being Cowley... I keep wanting to say "floor manager" but that sounds like something from the theatre...

 

Reckon if my dad had stuck with BL long enough for the Maestro/Montego to come on stream he'd have liked those okay. Other uncle ran Montego estates until the windscreens were practically falling out - one of his sons is SD1-mad.

[Guest Breadvan72]

My favourite uncle was a tool maker at Jaguar, and sadly had no children, so he and my aunt lived well, lavishing attention on my brothers and me as proxy children.  He had 1100s, and then bought himself a new Marina almost every year during the 70s.   Always blue, and usually reliable.  The Marinas did a lot of caravan towing and usually had golf clubs in the boot.  He then got an Ital, and that let him down.  

[Guest Breadvan72]

If your dad was working with Unipart, he probably knew my Uncle who did logistics for Unipart after being Cowley... I keep wanting to say "floor manager" but that sounds like something from the theatre...

 

Reckon if my dad had stuck with BL long enough for the Maestro/Montego to come on stream he'd have liked those okay. Other uncle ran Montego estates until the windscreens were practically falling out - one of his sons is SD1-mad.

 

 

Joe Clarke, a chatty Dubliner, dark hair, average height, liked a drink, told jokes, lifetime Socialist and Republican, Catholic Atheist, autodidact, read Joyce but preferred Dickens, loved Louis Armstrong, Verdi, and the Great American Songbook, liked women, women liked him, loyal husband.   He had started on the shop floor at Lucas in the early sixties, and got into BL management via training paid for by the Quaker paternalist Lucas organisation, and a stint at Rootes Chrysler.   In 1980 he was 42.  He died in September 2015.  He would have been 79 last week.  Now I have to stop typing.

[RichardK]

Definitely contemporary of my uncle, Colin Kilpatrick, then. He's mid 70s; not sure of his route into BL but my grandfather was (equivalent of) COO of British/United Steel, so had rather more respect/understanding of that than the publishing route my dad took (and thus, I ended up being part of). My other uncle went into computing.

 

Enquiry has been made

Have a pic of my Uncle with some French chod.

 

[Guest Breadvan72]

Your uncle appears to be a mighty cool dude.  The young bloke with the helmet on looks uncannily like a fifteen year old yoof that I slightly know, currently at Tonbridge School. 

 

It is funny how families end up doing careers - sons and nephews, daughters and nieces often drift into the same World that fathers and uncles (sometimes but currently less often mothers and aunts) occupied. Having done that 60s-70s social mobility thing, neither I nor any of my three brothers went into industrial jobs.  One doctor, one lawyer, one PR guy (the best one of us, and therefore the one who is dead), one hippy wastrel IT geek now working in elder care.  My daughter swears blind she will never go to the Bar, but I think that she may well end up doing so.  I am seriously not encouraging this, but it may just happen.  My nephew, whom I get on well with, is pissing off his doctor dad (who dislikes me, the feeling is not mutual) by becoming a barrister.  My dad's dad was a time served joiner and cabinet maker (he hated every second of it for fifty long years - he should have been an English Lit Don at Trinity College, Dublin, but life is not fair).   His two eldest sons did joinery too, but the rest of them ended up in factories, and mostly stayed on lathes until retirement. My dad pissed most of his brothers off a bit by becoming a boss.

 

Sorry for thread hijack, OP.    

 

SOMEBODY BUY THIS FABBY CAR!

[pompei]

Blimey that is a mixing pot for the careers master (mistress)

 

My dad was a teacher and pushed me to do better than he did.  His parents had pushed him into the ministry but he ran away in 1939 and joined the RAF.  He had always wanted to be a doctor but in those days that wasn't possible without money. So I was directed into law at University and decided against it as a career, much to parents' chagrin.  Dad then enrolled me onto a Post Grad course on running libraries to avoid unemployment.  I left after 3 weeks and went off to live in Hull careerless.  I "came good" in the end as a chartered surveyor but I, too, would actively discourage anyone from heading down that career route.  Serious point though: as you say, many people's fathers and grandfathers were tradesmen or skilled craftsmen and those days seem to have necessarily gone, taking many skills with them. 

 

Apologies also for continuing the OT element of the thread  

[Guest Breadvan72]

I wonder if there might be a story there about what happened in and after 1939. 

 

No one should study law as an undergraduate, and especially not people thinking of becoming lawyers.  The Americans have the right idea - law is only available as a postgraduate degree.  

 

I studied history, on a full grant.  The one year instant lawyer course (just add booze and shake vigorously) was at the Polytechnic of Central London. No grant, so I got a job in a bar and lived in a rancid kip on the Cally Road with two other skint studes.  Fees £500 a year.  I could have done the course at City University - fees £1000 a year.  I chose PCL. Nowadays the course is available at many places and costs about £18K a year at all of them.  The course was just a cram, and the Bar course (cost then £1,100, available only at one place, cost now £18K at all of the places) was another cram.  Then pupillage (unpaid - now we pay our pupils about 70K), and learning on the job.

 

AMBASSADOR FOR SALE - must be bought!

[dollywobbler]

This car is so cool that Chris Harris was tweeting about it this morning.

[MarvinsMom]

who's Chris Harris?

[stuboy]

who's Chris Harris?

dude off top gear?

[Skut]

Almost the only thing I remember of high school sex ed video was the it featured a beige Ambassador.   It featured an expectant father dashing to his Ambo to prepare it for the hospital dash.   There were hoots of derision at the 'old' car from some of the class even though it was only the 90s.   Nasty little brats who worshipped at the altar of Nike and their dads Cavaliers. 

[davocano]

You'll be able to see the Ambassador at the Austin Morris day, this Sunday at Brooklands.

 

https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/whats-on/austin-morris-day

 

I've been lurking for a few weeks and I have no idea how my first post will turn out or even if it will appear at all. Eyes closed, nose pinched, here goes...

 

[Guest Lord Sward]

Bloody Hell!  How many Moulton suspended cars in the photo?

[Lankytim]

Does anyone else think the Ambo is looking better with age?

[MarvinsMom]

yes, they have got better looking with age.

 

they were a fine looking car to start with, as was the wedgie princess before it.

 

sadly the ambro got such a cheapo dash board, compared to that fitted in the princess, the ambro one is crap.

 

but that is i guess, because the money had run out by the time they got to the dash!