HMC architecte britannique

[lesapandre]

"dull, worthy and rusty." 😉

Incredibly made up in Morris form to 1972 - I bet there were a few hanging about the showrooms in 73/74  - meanwhile Cortina went through three iterations. BMC sold these at little profit too.

Perfect!

They have a particular Austin smell inside.

The floor pedal on the right you may press down - but little happens.

 

[Cookiesouwest]

Great buy. My dad's 2nd car was one of these. First car I can remember.

[comfortablynumb]

Last time I was on the isle of wight, we ended getting one of these as a taxi back to the ferry, because we'd missed the last train.

Awesome, but one of the scariest journeys I've ever been on, no fault of the car.😱

[Dobloseven]

They show up regularly on Heartbeat.

[montytom]

Lovely looking cambridge little bit younger than my wolseley they really are lovely cars

[lesapandre]

They are a time-portal to the middle-class 1960's - the Daily Express, Hush Puppies and St Bruno pipe tobacco.

[Shite Ron]

The Cambridge is fantastic, not at all what I expected from the title. I have been lusting after these lately and often wondered if I had been born ten or twenty years earlier would I have been obsessed with these rather than Cortina’s. Your current fleet is fantastic with a Rover 75 as an interesting modern car and the Cambridge and Austin 12 outstanding great cars, far from dull and ideal for current speed limits. I have been doing a lot of driving with work lately and with around 50% of the motorways at 50 mph and the ridiculous 20 mph limits elsewhere I think a Cambridge would be an ideal touring car, I have never driven one but always loved them since my childhood.

[barefoot]

On 09/01/2025 at 23:54, somewhatfoolish said:

It's not a clutch, the pedal just tells the box to shift. How it works.

Apologies for brief hijack, but if it's in the 'wrong' gear, will the fluid flywheel slip and smooth things out? Also, did Bartons buses use a p/s box?

ta

[danthecapriman]

Ooff, love the Farina! And the 12 too actually but those Farina’s are just lovely cars. A box I’ve fancied ticking for ages.

I definitely wouldn’t describe them as dull though. Look at it! Fins & chrome!😄

[somewhatfoolish]

A bit, but you can still stall if you get it wrong. Preselect boxes were fitted to lots of buses, but you'd need a buslicker for that kind of detail.

  

13 minutes ago, barefoot said:

Apologies for brief hijack, but if it's in the 'wrong' gear, will the fluid flywheel slip and smooth things out? Also, did Bartons buses use a p/s box?

ta

 

[DSdriver]

On 18/01/2025 at 21:44, lesapandre said:

I like to think that they have come through a time portal from the past.

The Autoshite singularity strikes again, although this might be before the previous strike.

[Matty]

I've had a massive semi for one of these for an age. One out one in at our house though and I'm not finished with the miniature Farina yet.

[bigstraight6]

5 hours ago, montytom said:

Lovely looking cambridge little bit younger than my wolseley they really are lovely cars

Thas bleddy ansom with its Devon reg, HMC’s Cambridge is my favourite colour for one of these…

[Matty]

4 minutes ago, bigstraight6 said:

Thas bleddy ansom with its Devon reg, HMC’s Cambridge is my favourite colour for one of these…

Isn't it just. Good looking cars. Has anyone told @morrisoxideyet? 😄

[morrisoxide]

Nice one.

A chap near me has started using this as his daily.

Not my pic but I've seen it driving about.

[wuvvum]

Lovely that.  1489 or 1622?  I forget when they changed over.

[danthecapriman]

I was just looking at the photo of HMC’s car wondering why it looked familiar, then it hit me…

I made a model of one last year!😄    
Some of you old duffers guys might remember having one as a kid? It’s the old Corgi driving school car. I just got rid of all the driving school stuff.

  
Also did an A55 from the James Bond black taxi version.

[N Dentressangle]

16 minutes ago, morrisoxide said:

Nice one.

A chap near me has started using this as his daily.

Not my pic but I've seen it driving about.

I know it's not a Jag, but shabby 60's stuff always makes me think

It's what I'm aiming for with the Rover.

SCRUBBERS!

[Matty]

17 minutes ago, morrisoxide said:

Nice one.

A chap near me has started using this as his daily.

Not my pic but I've seen it driving about.

By God I remember them looking like that as a kid in the 80s

[N Dentressangle]

5 minutes ago, Matty said:

By God I remember them looking like that as a kid in the 80s

I was a teenager in the 80s and most 60's stuff had already dissolved. My school was split site, and I remember a 1974ish green Granada GXL dsisintegrating gradually over the 5 years I was there on the road between the two sites.

I went to uni in 89, and there was a Peugeot 604 doing the same on the road of our rented house. No-one wanted barges back then.

[Matty]

4 minutes ago, N Dentressangle said:

I was a teenager in the 80s and most 60's stuff had already dissolved. My school was split site, and I remember a 1974ish green Granada GXL dsisintegrating gradually over the 5 years I was there on the road between the two sites.

There were a few old odd balls still knocking around here. A late Oxford would've been like a 12 year old car or so. Seems weird now. Both our dailies are 18 year old and like new. There was a big farina that was always on the high street. Old boy at the shops. From memory it hung about till I was well on in primary school. You can imagine the state of it by then 😄

[wuvvum]

I've probably mentioned this before, but...

When I was in middle school in the late '80s - early '90s, there was an old Land Rover parked on the road that led to the school gate.

The latest Google Streetview pictures from 2022 show that it's still there.  And probably hasn't moved in all that time.

[N Dentressangle]

17 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

I've probably mentioned this before, but...

When I was in middle school in the late '80s - early '90s, there was an old Land Rover parked on the road that led to the school gate.

The latest Google Streetview pictures from 2022 show that it's still there.  And probably hasn't moved in all that time.

Looking at the indicator / sidelight positions, probably a Series II rather than a IIA, plus a tropical roof - worth a few £££

[danthecapriman]

15 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

I've probably mentioned this before, but...

When I was in middle school in the late '80s - early '90s, there was an old Land Rover parked on the road that led to the school gate.

The latest Google Streetview pictures from 2022 show that it's still there.  And probably hasn't moved in all that time.

Wow! That’s awesome. How has it never been towed away though!? You’d think after so long (look at the mark on the ground around where it’s been!) the local authorities would get sick of it and drag it away?

I remember a mk4 Cortina estate being like that near my old school. Naturally I had the horn for it massively, but I was devastated one day when I walked past and someone was towing it off for scrap.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

I was just looking at the photo of HMC’s car wondering why it looked familiar, then it hit me…

I made a model of one last year!😄    
Some of you old duffers guys might remember having one as a kid? It’s the old Corgi driving school car. I just got rid of all the driving school stuff.

  

 

Where's the roof sign?

[jon.k]

10 hours ago, Matty said:

By God I remember them looking like that as a kid in the 80s

A chap on my road had one or two in his garden like that, and, as a nice touch, a picture of one of them stained-glassed in his door too. I used to love looking at them on the way to school. I think last time I went past, a sign of the times was that they were replaced by a rover 75. Are you on here Mr C?

 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Lovely looking purchase, HMC. Isn't it a Dorset/Bournemouth registration? 

2 hours ago, jon.k said:

A chap on my road had one or two in his garden like that, and, as a nice touch, a picture of one of them stained-glassed in his door too. I used to love looking at them on the way to school. I think last time I went past, a sign of the times was that they were replaced by a rover 75. Are you on here Mr C?

 

That reminds me of a place a couple of miles from here. For years it had an ever-changing eclectic mix of motors lined up. He sold the Ant in 2012 (A999 NTA) but nothing appears to have happened with it.  There's always been at least one early 60s finned Brit amongst them though. I'm guessing the owner is now elderly and unable to play any more as the few remaining motors are slowing sinking into the grass. Even the Reliant nose cone which was attached to a garage door for years has gone. Photos are in time order. 

[bigstraight6]

12 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

I was just looking at the photo of HMC’s car wondering why it looked familiar, then it hit me…

I made a model of one last year!😄    
Some of you old duffers guys might remember having one as a kid? It’s the old Corgi driving school car. I just got rid of all the driving school stuff.

  
Also did an A55 from the James Bond black taxi version.

I had the original back in the day, got this repro now.

[purplebargeken]

Bloke who lived in the flats opposite my garage in the shit-pit of Edmonton had one of these, painted taxi black with a red interior, it chuffed along for years with the aid of monumental levels of giffer bodgery. Sadly he died of lung cancer about 17 years ago. End of an era.

[danthecapriman]

10 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Where's the roof sign?

The steering wheel thingy off the roof? I took it off as I always hated it! Filled the hole it left in the roof with chemical metal putty then rubbed it down smooth. The steering gubbins inside I removed part of it and just glued the bits attached to the wheels in the straight position so it’s just like any other Corgi car. 
Hardest bits to remove were the L plates from front & rear bumpers. Lots of careful grinding away with a dremmel then tidying up with little files.

That A60 was always a really good model from Corgi, but it was totally underused by them in my opinion. When it was released the real car was current so it was something kids could see and relate to every day. Even their parents might have had one. Yet Corgi only released it in the driving school style in the one colour. They could have used it so much more over the years as a normal car in different colours.