Sit-up-and-beg Fords. Anyone got one?

[scruff]

I find myself pondering about adopting one of these relics from the thirties that they were still selling in the fifties. Has anyone on AS got a 103E or similar? My brief experience in one a few years ago was not exactly pleasant but they are an interesting curiousity I suppose and most have got V8s in them now. 

[Squire_Dawson]

You will doubtless know they made them until 1959, being the cheapest car you could buy. I don't think even an oil filter was standard equipment. I haven't had one myself, nor would I wish to, as just looking at them is enough for me thank goodness for other cars. 45 MPH will be your top speed.

 

So, GIB, FFS!

[Saabnut]

I have had a few over the years. They are truly awful yet strangely alluring. They drive like a cheap pre war car. The are about as fast, 40 max cruise, and stop like one too, push the pedal, wait and hope and eventually they slow down. Three speed box with crash first IIRC (it has been a while), cornering is comical, they smell as pre war cars do (the heady mix of oil and coolant on the point of overheating) and the fun* Ford vacuum wiper system that the faster you go, the slower the wipers.

 

Would I have another one? Oh yes. GIB.

[noseypoke]

45mph!! 45 mph....We got 60mph outta our boneshaker E93A...mind you we were going downhill Northway towards L/pool.We got to the lights past Robbins Island in a cloud of steam...the only thing we had to ease it's thirst was a full bottle of Schofields Lemonade (about 1+ 1/2pints).

This was back in the 70s,the TPFT insurance was £13/10s and the road tax was £25.00....which was £20 more than we paid for the car,with a whole months MOT.

The black beast had name aswell......BANANA CHASER?.......don't ask

The b/chaser ended it's life with a VIKINGS FUNERAL on Bootle Tip ( I've still got the rad badge tho)

[trigger]

Dad's got one in the back of his garage, I was making Brum Brum noises in it last Saturday.

 

 

 

 

He bought it about 3 years ago but hasn't used it as the clutch has gone and it's apparently a big job to change involving removing the floor and rear axle?. To be honest it does nothing for me, I'd sooner have a latter 100e but it has its charm.

[Doctormop]

My Dad had a 7 year old Popular in 1958, it seemed like a good idea at the time: apparently it was not, He always reckoned that his 1935 Lanchester was far more advanced and much more reliable. 

The Lanchester was his first car so maybe rose tinted monocles were worn in latter years but he's hated everything Ford ever since, No smoke without fire etc

[wuvvum]

 

Dad's got one in the back of his garage, I was making Brum Brum noises in it last Saturday.

 

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He bought it about 3 years ago but hasn't used it as the clutch has gone and it's apparently a big job to change involving removing the floor and rear axle?. To be honest it does nothing for me, I'd sooner have a latter 100e but it has its charm.

 

I always forget how tiddly the headlights are on those.  Can't be much fun to drive at night with a Range Rover Sport on LEDs coming towards you.

[STUNO]

I have had 2, my first and second cars, so mid 60's. First was a 1939 Prefect, the second a 1955 Anglia just like Triggers dad's. As mentioned the brakes were bad, the lights dim and the speed terrifying at over 50. Gearbox was 3 speed with no synchro on first. The wiper/s worked well if stopped or going downhill, but anything else pretty well halted the action. BUT... I was mobile and free. 

Would I have one now, YES but only for giggles

Oh... they always started on cold mornings, took a  bit of crank action sometimes though. Still useable on our uncrowded country roads. 

 

EDIT the '39 was about 25 years old when purchased, I now drive a 1994 Mazda !

[Vantman]

I had a couple of these in my younger days,one was just a cheap car,rescued from a scrap yard for £5.00 and I drove it as a daily driver for 18 months,you soon get used to the frightening lack of brakes and the lousy wipers,easy to fix most things but i am not sure about rust,both of mine had minimal amounts and I just drove it until I got fed up with it having a broken starter which meant starting handle use every time.

 

The other one was an, E83A pick up,bought for £6.00---inflation!  I bought it to restore but used it for fun runs and as a second vehicle,the first owners were East Kent bus company. I sold it on to a local chap who restored it but I have never seen it again but that must be 50 years ago now.

 

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

My Dad’s first car around 1966. Took he and the future Mutha Bluejeans from Salford to Axminster but it was too fucked to make it back again so it was dumped and the train taken. It was a Prefect with the wooden rear floor MIA. Absolute junk apparently.

[Jim Bell]

If ever a car was built that demanded an engine transplant, they must be it. Look lovely, but imagine trying to live with one as a practical dailly.

[adw1977]

The other one was an, E83A pick up,bought for £6.00---inflation! I bought it to restore but used it for fun runs and as a second vehicle,the first owners were East Kent bus company. I sold it on to a local chap who restored it but I have never seen it again but that must be 50 years ago now.

 

FJG965 apparently still exists, currently SORN.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I was conceived in the back of a beige Prefect, apparently . It was one of 4 Sit up and Beg Ford's FathaN owned as a teenager, one of them ( a black Anglia) he flipped onto its side with 5 passengers ( 6 if you include the unborn me) and he still has a scar on his hand to this day, 55 years later.

 

The only one I've driven had the obligatory Rover V8 , Jag axle , fibreglass flip front etc and was a death trap , a mate bought it half finished 10 years ago , number plate raped it after a mail order MOT then sold it a couple of years ago before it ended up on a Q.

[Tamworthbay]

I love them but they are very much an acquired taste. As long as you accept that any journey over 50 miles will take a day there and back you will be fine. I don’t think mine ever went more than 60 miles away from home when I had it. But for a Sunday potter to a local pub in summer then no finer car is needed. I would love another and have first dibs on one around the corner should it ever come up for sale.

[martc]

They scare me. I'm old enough to remember plenty of these on the road, but young enough for them all to be terminal bangers (early 70's).

 

We went to the circus quite often and the clowns would drive a yellow Ford Pop around the ring. It would slowly fall to bits, each time something fell off there would be a small explosion and a flash of flame. I was of a sensitive disposition, so imagine being decanted out of the circus onto the main road waiting for the bus when Pops in various stages of decrepitude would rumble past backfiring and smoking like a beagle. I still view then with suspicion.

 

As an aside, after the trauma of the Pop parade we got on the bus and in the drivers cab there was a large red light which would occasionally come on illuminating the cab, my vivid imagination would lead me to believe the cab was on fire. How did I survive?

[Wack]

 

Dad's got one in the back of his garage, I was making Brum Brum noises in it last Saturday.

 

IMG_20180929_154742.jpg

 

IMG_20180929_154658.jpg

 

IMG_20180929_154705.jpg

 

He bought it about 3 years ago but hasn't used it as the clutch has gone and it's apparently a big job to change involving removing the floor and rear axle?. To be honest it does nothing for me, I'd sooner have a latter 100e but it has its charm.

 

 

 

I've got a bonnet for one of those, doesn't look like that though

[somewhatfoolish]

The old man drove a E83 van to the alps in the 1950s, him and his best mate were keen on rock climbing and mountaineering; teenage apprentices were more adventurous/stupid in those days. It would overheat regularly while dragging itself uphill and presumably scared them stupid coming down again.

[STUNO]

If ever a car was built that demanded an engine transplant, they must be it. Look lovely, but imagine trying to live with one as a practical dailly.

 

 

That engine was perfectly suited to the car ! It was capable of exploiting the roadholding and hillclimbing to the cars fullest extremes.

Overheating, They were made to boil on hills, that's what a syphon system does. just stop for a few minutes and then top up from your water can. The biggest ,steepest, most winding hill near us has a spring at the top which still comes in useful for radiators.

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

Friend of mine has one for sale, looks an absolute shed so will probably be cheap. I left him a message asking for price and details, will update when he reply's. Its located in Hednesford, WS12 area.

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

Spoke to the owner today, missing parts are no engine, gearbox, radiator, front wings, bonnet, no interior and floor panels and maybe some other smaller parts.

 

Most of the rest is there, including both doors in mint condition, good chassis and the shell frame is generally good.

Axles are still attached with inflated tyres, no V5.

He's looking for offers around £300.

 

The owner is currently recuperating from a serious illness and is available for telephone chat with anyone who may be interested in buying but meeting anyone for inspection would be very difficult.

However its located at the unit next door to mine so I can assist if needed.

 

Any interest and I'll take some pictures of it this week and add my own comments on its general condition.

 

 

[mercrocker]

They were an integral part of growing up during the Sixties.    Every time a decrepit, abandoned garage was opened it would yield a disintegrating Pop or Anglia (Anglias had the larger headlamps), sagging on its transverse spring, rock-hard tyres (compound - not air) and you just knew what it was going to smell like inside.   The things literally used to bio-degrade. 

 

Martc's observation struck a chord with me - they were always clown's cars or dragged along in some carnival or rag week parade, generally exploding or adorned with catherine wheels.   Even ones in use were fairly pyrotechnic and tended to backfire spectacularly - often just behind me as I walked home from school.  

 

Many had funny little ears that winked a sepulchral yellowish glow in a vague attempt to indicate which direction the thing was intending to lurch next.   Invariably black (or Elastoplast) the paint soon deteriorated into an inky bloom framed completely around each panel in a mottled brown from which I swear moths used to emerge.   Their wheels appeared to be made from some everlasting nuclear-proof material and would spin erratically on home-made trailers for decades afterwards, or appear in undergrowth as giffer-neglected gardens were cleared from fusty old houses. 

 

To ride in one was akin to being miniaturised and pushed through the slots in the back of a Bakelite radio - you were squeezed behind a tipped-up seat that moulted like a recently-exhumed Mummy onto a rear seat that looked just like the sofa Aunty Edna died on and you bounced along over the poorly damped back axle whilst pieces of dried-up bandage fluttered down from the headlining.   The whining diff moaned its remaining few hundred miles of its 40,000 life expectancy and the car gradually filled up with noxious fumes whilst the driver sawed at a wheel that I swore came off one of those pre-war penny-pressing arcade machines.    There were no water pumps on these things so interior comfort varied between fag-burn heat and Arctic wind - on the same leg.

 

Truly, truly dreadful contraptions that only serve to prove how much deprivation folk would have endured in order to motor as cheaply as possible.....

 

As, said - GIB.

[RayMK]

As an owner of a 1961 Reliant, the picture you have painted makes a 'sit-up-and-beg' sound attractive by comparison.

[Bren]

Needs a blown big block.

[tooSavvy]

They were an integral part of growing up during the Sixties.    Every time a decrepit, abandoned garage was opened it would yield a disintegrating Pop or Anglia (Anglias had the larger headlamps), sagging on its transverse spring, rock-hard tyres (compound - not air) and you just knew what it was going to smell like inside.   The things literally used to bio-degrade. 

 

Martc's observation struck a chord with me - they were always clown's cars or dragged along in some carnival or rag week parade, generally exploding or adorned with catherine wheels.   Even ones in use were fairly pyrotechnic and tended to backfire spectacularly - often just behind me as I walked home from school.  

 

Many had funny little ears that winked a sepulchral yellowish glow in a vague attempt to indicate which direction the thing was intending to lurch next.   Invariably black (or Elastoplast) the paint soon deteriorated into an inky bloom framed completely around each panel in a mottled brown from which I swear moths used to emerge.   Their wheels appeared to be made from some everlasting nuclear-proof material and would spin erratically on home-made trailers for decades afterwards, or appear in undergrowth as giffer-neglected gardens were cleared from fusty old houses. 

 

To ride in one was akin to being miniaturised and pushed through the slots in the back of a Bakelite radio - you were squeezed behind a tipped-up seat that moulted like a recently-exhumed Mummy onto a rear seat that looked just like the sofa Aunty Edna died on and you bounced along over the poorly damped back axle whilst pieces of dried-up bandage fluttered down from the headlining.   The whining diff moaned its remaining few hundred miles of its 40,000 life expectancy and the car gradually filled up with noxious fumes whilst the driver sawed at a wheel that I swore came off one of those pre-war penny-pressing arcade machines.    There were no water pumps on these things so interior comfort varied between fag-burn heat and Arctic wind - on the same leg.

 

Truly, truly dreadful contraptions that only serve to prove how much deprivation folk would have endured in order to motor as cheaply as possible.....

 

As, said - *GIB.

Well.... As one who bought a 1963 pneumatic throttle IMP.

 

GIB x2

[mercrocker]

Well.... As one who bought a 1963 pneumatic throttle IMP.

 

GIB x2

 

So did I.....From a car with no water pump to one powered by one!

[Amishtat]

A mate of mine bought this at a farm auction a few years ago, off the road since the 70s I think. The interior was exactly as Mr Rocker describes, although I can't vouch for what it was like in motion

[mercrocker]

Ears have been amputated!

[Uncle Jimmy]

We're further away from those times than they were from Victorian Britain; personally I can't connect with them, I find them slightly insulting really, like when you asked your parents for a branded item for Christmas and instead got a generic product.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Mercrocker's memories of abandoned Pops has reminded me where there is one.

This abandoned lead/ silver and tin mine in Cwmystwyth

Someone parked one , probably in the 60's , in the second floor of the house nearest the camera, it eventually fell through into the first floor. I stole the red enamel badge off the grille in about 1977/8. Last time I stopped and had a look was about 1987 and it was on the ground floor or at least the indestructible wheels and some crushed bodywork as more of the building had fallen in on it..

Sure it'll still be there, ask DollyWobbler to have a look it's just round the corner from him.

[jonny69]

I had a 103E about 10 years ago. I quite liked it. Dailied it for about 2 years. I mildly tuned the sidevalve with some basic homebrew flow work, the head off the smaller engine (for higher compression) and a high lift cam. Put a 12V alternator on, 12V bulbs and ran it like that.

 

A couple of things that surprised me:

1) The brakes were surprisingly good. The drums are massive compared to what came on the later cars and the Pop pulls up way better than a standard 100E or Anglia does.

2) The heater was amazing. Better than any classic car heater I've had. It was like a box behind the engine fan, and the thermosyphon would heat it up really quickly.

3) Headlights were also amazing. With 12V halogen pre-focus bulbs, again, they were better than any classic lights I've had. I guess they put more effort into getting the optics right when they knew 6V bulbs weren't up to much.

4) Easiest car I've ever had to start. No matter how hot or cold, it always fired up really easily.

5) Very neutral handling. I had no worries pushing it on the limit and it would do an epic near full-lock drift on big roundabouts.

 

Downsides were:

1) Top speed in standard trim was 65, which meant realistically it wanted to do 55 max on the motorway. I got the tuned engine to make it do just under 80

2) It got an unbelievable amount of unwanted behaviour on the motorway. Fly-bys, people seeing how close they could buzz you, people seeing how fast and close they could pull in front. I realised after a while that this wasn't accidental behaviour - people can't help themselves and feel like they have to do something.

3) It was a bit unstable at speed when loaded and really needed a panhard rod front and rear.