Southsea spottages 1983... and trolley buses.

[danthecapriman]

I know there’s a few threads around for this sort of thing but imho this deserves its own thread!

I stumbled across this vid on YouTube of Portsmouth city in 1983. It’s a dashcam style video of a drive through the city. Makes for some superb chod spotting, there’s a few very unusual cars around too, a few notable ones I’ve found being a Pontiac (LeMans by the looks of it), Mustang II, Renault 15, Simca van and there’s even not one but two little blue items of interest for Lightbulbfun! It’s surprising how much 60’s stuff is still knocking about too! Plenty of local buses to ogle at too.

 

It’s a great way to waste 40 mins if you’ve got the time.

Being very local to me it’s amazing to see the place as it was back in 83.

[LightBulbFun]

54 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

there’s even not one but two little blue items of interest for Lightbulbfun!

I found VOO623L, very fortunate that the camera car got stuck behind it and as such got close enough to make out the reg number despite potato cam!

one of the last Model 70's on White on black plates, the block after the VOO-L block is the WHK-L block, and I think but not confirmed that block is when they switched to black text on white/yellow plates (at least I have a picture of WHK372L in the field and she is wearing period appropriate white and yellow plates with raised plastic digits)

sadly not located the second one...

[danthecapriman]

17 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

I found VOO623L, very fortunate that the camera car got stuck behind it and as such got close enough to make out the reg number despite potato cam!

one of the last Model 70's on White on black plates, the block after the VOO-L block is the WHK-L block, and I think but not confirmed that block is when they switched to black text on white/yellow plates (at least I have a picture of WHK372L in the field and she is wearing period appropriate white and yellow plates with raised plastic digits)

sadly not located the second one...

 

The second Invacar is parked at about 32:28, left hand side of the road. You won’t get a registration number from it though as it’s obscured by another parked car.

 

Interestingly, you could almost recreate this video today, so little has changed regarding the roads and many of the buildings. The cars etc are obviously absolute shit nowadays of course!

[quicksilver]

Hot grey-grille Sierra Base action at 7:26! It must have been virtually new then. I'm only about 8 mins in but already amazed by the amount of Renaults I've seen.

[danthecapriman]

30 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

Hot grey-grille Sierra Base action at 7:26! It must have been virtually new then. I'm only about 8 mins in but already amazed by the amount of Renaults I've seen.

Pretty sure I saw a Peugeot 504 on it at some point. 

[quicksilver]

2 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Pretty sure I saw a Peugeot 504 on it at some point. 

I've seen two 504s so far, and three other Sierras surprisingly as they were still new and controversial then. Maxi count is 9 so far including a cable-changer and a funky two-tone one, but I've lost count of the Allegros, Marinas and Princesses - those things are everywhere!

[danthecapriman]

2 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

I've seen two 504s so far, and three other Sierras surprisingly as they were still new and controversial then. Maxi count is 9 so far including a cable-changer and a funky two-tone one, but I've lost count of the Allegros, Marinas and Princesses - those things are everywhere!

The thing I noticed was just how many Cortina’s there are. They’re literally everywhere! 

Theres a white Camaro too! Strange there’s so many yanks too.

[danthecapriman]

Some hot trolley bus action going on here in the early 60’s.

 

[quicksilver]

Matra Rancho at 19:45!

[quicksilver]

What a great way to spend 40 mins. Every other car seems to be a Cortina but I counted 14 Maxis and 3 Renault 6s, and there's a third Invacar in the line of parked cars at 20:05. I've seen more Citroen GSs in that video than at the Chevrons Rally, and even a Renault Fuego!

[bigstraight6]

Great stuff! That shite Hillman Avenger with the roof/boot rack and stickers only lasted another 12 months according to DVLA site...

[Fat_Pirate]

Excellent find.  I was still at school back then but do remember when the roads looked like this - and I remember thinking most of those cars were dreary grey porridge at the time!  Everything does look a bit utilitarian though.

[RED2stroke]

What a fantastic sight, I travelled on these many times as a 7 or 8 year old, they made an eerie noise a kind of whining  and I think that there was some kind of turntable type thing near to queen victoria's statue, near the guildhall,I think the conductor or may be the driver used to pull the connection poles down, while the bus spun round and then pushed them back up onto the lines and off they went, but hey that was along time ago.

[busmansholiday]

Haven't watched this yet, but my mother went to Southsea from a child (born 1922) at least once a year until she died (2012). She and dad honey mooned there in 1951. I went there from a child as well. Every year for summer holiday until about 1974, when (younger) sis and I were old enough to be left at home.

Scattered mum's ashes in Southsea, now that's another story.

There's a pic of me about in about 1960 with parents/grandparents with a Crossley bodied bus behind us. 

I've already posted a pic of a Model 67 in DW's thread, as well as a couple of B&W pics in the background thread but I must also look at the bus dvd I bought from CPPTD many years ago to see what's in there.

 

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, RED2stroke said:

What a fantastic sight, I travelled on these many times as a 7 or 8 year old, they made an eerie noise a kind of whining  and I think that there was some kind of turntable type thing near to queen victoria's statue, near the guildhall,I think the conductor or may be the driver used to pull the connection poles down, while the bus spun round and then pushed them back up onto the lines and off they went, but hey that was along time ago.

The trolley buses were a bit before my time! I wasn’t born until 84!

The video above was from the end of trolley bus operation from what I can gather. The trams went in the late 30’s and trolley buses in 63, replaced by normal buses. If you look for them there’s still a few remnants from the tram and trolley bus era though. There’s a turning bay, or at least part of it left in Eastney and I’ve found old tram rails repurposed as part of a building too. One of our substations in Gosport is actually inside an old tram shed too! Inside you can see the big old doorways where the trams came in and out but they’re bricked up now. The old chain operated crane is still in there though!

[busmansholiday]

There are still a full set of tram tracks in the cobbles down on Broad Street at The Hard. Even says Hadfield's Sheffield on the points (manganese steels as they were more wear resistant).

[Spottedlaurel]

People in the street at 2:53 have good taste, with both a Laurel and Manta A. Also seen a Datsun 1200 and a Capri Mk3 on black/silver plates.

[PhilA]

Funny, I have been over here a little long, but that driving is quite aggressive to what I'm used to now and in the first 5 minutes has 2 things that would get you ticketed here (pedestrian already crossing road at junction, no give way, bus indicating to pull out, no give way)

That's how I remember the roads growing up though, Bristol was similar.

 

Phil

[Spottedlaurel]

They like their Datsuns at 7:30 onwards! I saw an earlier Laurel, L-plated Sunny (having already seen a couple of other older ones on driving school duty), old Bluebird 510 estate, Cherry, Stanza and 2x 120Y.

I've had to stop at 12:00, look forward to viewing the rest.

 

[danthecapriman]

A couple of shorter vids of the same area from 1989 and 1996. Still plenty of quality chod on the streets.

1989

1996

Very Bus focused but I’m good with that! Great memories for me of getting on the green Southdown bus (later to become Provincial then First Provincial) Leyland Nationals and Bristol VR’s when I was a kid. We didn’t get the red and cream Portsmouth Corporation buses up my way despite only being 10 miles north of Portsmouth.

 

Watching these makes you realise how much our local identity has been lost over recent years. You used to be able to tell where you were by the bus colours and local shops etc but everywhere seems more or less the same now. 

[Spottedlaurel]

I'm awake too early, so making good use of my time watching the rest of this.....

Some highlights for me:

Datsun 280C estate at 16:31 (at first I thought it was another American barge!).

Modified Mk3 Cortina at 16:37.

The crazy Cortina driver at 22:50 (the camera view might make this look more dramatic?).

The derelict street from 28:10 with a row of four Datsuns heading in the opposite direction.

Mini Marcos or similar at 31:29.

Excellent stuff throughout. I was 13, so it's a great reminder of what I'd have been seeing on an everyday drive somewhere. Easy to forget how ubiquitous Cortinas were, and good to see the likes of Citroen CX in normal use.

 

[busmansholiday]

If you want to do some northern chod spotting, including a Police Triumph 2000 and an AA minivan,

Oh, and I was there when this was taken.

[davidy80]

I'm tempted to go and drive that route and film it, to show how much has actually chaged.

You can't drive the exact route these days, but you can get quite close.

I wonder how many Cortinas would be on route now.

[danthecapriman]

Here’s a couple of vids of my home from home, Doncaster.

 

 

My family are all from Cantley near Doncaster so we regularly went up there to visit. We also used to live in Bessacarr in the late 80’s. Again, mostly focused on the buses but loads of cars to look at too. I remember getting on the Mainline and light blue Leon motors buses!

[LightBulbFun]

On 9/17/2019 at 8:21 PM, busmansholiday said:

I've already posted a pic of a Model 67 in DW's thread, as well as a couple of B&W pics in the background thread but I must also look at the bus dvd I bought from CPPTD many years ago to see what's in there.

 

do you mind linking to or posting the picture again?

I recall the the Model 67 (AC Acedes Mk15) that lives down under being posted in DW's thread, but im not aware of any other Model 67 that was posted there

[Stanky]

Hope you don't mind me cluttering up your thread Dan, my wife found this on FB and since its realtively local I thought I'd put it here rather than in its own thread:

Lee-On-Solent, in 1986. To be honest, very little has changed since.

[Spottedlaurel]

Some great stuff on there. Heck of a lot of 1970s stuff, plenty of Datsuns, excellent!

[Richard_FM]

I passed through Portsmouth on the way to & from the Isle Of Wight the year before in my Dad's Renault 18.

The highlight of these journeys was seeing a car with POO in the registration, the sort of thing guaranteed to get a laugh when I was 4!

[Talbot]

On 9/16/2019 at 11:27 PM, LightBulbFun said:

despite potato cam!

For video shot in 1982/1983 the quality is very good indeed,  Given the lack of wobble and shake, I suspect whoever set this up had a pretty good mounting set up in their car.  It looks very much like this was direct-to-video rather than film-to-video, which means they were probably using a portable VCR with a separate camera.  Expensive stuff in the early 80's.