Stodge

[AnthonyG]

On the subject of Vanguards, the short lived Sportsman was to have been the Triumph Renown until a last minute change of heart…

[vulgalour]

1 hour ago, AnthonyG said:

... the Checker in the USA

The Checker Marathon is very much a Stodge candidate.  I'd love to have a station wagon variant in that powder blue they came in.  I imagine it's like driving one of those old reel-to-reel computer things from the late 50s.  You know, this sort of thing.

Only a lot less refined and only marginally more aerodynamic.  Look at it, this is from 1970!

This is also a good example of Stodge that is outside the usual time period but absolutely qualifies.

[D.E]

Ha, they made a drophead too!

[danthecapriman]

8 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

The Checker Marathon is very much a Stodge candidate.  I'd love to have a station wagon variant in that powder blue they came in.  I imagine it's like driving one of those old reel-to-reel computer things from the late 50s.  You know, this sort of thing.

Only a lot less refined and only marginally more aerodynamic.  Look at it, this is from 1970!

This is also a good example of Stodge that is outside the usual time period but absolutely qualifies.

The Checker is a dream car for me! They look fantastic imho, absolutely iconic cars. 1965 onwards there was a small block Chevy V8 option in various sizes too. Even the GM diesel was an option towards the end of production.

Theres a 12 seater stretch variant called the Aerobus too if you’ve got a big family!

[AnthonyG]

Early 1950s Plymouths and Dodges are the very definition of American stodge. 

[LightBulbFun]

21 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

The Checker Marathon is very much a Stodge candidate.  I'd love to have a station wagon variant in that powder blue they came in.  I imagine it's like driving one of those old reel-to-reel computer things from the late 50s.  You know, this sort of thing.

Only a lot less refined and only marginally more aerodynamic.  Look at it, this is from 1970!

This is also a good example of Stodge that is outside the usual time period but absolutely qualifies.

9 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

The Checker is a dream car for me! They look fantastic imho, absolutely iconic cars. 1965 onwards there was a small block Chevy V8 option in various sizes too. Even the GM diesel was an option towards the end of production.

Theres a 12 seater stretch variant called the Aerobus too if you’ve got a big family!

glad im not the only who loves a checker, I love not only for the usual classic US taxi, but I also like them for their styling, and the autoshiteness of the fact they kept making them for so long unchanged, especially such that it was an all American thing/product, a land where they normally explicitly always have a new model every year in the name of rampant consumerism, I really loved the fact you could get something so 1950's Americana in 1982!

they even made them with Perkins diesel engines too, for maximum shite points

 

there used to be one in NYC Taxi livery that lived in a yard near-here up on a plinth that you could only ever see from the top deck of the 55, I wonder what became of it in the end...

but we are talking 15+ years ago now! always struck me as odd because it was clearly on some sort of display but otherwise quite literally behind closed yard doors, and could find it if you where on the top of a double decker bus explicitly peeping over the roof tops...

I would totally have one alongside an FX4 in my dream garage  

and as mentioned the Aerobus is a whole other awesome/autoshite thing in its own right, I love that it quite literally was an extended checker with all the extra doors to match, (not like a normal stretched car which still only had 4~ doors and just a large 'tube" plonked in the middle) and you still had the choice between sedan or wagon bodies LOL

[Angrydicky]

I've fancied owning a Mayflower for years. Top shelf, platinum standard stodge, with the added bonus that they're a real ugly duckling and loads of people dislike them. 

I do think, bearing that in mind, plus the surprisingly good survival rate, they're expensive for what they are.

[danthecapriman]

4 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

glad im not the only who loves a checker, I love not only for the usual classic US taxi, but I also like them for their styling, and the autoshiteness of the fact they kept making them for so long unchanged, especially such that it was an all American thing/product, a land where they normally explicitly always have a new model every year in the name of rampant consumerism, I really loved the fact you could get something so 1950's Americana in 1982!

they even made them with Perkins diesel engines too, for maximum shite points

 

there used to be one in NYC Taxi livery that lived in a yard near-here up on a plinth that you could only ever see from the top deck of the 55, I wonder what became of it in the end...

but we are talking 15+ years ago now! always struck me as odd because it was clearly on some sort of display but otherwise quite literally behind closed yard doors, and could find it if you where on the top of a double decker bus explicitly peeping over the roof tops...

I would totally have one alongside an FX4 in my dream garage  

and as mentioned the Aerobus is a whole other awesome/autoshite thing in its own right, I love that it quite literally was an extended checker with all the extra doors to match, (not like a normal stretched car which still only had 4~ doors and just a large 'tube" plonked in the middle) and you still had the choice between sedan or wagon bodies LOL

I’m with you there! I’d definitely have an FX4 too. It’d be an early 60’s/70’s one though, alongside a Checker. They’re both cars almost anyone anywhere in the world could look at and say ‘oh a London cab’ or ‘oh a NYC yellow cab’.

Ive only seen one Checker Cab on the road here, which was a really nice NYC yellow cab. I’ve watched a Checker Cab and and Aerobus wagon get banger raced though sadly!

[AnthonyG]

Anyone into Checkers should check out (!) the Richard Pryor/Harvey Keitel film ‘Blue Collar’, from circa 1980. It’s about union corruption in the car industry, obviously the Big Three wouldn’t let the film makers anywhere near their facilities so all the factory scenes were filmed at Checker Motors in Kalamazoo.

Let’s just say the factory makes somewhere like Browns Lane look cutting edge! 

[Angrydicky]

Posted this on another thread but thought it was relevant here. Hampshire vs Atlantic.

The Atlantic is a nice car but over the last few years they’ve really started becoming a lot more ‘aspirational’ with the kind of people who would never touch any Austin with a barge pole normally, buying them and lavishing expensive restorations on them. Lots have been imported from Oz etc. They’re becoming mainstream and I don’t like that.

The Hampshire on the other hand, is effectively the same car but a stodgy four door saloon variant with a smaller engine and single carb etc. Much rarer and more unusual, I suppose it’s like a cross between a Devon and an Atlantic. I personally prefer them.
From memory, Austin made circa 7900 Atlantics and 35000 Hampshires. But, while the Atlantic was seen as a bit special back in the 1960s, and people hung onto them, the Hampshires, with their dated, stodgy styling and poor fuel economy, ended up consigned to the crusher.

The counties club managed ten Atlantics and only one Hampshire at their national rally last year, that probably shows you how the survival rates compare.

Wouldn’t kick another Atlantic out of bed, but it would have to be a convertible, and I won’t pay the prices asked nowadays.

[vulgalour]

Until your Hampshire popped up I wasn't aware any had survived in the UK and it's the only 'real' one I've seen, in that I can actually talk to the owner of it rather than it being a random photo online.  Atlantics, however, are pretty common by comparison and I can count the number of 'real' ones of those I've encountered on one hand rather than one digit.  The thing I love about the Atlantic is that it's basically an automotive drag queen, and I mean that in the best way.  It's just overblown and ridiculous and showy, a gaudy satire of transatlantic styling.  They're absurd, and I love them.  It's not a car to be taken seriously at all, it's a car to be embraced for its eccentricity.

Big stuff like Hampshires just don't seem to appeal as something to save until they're almost all gone.  Humbers have suffered much the same fate, many Daimlers too are disregarded unless they're a sporting model.  It's sometimes frustrating that to be an automotive enthusiast means you should be interested only in the sportiest, most expensive, most fashionable thing.  There's more to cars than that.  Some of us just like a nice sit down and a lovely cup of Ovaltine at bed time and that's okay.

[Angrydicky]

7 hours ago, vulgalour said:

It's sometimes frustrating that to be an automotive enthusiast means you should be interested only in the sportiest, most expensive, most fashionable thing.  There's more to cars than that.  Some of us just like a nice sit down and a lovely cup of Ovaltine at bed time and that's okay.

It is very frustrating.

I used to work for a company who did classic car component restoration. Obviously, there was a steady stream of classic car owners and enthusiasts traipsing through the door. I often brought my Austin Somerset into work and I watched people approach the door and it was rare it even got a second glance from most people. 
They’d be waffling on about their Aston, Jag, MGB V8 etc at the counter and would eventually ask what cars I had. You could almost see them losing interest as I rattled off a long list of stodge and the subject was quickly changed back to their Aston or whatever.

It’s sad. We’re all different and I try to respect other people’s automotive interests. I don’t like Saabs for example but would never be rude about someone’s pride and joy.

[Asimo]

Sad that so many cars, new, old or classic are selected for their bragging, boasting and posing potential. 
The unexceptional becomes the exception.

[HMC]

As well as the overall feel, there is also a great stodge colour pallette to draw on. 

Its not upbeat or aspitational. Its workmanlike, its woodbine, its usually a very muddy and subdued hue. Greys, greens, blacks; they all add to the post war plodding vibe.

[SiC]

Presumably there is a Stodge smell.

Partly from the materials and glue used but also the life and environment the vehicles have lived in.

One that can't be easily shown on a forum but one that involves leather, wood, warm oil, slightly rich fuely exhaust fumes and the staid legacy smell of pipe smoking. Probably best explained for those that haven't experienced it is smell when getting close to old cars in a car museum.

Certainly my P4 has a lot of that which hits you right up the nostrils even when just opening the door. 

[quicksilver]

12 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

To be fair I think stodge can be successful.

Many of the examples cited so far were pretty popular in their day, some like the 100E very much so, and some of the others probably kept their respective makers afloat - like the small 1950s Standards, a bit of a godsend for S-T when Triumph was still flailing about with the razor edge models and the first generation of Vanguards proving rather underwhelming in profitability! 

Another good point - stodge can be successful as it isn't necessarily bad, it's just emotionless. You don't hate it, but it doesn't stir any positive emotions either and just does the job of being An Car. That's exactly what a lot of austere 1950s folk wanted, especially if they'd never had a car at all before.

Is a Rover P4 true stodge though? It's an interesting one as it was anything but stodgy in 1949 and revolutionary after the undoubtedly stodgy P3, but by the sixties had become very stodgy indeed, especially after the P6 appeared. I guess that means cars can acquire stodginess over time as things move on around them. Pre-war designs for instance would have been fine and not stodgy at that time, but distinctly stodgy if they were still on the market by about 1947.

[egg]

13 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

Pre-war designs for instance would have been fine and not stodgy at that time, but distinctly stodgy if they were still on the market by about 1947.

through doing research (by which I meaning scanning wiki), does bring it home in what dire straits the country was in just after the war, and how building the same cars we were making in 1939 was the easiest initial response, even though in lots of other areas technology had been pushed forward because of the war.

'export or die'

 

[juular]

36 minutes ago, SiC said:

Presumably there is a Stodge smell.

Partly from the materials and glue used but also the life and environment the vehicles have lived in.

One that can't be easily shown on a forum but one that involves leather, wood, warm oil, slightly rich fuely exhaust fumes and the staid legacy smell of pipe smoking. Probably best explained for those that haven't experienced it is smell when getting close to old cars in a car museum.

Certainly my P4 has a lot of that which hits you right up the nostrils even when just opening the door. 

One of my favourite smells ever.

Smells like a cross between the national railway museum and a horse shed.

The Amazon smelled like this when it arrived.

The Toledo has a faint whiff of this but also a slightly more medicinal quality, which is probably the vinyl and glues of the time.

Neither of these are real stodge so I imagine something from the 50s must smell brilliant.

[danthecapriman]

5 minutes ago, egg said:

through doing research (by which I meaning scanning wiki), does bring it home in what dire straits the country was in just after the war, and how building the same cars we were making in 1939 was the easiest initial response, even though in lots of other areas technology had been pushed forward because of the war.

'export or die'

 

That’s the thing most people forget. In the 10 to 15 years or so after WW2 ended this country was in a real mess. 
It’d just been through the fight of its life, lost many many of its citizens to the war, infrastructure was either bomb damaged or worn out because of a lack of maintenance and intensive use for the war department. We were also massively in debt as a nation, paying for all the war time resources. 
It took time to recover from it all. 
You can see why, in peacetime, the solution was to continue more or less using designs for things from before the war was the easiest way to get up and running again. Pre war car designs, still building steam trains etc etc.                    

Im not sure I’d be totally correct in this statement, but my view of the British people is/was of a much more ‘conservative’ ‘traditional’ type of people. Very much more reserved than the people in other countries. I think that too was reflected in our car design and manufacturing. Sticking with traditional styling, body on chassis design and really not trying very hard to push the boat out when it comes to ultra modern styling or technological advances in manufacturing.
There was also definitely a thinking, at least for a while after the war, that buying British was the right thing to do. You wouldn’t dream of buying a product from the former enemy nations either! Such was people’s bad experiences from what happened in WW2. Might seem odd now, but it’s understandable after going through all that. I remember my grandad, who was in Lancaster bombers in the war, would never buy German, and most definitely wouldn’t touch Jap stuff.

Personally, I definitely don’t see the immediate post war era cars, ‘stodge’, as a bad thing. They are representative of what was going on at the time. They were the cars that got people moving again and the cars that got people working in civilian lives again! They’re definitely British in their appearance and I like that. Imho nothing says ‘best of British’ as well as a Rover P4.

Thinking about it, did ‘stodge’ make it into other decades? Was there 70’s or 80’s ‘stodge’?? 

[Asimo]

13 minutes ago, juular said:

something from the 50s must smell

People certainly did. Lots of homes had no plumbing to speak of. Hardly anyone had a washing machine, baths were infrequent, smoking was almost universal.  And what didn’t smell of people smelled of coal smoke not to mention vehicle exhaust which was common to see, never mind smell.

[Dick Longbridge]

8 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

That’s the thing most people forget. In the 10 to 15 years or so after WW2 ended this country was in a real mess. 
It’d just been through the fight of its life, lost many many of its citizens to the war, infrastructure was either bomb damaged or worn out because of a lack of maintenance and intensive use for the war department. We were also massively in debt as a nation, paying for all the war time resources. 
It took time to recover from it all. 
You can see why, in peacetime, the solution was to continue more or less using designs for things from before the war was the easiest way to get up and running again. Pre war car designs, still building steam trains etc etc.                    

Im not sure I’d be totally correct in this statement, but my view of the British people is/was of a much more ‘conservative’ ‘traditional’ type of people. Very much more reserved than the people in other countries. I think that too was reflected in our car design and manufacturing. Sticking with traditional styling, body on chassis design and really not trying very hard to push the boat out when it comes to ultra modern styling or technological advances in manufacturing.
There was also definitely a thinking, at least for a while after the war, that buying British was the right thing to do. You wouldn’t dream of buying a product from the former enemy nations either! Such was people’s bad experiences from what happened in WW2. Might seem odd now, but it’s understandable after going through all that. I remember my grandad, who was in Lancaster bombers in the war, would never buy German, and most definitely wouldn’t touch Jap stuff.

Personally, I definitely don’t see the immediate post war era cars, ‘stodge’, as a bad thing. They are representative of what was going on at the time. They were the cars that got people moving again and the cars that got people working in civilian lives again! They’re definitely British in their appearance and I like that. Imho nothing says ‘best of British’ as well as a Rover P4.

Thinking about it, did ‘stodge’ make it into other decades? Was there 70’s or 80’s ‘stodge’?? 

Volkswagen started building the Mk1 Golf in 74 and it was a world away from the air cooled stodge it replaced. I guess GM's competitor for the Golf would have been the mk1 Astra, which didn't appear until the early 1980s. Its predecessor, the Chevette, was pretty stodgy in contrast too. Vauxhall certainly got the last ounce of life out of the Chevette's design considering it wasn't dropped until 1984 - a whole decade after the Golf's launch.

[egg]

13 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

and most definitely wouldn’t touch Jap stuff.

Yes, two of my dad's dad's brothers (twins) died in different Japanese PoW camps in probably the most dreadful circumstances you or I can imagine - so you can see why that generation had resentment through direct experience.

[MorrisItalSLX]

Can I nominate some Australian stodge?

Australia’s first home grown car, the Holden FX.

[RayMK]

27 minutes ago, egg said:

Yes, two of my dad's dad's brothers (twins) died in different Japanese PoW camps in probably the most dreadful circumstances you or I can imagine - so you can see why that generation had resentment through direct experience.

One of my Uncles survived a Japanese POW camp.  It had a marked effect on his personality according to relatives who knew him before WW2.  My dad was in the RAF through the war until his retirement in 1975.  I remember that it caused a bit of a stir when one of the married airmen bought a nearly new oval window VW Beetle in 1958 when we were based at Leighton Buzzard (not Stanbridge).  It was the only foreign car on site amongst the 5 car owning airmen - and German (regarded as bad taste)!!  The other cars apart from Dad's '33 Austin 7 were:- '33 Austin 12 next door, a nearly new Ford Popular 100E and a Hillman Husky.  It was a small RAF camp with about 25 airman's married quarters but the car ownership percentage was typical for the time.  The VW was owned by my friend's dad and I had one local trip in this weird pale blue clattery thing.  My girlfriend's dad had the Ford 100E.  He took several of us kids to Ashridge for a day out.  The Ford seemed amazingly modern compared with our A7 and more refined than the VW.  Dad was eventually posted to Germany where he realised that they were a decent bunch - and he bought a 1966 Taunus estate.  For a bit of stodge content, my Dinky Toys at the time (1950s) included an Austin Devon, Hillman Minx ('53/4 shape) and a Standard Vanguard. Most of my other toys were Matchbox which I remember saving my pocket money for.  They retailed for 1s3d, a lot of money for an 8 yearold to find. Dinky Toys were Christmas present territory if I was lucky.

[vulgalour]

I've had double stodge for breakfast today.

 

[MiniMinorMk3]

Stodge in a party frock

[Dick Longbridge]

15 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

I've had double stodge for breakfast today.

 

Got it running yet?

 

 

 

How about now?

[HMC]

Newly Acquired Morris here. Stodgy?

[Angrydicky]

I don’t know. I think they are too popular to be classed as stodge.

My dad would love that. Clipper Blue?

[SiC]

5 hours ago, vulgalour said:

I've had double stodge for breakfast today.

 

Ah! I just twigged you bought another one and that spares one. I assumed it was your first one but heavily stripped down for repair.