Stodge

[MiniMort]

Would the Isetta be considered stodge? I ask because during the time my family owned one from 1959 to 1967 it was slow as anything, the rear wheel began to detach during a trip down the A5 and it caught fire... 

Oh and if my grandad drove it home from work, his colleagues would just lift the rear end so he couldn't leave...

 

[artdjones]

2 minutes ago, MiniMort said:

Would the Isetta be considered stodge? I ask because during the time my family owned one from 1959 to 1967 it was slow as anything, the rear wheel began to detach during a trip down the A5 and it caught fire... 

Oh and if my grandad drove it home from work, his colleagues would just lift the rear end so he couldn't leave...

 

No, not respectable enough.

[MiniMort]

1 minute ago, artdjones said:

No, not respectable enough.

Not respectable in the sense it was vaguely German?

Maybe their Ford Popular was a little more respectable - at least before one of the axles snapped and it was broken up to make a trailer...

[egg]

10 hours ago, RayMK said:

Minx, Dad, Mum and brother in 1961: 

love that photo, looks too cold to be having a good time - but we will have a good time.

[egg]

8 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Stodge has basically gone extinct.

Agree entirely. But if you did have to identify modern* stodge - I'd go for 80's cars made East of the Berlin Wall, Protons based on Mitsubishis and Daewoos based on Vauxhalls.

[quicksilver]

10 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

I like Javelins but they’re not that stodgy. They have stylish styling and are interesting mechanically.

Jowetts seem more anti-stodge: modern looks, innovative mechanicals and far too avant-garde for respectable gentlemen who would rather have a nice stodgy Austin Devon or Morris Oxford.

The MG Y-type has to be stodge though. A post-war 'sports' saloon with some modern features but all hidden under dreary old-fashioned pre-war styling that must have looked terribly dated by 1953. Much more stodgy than a Magnette for sure.

[artdjones]

57 minutes ago, MiniMort said:

Not respectable in the sense it was vaguely German?

Maybe their Ford Popular was a little more respectable - at least before one of the axles snapped and it was broken up to make a trailer...

They were made in Brighton Railway Works to an Italian design. But driving around in a 200cc bubble car is not very lower middle class style respectable.

The Popular was so awful it doesn't even rise to the level of Stodge. The car for the man who keeps his change in a small purse.

 

[egg]

Updated consensus* list based on further discussions:

• Triumph Mayflower
• Standard 8/10 (post-war)
• Lanchester LD10
• Rover P3/P4
• Counties Austins (but not the sporty coupe + Westminster)
• Morris Oxford (MO) and Wolseley 4/50 
• Morris Oxford 2/3/4 (and Cowley versions)
• Vauxhall Wyvern LiX
• Singer 1500
• Ford Popular
• Standard Vanguard (not the late Michelotti one tho)
• Hillman Minx MK1/MK2 (maybe MK3)
• MG Y-type
• Ford Consul (original shape MK1)
• Morris Six and Wolseley 6/80
• Wolseley 10 (pre war car that restarted until 1948)
• Austin A30 (has to be on here I think)
• Humber Hawk Mark III to VI
• Ford Prefect 49-53
• Ford Anglia 100E (and four door Prefect)

[egg]

Lanchester 14 too posh?

[quicksilver]

What about Nuffield-era Wolseleys like the 6/80 and 4/44? Upmarket stodge but surely stodgy nonetheless.

[egg]

3 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

What about Nuffield-era Wolseleys like the 6/80 and 4/44? Upmarket stodge but surely stodgy nonetheless.

good question, I've added the 4/50 above as that was based on the Morris MO (just checked, I didn't know!)

Do we need the Morris six too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Six_MS

[quicksilver]

3 minutes ago, egg said:

good question, I've added the 4/50 above as that was based on the Morris MO (just checked, I didn't know!)

Do we need the Morris six too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Six_MS

I reckon so. Lord Nuffield appears to have been Britain's leading purveyor of the finest stodge.

[egg]

15 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

I reckon so. Lord Nuffield appears to have been Britain's leading purveyor of the finest stodge.

now added, also Wolseley 10 as it was made after the war, and I think on balance we do need the A30.

[egg]

Is the 50's Humber Hawk a standalone car or based on something?

[Asimo]

I was born in 1957 and grew up obsessed with cars. What is odd is how little impression any of this stodge made. It was practically invisible. A lot of models, relatively tiny production runs, few distinctive style features.  The fofties cars I remember from the sixties were the sub-stodge sector, Prefects, Populars, A30s together with the bigger Austins, Fords and Vauxhalls. For example,  I don’t recall seeing a Morris MO until 1980. The stodge will have been there but it was somehow invisible. A lot must have got culled from 1960 when the MOT came in for anything older than 10 years. 

[quicksilver]

15 minutes ago, Asimo said:

I was born in 1957 and grew up obsessed with cars. What is odd is how little impression any of this stodge made. It was practically invisible. A lot of models, relatively tiny production runs, few distinctive style features.  The fofties cars I remember from the sixties were the sub-stodge sector, Prefects, Populars, A30s together with the bigger Austins, Fords and Vauxhalls. For example,  I don’t recall seeing a Morris MO until 1980. The stodge will have been there but it was somehow invisible. A lot must have got culled from 1960 when the MOT came in for anything older than 10 years. 

I think you've hit on a fundamental characteristic of stodginess. Stodge is the mundane stuff that is there and does a job as part of daily life and the street furniture but is so unremarkable no one even notices it. No doubt there were plenty of Morris Oxfords about but there was nothing interesting about them to attract any attention and they just got ignored. It's like porridge being perfectly functional as a food but nobody has fond memories of eating it - everyday boring stodge.

[320touring]

2 hours ago, egg said:

Updated consensus* list based on further discussions:

• Triumph Mayflower
• Standard 8/10 (post-war)
• Lanchester LD10
• Rover P3/P4
• Counties Austins (but not the sporty coupe)
• Morris Oxford (MO) and Wolseley 4/50 
• Vauxhall Wyvern LiX
• Singer 1500
• Ford Popular
• Standard Vanguard (not the late Michelotti one tho)
• Hillman Minx MK1/MK2 (maybe MK3)
• Austin FX4
• MG Y-type
• Ford Consul (original shape MK1)
• Morris Six and Wolseley 6/80
• Wolseley 10 (pre war car that restarted until 1948)
• Austin A30 (has to be on here I think)

Wot, no Oxford/Cowley 2.3.4? 😃

[egg]

1 minute ago, 320touring said:

Wot, no Oxford/Cowley 2.3.4? 😃

you're absolutely right my good man - will update.

[lesapandre]

3 hours ago, egg said:

Is the 50's Humber Hawk a standalone car or based on something?

This Humber was a stand-alone though they did an elongated bonnet one - the Super Snipe. The body is by Loewy's London office led by Ted White. 

In the main Rootes bodies were made and even trimmed by Pressed Steel Ltd - so they will have played a big part in productionising this in terms of the underlying engineering. 

The 4-cylinder engine was also used in some of Rootes commercial vehicles. A side-valve-flat head. Glacial performance and most rusted out in a decade. The bodies were not particularly well made by PF - but they were probably designed down to a price. 

Overall pretty nasty - definate stodge.

[martc]

23 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Stodge in this thread specifically refers to vehicles from the Olden Dayes and while some Japanese offerings will no doubt qualify, I don't think Korea was doing that much in an automotive sense in the Golden Stodge Era.  Happy to be proven wrong though, and would love to see some lumbering fifties luxury* contraption from Korea (North or South) if there is one.

The Chollima electric (yes electric) car from 1958? 'Made' in North Korea... or at least the pictures were drawn in North korea

https://chinacarhistory.com/2021/11/24/more-about-early-north-korean-cars/

Looks familiar? It's a copy Hillman Minx, prime stodge. Well, more likely, a copy of the Isuzu PH10 

Japanese stodge, a ckd Hillman Minx. And if the japanese hadn't suffered enough...

https://www.thesahb.com/isuzu-and-hillman-a-little-known-story/

[Joey spud]

After only five pages this thread is already rammed full with great stories,images and first hand knowledge.

 I often think we could do with a little corner of AS set aside for us ''older car botherers''.

[MiniMinorMk3]

Five pages in and no one has mentioned the blue collar stodge that is the Ford Anglia and Popular 100E, with it's asthmatic side valve engine.

My father had two of them, one ended up on it's roof, before progressing to a 105E, in stodge grey. My grandad had a Panama Yellow one with those fancy wheel trims between the hub caps and wheels. I remember sticking my little finger in one of them and almost slice the end off of it.

[vulgalour]

5 hours ago, PhilA said:

1959 also yielded the ultimate stodge removal tool. My father recalled how many people discovered their thermo-siphon side-valve propelled vehicles, running through a 5.6:1 rear axle would last when subject to the M1.

The answer was: Not Very Long.

This is a very good point, especially for the UK market.  Stodge quite literally couldn't keep up so by the time you get to the 70s, it's practically all gone and isn't something you can buy any more.  Perhaps a bigger killer of Stodge than than even styling choices and a recovering economy were.

[egg]

26 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Ford Anglia and Popular 100E

Added, and also this version of the Prefect

[egg]

2 hours ago, Asimo said:

relatively tiny production runs,

I think this is part of it. We perhaps forget that not everyone had a car. My grandad was a farm labourer and couldn't afford a car until around the time of the Wilson government when he got an ADO16 - for his 5 kids, lol.

My mum lived very near the A2 when she was tiny (of course no M2 then, so the main road between London and Canterbury/Dover then) and used to run out of the house because of the novelty of  'a car going by'. 

My grandmother used to travel between Faversham and Canterbury by pony and trap...

Anyway enough reminiscences of times I wasn't around for!

[artdjones]

The extra stodgy version of the Audax Minx, the Singer Gazelle.

[lesapandre]

1 hour ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Five pages in and no one has mentioned the blue collar stodge that is the Ford Anglia and Popular 100E, with it's asthmatic side valve engine.

My father had two of them, one ended up on it's roof, before progressing to a 105E, in stodge grey. My grandad had a Panama Yellow one with those fancy wheel trims between the hub caps and wheels. I remember sticking my little finger in one of them and almost slice the end off of it.

These had vacuum operated pneumatic windscreen wipers 'powered' from the manifold. They slowed down the faster you went - that coupled with no demisting (heaters were optional) meant these things were pretty lethal in poor weather.

[lesapandre]

2 minutes ago, artdjones said:

The extra stodgy version of the Audax Minx, the Singer Gazelle.

These are quite nice to drive and very tunable - again they rust but are a good buy as a usable classic.

[Matty]

1 hour ago, Joey spud said:

After only five pages this thread is already rammed full with great stories,images and first hand knowledge.

 I often think we could do with a little corner of AS set aside for us ''older car botherers''.

More than happy to merge it with the BMC/BL thread I started and just have one big old stuff thread upto say 1980?

[Missy Charm]

3 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Five pages in and no one has mentioned the blue collar stodge that is the Ford Anglia and Popular 100E, with it's asthmatic side valve engine.

My father had two of them, one ended up on it's roof, before progressing to a 105E, in stodge grey. My grandad had a Panama Yellow one with those fancy wheel trims between the hub caps and wheels. I remember sticking my little finger in one of them and almost slice the end off of it.

Not sure.  Hot X-Flow, Slot-Mags, jack up, paint job and Dralon would turn that into a neat little street machine.  The small Fords will forever be associated with the rod and kustom scene and, perhaps, are a little too rock and roll to be stodge - at least these days.