The Classic Car Obsession

‘Car’ was THE first word out of my nine month old mouth, so I thought it fitting for it to be my first blog word too. Yes, my car obsession appears hard wired, innate and to this day, an unstoppable force on my tiny little brain. This blog is for those of you who suffer the same illogical fascination with cars, but one that stops short of physical love, those poor auto-fixation people have nothing to learn here.

Were there any particular ‘car’ influences exerted upon me growing up?? Not really. My dad’s not remotely interested in cars and my first memories of these unholy machines (circa. 1983) are of my parents two grubby (read rusty) blue Hillman Avengers. I think we had two because there was always a 50/50 chance one of them wouldn’t start, maybe they were sold in pairs and in the same colours, to disguise the fact one of them would always be out of service. I loved them despite their unreliability (I was walked to playgroup after all), they also colour matched my best corduroy trousers and when my dad would studiously park one of them up in the little garage behind our miniature terrace, I was allowed to sit on his lap and pretend I was the one guiding it in. Marvellous.

To the Hillman Avenger then (and not the exotic tiger sort), you were an anaemic and sickly motor car with less CC’s than a period Mini GT, humdrum in engineering terms and described by my dad as ‘tinny’ (surely not an adjective any car manufacture aspires too). Yet with a compliment of four doors, a reasonable boot and ‘coke bottle’ rear haunches (a very British evocation of those glamorous American muscle cars), our brace of Avengers provided, working in shifts, transport for my two young parents in Surrey for three years. That is until one day in early 1984, when according to my dad, both were sold and one new(er) car came into our lives that replaced both....Next blog post I will introduce you to the world of our magnificent, canary yellow, vinyl roofed Morris Ital, the car that would power our growing family (with my creeping embarrassment) throughout the remaining decade and into the early 90’s. So my thanks goes to Hillman, a British company that was eventually swallowed whole by the Chrysler empire in the late 60’s and was sadly defunct, as a car manufacturer, by the time I took my first car journey, in one of those Avengers.