Your family's best piece of motoring heritage
Discussion
I was recently sent two photos of my Grandfather with cars he confiscated and drove himself whilst serving in post-war Germany. The first is a Mercedes Benz 290K Cabriolet, formerly used by a member of Hitler's general staff, and the second is a BMW 326 about which he wrote, "I didn't have this for very long. The brakes failed and I rolled it three times through a hedge. I walked back to the officers' mess, consumed a stiff scotch and went to bed. No idea what happened to the car. I never went back to find out, and nobody contacted me."
There must be some pretty incredible vehicles owned and stories handed down through the generations amongst all the PHers out there. What're some of yours?
There must be some pretty incredible vehicles owned and stories handed down through the generations amongst all the PHers out there. What're some of yours?
Good first post , why the wait?
I have nothing like that, but I remember my sister lending my Father, who never owned a car, an old split screen VW Beetle to use whilst she was on holiday. That was in the days before they became collectable. My Father was "taught" to drive lorries for the convoys in the army during WW11, so never learnt to use 1st gear. He was also absolutely useless at anything DIY, and not much better at driving.
In the first week he had burnt out the clutch, so decided he would make amends by rubbing down the rust on the wheel arches and hand painting with a 2" paint brush, using a tin of gloss paint which resembled the colour, a sort of creamy beige.
My sister and hubby were not best pleased when they got back, but my Father couldn't understand what he had done wrong.
He was never loaned another car.
I have nothing like that, but I remember my sister lending my Father, who never owned a car, an old split screen VW Beetle to use whilst she was on holiday. That was in the days before they became collectable. My Father was "taught" to drive lorries for the convoys in the army during WW11, so never learnt to use 1st gear. He was also absolutely useless at anything DIY, and not much better at driving.
In the first week he had burnt out the clutch, so decided he would make amends by rubbing down the rust on the wheel arches and hand painting with a 2" paint brush, using a tin of gloss paint which resembled the colour, a sort of creamy beige.
My sister and hubby were not best pleased when they got back, but my Father couldn't understand what he had done wrong.
He was never loaned another car.
No notable cars in my family history either but a similar wartime story. My Dad was in the RN and was on survivor's leave at the time of Dunkirk. His leave was cancelled and he was assigned to a trawler to go across to France to pick up whoever they could. He was in 'explosives' so on arrival at Dunkirk was ordered ashore to destroy as much left behind army equipment as he could. He was part of a squad blowing up lorries which they had to park together then place explosives and scarper - except he couldn't drive. He quickly learnt, under fire, on the beach at Dunkirk!
Later, after arriving back in the UK, he thought he ought to learn 'properly' so my uncle Fred offered to teach him. The only vehicle uncle Fred (a chimney sweep by trade) had driven was a fire engine...
Later, after arriving back in the UK, he thought he ought to learn 'properly' so my uncle Fred offered to teach him. The only vehicle uncle Fred (a chimney sweep by trade) had driven was a fire engine...
The only extraordinary thing about my Dad was that he joined the RN in 1937 so by the time war came, he was 'prepared'. His war experiences were much like those of hundreds of thousands of ordinary men who did what they had to do. His medals, together with his father's, are framed on my wall.
(with aplogies for the topic drift)
(with aplogies for the topic drift)
Too many to list. I'll post some "evocative" imagery instead for now.
This is sometime after the war when my Grand father set up a taxi business in our hometown. He had many jobs during his life. He started out as a carpenter, and according to my Dad was a pretty good one - anyway war broke out so off he went repairing ships. He was lucky in that he spent most of the war around Australia, we have a newspaper cutting with his name on the cricket team list of Sydney and a photo of him with a Koala. The funny thing about that photo is he still has his fingers, he lost 4 fingers on one hand to various degrees (first or second knuckle) in two separate incidents. One he was wresting against some industrial machinery and his finger got stuck in a cog and ripped off - the others he went through with a circular saw. Those were his only visits to hospital until his seventies when he retired and unfortunately went downhill quite quickly.
He set up a garage with a local business man and friend, but unfortunately while my grand father did the hard graft the other guy wasn't looking after the money. My grand father had to declare bankruptcy. Shortly afterwards, my Dad doesn't know how he managed this, he was back on his feet and doing well enough to import his first big yank tank...
Which he followed up with another shortly afterwards
You can imagine the impact these had in a small Welsh seaside town. The kids in school thought the cars could fly, my Dad didn't do much to stop this myth!
Over the years he had these yank tanks, mercedes, alfas, bmw, minis, borgward (reckons these were great) etc. etc.
He taught my Dad to drive at age 7 in a mini on pendine sands. My Dad was also car obsessed and had been watching my Grandfather drive so picked it up pretty quickly. So somewhere around this time my Grand father had been the carpenter and maintenance guy at a very popular (at the time) fun fair, then the site manager of what was at the time the largest caravan park in Europe, he had moved on to a smaller caravan site (I think the timeline is correct) which afforded my Dad a good opportunity to drive around on the private land, so as a young teenager my Dad had been bought ex-MOD series 1 land rover with the big metal bumpers - my Grand father borrowed it and was making a right turn into a junction using hand signals (no indicators on it I guess) but the car behind wasn't very observant and decided to overtake. Apparently this guys car was ruined but the bumper had taken it all on the landy and there wasn't a scratch. He also bought my Dad a ex-police van. I think this is the vehicle that my Dad ruined all the gears on except reverse, so he drove every where in reverse for a few months - he says this is one of the reasons he is good at reversing! Around this time he also taught my Dad to site caravans using a tractor - another skill he's proud of when he watches people struggling to reverse vans on campsites.
My Dad had a lot of cool cars and stories too as he did a lot of work with my Grand dad over the years. My Dad had minis, fiat 500, mk1 and mk2 escorts, an FD ventora, a 2002 with tii engine... he left school with out collecting his O level results because he knew he was going to be a mechanics apprentice. He served this and become a good mechanic, this helped him through some difficult times as there was always an "obble" to be done. He worked very hard when I was young and I have the utmost respect for him for that.
There are a lot of stories about collecting static caravans from gypsies, siting them in ridiculous places that having seen some of them I have no idea how he managed it. Here's a few photos of the caravan trucks
Here's the 2002
and one of the Merc's
I wish there was a photo of the Alfa Romeo 1750 Berlina. My Dad thought that car was great and he has an interesting story from when he went to college. They had a machine bought in to help them set the timing up on engines and they asked if anyone had anything interesting to bring in and try it. So my Dad suggested their 1750 as it had two twin sidedraught carbs that my Dad and Grandfather had spent a long time setting up to idle very nicely and run extremely smoothly. They got to work with the machine and took it out for a test drive with my Dad driving and the lecturer passenger. He asked my Dad how good it was and my Dad responded it's running like s
t! The lecturer didn't believe him so my Dad spent the rest of the evening setting it back up by ear, took it out again and the lecturer was incredulous at how much better it was running! Don't get that these days... although we did get to do it again with our mini on twin carbs!
There are lots of other stories that I could tell you, but many of them involve racing other people (my Dad was on first name terms with the coppers in my home town but they never charged him for anything, it was a simpler time I guess in the 70's!). One of my Dad's favourite racing stories is one of the local lads had an RS2000 escort and bet he could beat my Dad's Ventora. Now on the corners the Ventora wasn't very good, but it did have a 3.3 straight 6 with 126bhp and overdrive gears, so by picking a route my Dad knew very well he left this RS2000 for dead. The guy who owned it ended up being a relatively successful national rally driver (wins on Epynt).
My Grandfather even used to let my Dad drive the caravan lorry when he was a teenager once they were on a long stretch of quiet road in the middle of the night, but he was strictly limited to 50mph, any more and my grand father would wake up from the change in vibration and tell my Dad off! You definitely wouldn't do that these days, but that was the early 70's I guess.
My Grandfather was a speed demon until he could no longer drive. I remember he complained that his mk3 golf tdi had probably blown the turbo, and when my Dad inquired why he thought that he responded "it used to do a tonne down the dual!" my Dad tried to reason with him that he'd look at the golf but he shouldn't be trying to do that speed anyway! I think he was just from another time at that point, I mean they gave him his license in the war - he didn't even have to pass a test for it.
My Dad is still a petrol head to this day, although years of working on them has taken it's toll. He's a much more relaxed driver these days though, citing the fact there are a lot more people on the roads these days so you can't drive like you used to and that he has a wife and a kid to think about which he didn't when he was younger. Still he enjoys giving the mini a thrash around! In fact we are going to start building a 1275 engine for it this year, so the family relationship with combustion engines and motor vehicles is definitely set to continue!
I was car mad from the moment I was born, is there any wonder?
This is sometime after the war when my Grand father set up a taxi business in our hometown. He had many jobs during his life. He started out as a carpenter, and according to my Dad was a pretty good one - anyway war broke out so off he went repairing ships. He was lucky in that he spent most of the war around Australia, we have a newspaper cutting with his name on the cricket team list of Sydney and a photo of him with a Koala. The funny thing about that photo is he still has his fingers, he lost 4 fingers on one hand to various degrees (first or second knuckle) in two separate incidents. One he was wresting against some industrial machinery and his finger got stuck in a cog and ripped off - the others he went through with a circular saw. Those were his only visits to hospital until his seventies when he retired and unfortunately went downhill quite quickly.
He set up a garage with a local business man and friend, but unfortunately while my grand father did the hard graft the other guy wasn't looking after the money. My grand father had to declare bankruptcy. Shortly afterwards, my Dad doesn't know how he managed this, he was back on his feet and doing well enough to import his first big yank tank...
Which he followed up with another shortly afterwards
You can imagine the impact these had in a small Welsh seaside town. The kids in school thought the cars could fly, my Dad didn't do much to stop this myth!
Over the years he had these yank tanks, mercedes, alfas, bmw, minis, borgward (reckons these were great) etc. etc.
He taught my Dad to drive at age 7 in a mini on pendine sands. My Dad was also car obsessed and had been watching my Grandfather drive so picked it up pretty quickly. So somewhere around this time my Grand father had been the carpenter and maintenance guy at a very popular (at the time) fun fair, then the site manager of what was at the time the largest caravan park in Europe, he had moved on to a smaller caravan site (I think the timeline is correct) which afforded my Dad a good opportunity to drive around on the private land, so as a young teenager my Dad had been bought ex-MOD series 1 land rover with the big metal bumpers - my Grand father borrowed it and was making a right turn into a junction using hand signals (no indicators on it I guess) but the car behind wasn't very observant and decided to overtake. Apparently this guys car was ruined but the bumper had taken it all on the landy and there wasn't a scratch. He also bought my Dad a ex-police van. I think this is the vehicle that my Dad ruined all the gears on except reverse, so he drove every where in reverse for a few months - he says this is one of the reasons he is good at reversing! Around this time he also taught my Dad to site caravans using a tractor - another skill he's proud of when he watches people struggling to reverse vans on campsites.
My Dad had a lot of cool cars and stories too as he did a lot of work with my Grand dad over the years. My Dad had minis, fiat 500, mk1 and mk2 escorts, an FD ventora, a 2002 with tii engine... he left school with out collecting his O level results because he knew he was going to be a mechanics apprentice. He served this and become a good mechanic, this helped him through some difficult times as there was always an "obble" to be done. He worked very hard when I was young and I have the utmost respect for him for that.
There are a lot of stories about collecting static caravans from gypsies, siting them in ridiculous places that having seen some of them I have no idea how he managed it. Here's a few photos of the caravan trucks
Here's the 2002
and one of the Merc's
I wish there was a photo of the Alfa Romeo 1750 Berlina. My Dad thought that car was great and he has an interesting story from when he went to college. They had a machine bought in to help them set the timing up on engines and they asked if anyone had anything interesting to bring in and try it. So my Dad suggested their 1750 as it had two twin sidedraught carbs that my Dad and Grandfather had spent a long time setting up to idle very nicely and run extremely smoothly. They got to work with the machine and took it out for a test drive with my Dad driving and the lecturer passenger. He asked my Dad how good it was and my Dad responded it's running like s
t! The lecturer didn't believe him so my Dad spent the rest of the evening setting it back up by ear, took it out again and the lecturer was incredulous at how much better it was running! Don't get that these days... although we did get to do it again with our mini on twin carbs!There are lots of other stories that I could tell you, but many of them involve racing other people (my Dad was on first name terms with the coppers in my home town but they never charged him for anything, it was a simpler time I guess in the 70's!). One of my Dad's favourite racing stories is one of the local lads had an RS2000 escort and bet he could beat my Dad's Ventora. Now on the corners the Ventora wasn't very good, but it did have a 3.3 straight 6 with 126bhp and overdrive gears, so by picking a route my Dad knew very well he left this RS2000 for dead. The guy who owned it ended up being a relatively successful national rally driver (wins on Epynt).
My Grandfather even used to let my Dad drive the caravan lorry when he was a teenager once they were on a long stretch of quiet road in the middle of the night, but he was strictly limited to 50mph, any more and my grand father would wake up from the change in vibration and tell my Dad off! You definitely wouldn't do that these days, but that was the early 70's I guess.
My Grandfather was a speed demon until he could no longer drive. I remember he complained that his mk3 golf tdi had probably blown the turbo, and when my Dad inquired why he thought that he responded "it used to do a tonne down the dual!" my Dad tried to reason with him that he'd look at the golf but he shouldn't be trying to do that speed anyway! I think he was just from another time at that point, I mean they gave him his license in the war - he didn't even have to pass a test for it.
My Dad is still a petrol head to this day, although years of working on them has taken it's toll. He's a much more relaxed driver these days though, citing the fact there are a lot more people on the roads these days so you can't drive like you used to and that he has a wife and a kid to think about which he didn't when he was younger. Still he enjoys giving the mini a thrash around! In fact we are going to start building a 1275 engine for it this year, so the family relationship with combustion engines and motor vehicles is definitely set to continue!
I was car mad from the moment I was born, is there any wonder?
An old aunt of mine in Ireland had a driving licence, but had never passed a test, having only driven a car on literally a couple of occasions. Apparently there was an amnesty, and so she ended up with a full licence, as did many others at the time.
When my cousins and friends learnt to drive she would act as the "supervisor" in the passenger seat when they took their old bangers out for practice, in return for cups of tea and Silk cut cigarettes
When my cousins and friends learnt to drive she would act as the "supervisor" in the passenger seat when they took their old bangers out for practice, in return for cups of tea and Silk cut cigarettes
Nothing to match the war stories, but my grandad had a new SD1 V8 way back in the late 70's, my dad always recalls the story of being taken out in it, cabin heavy with thick cigar smoke and my grandad having 'earnt' his licence in the war was not the most competent driver hammering down the country lanes, my old man was never a great passenger and had to tell him to stop so he could throw up in a ditch at the side of the road.
Registration number originally allocated to my Grandfathers new Standard 12 in 1938. Since then it's been transferred from car to car and passed down through the family along with a album of pictures showing it among other locations on different cars on wedding days for four generations - my grandparents, parents, mine and my daughters.
so called said:
My Dad had a 1925 1000cc Brough Superior back in the 50's.
He got behind with some rent back in 1959 and gave the bike to his landlords son as payment
It used to be in the National Motorcycle Museum but not sure if its still there.
I was there on Friday, and can confirm that there is a 1925 1000cc Superior in there. Whether or not it's your Dad's I cannot confirm.He got behind with some rent back in 1959 and gave the bike to his landlords son as payment
It used to be in the National Motorcycle Museum but not sure if its still there.
My father never passed a test. He left school at whatever it was (14 years old?) back in the 1920s and was apprenticed to a motor engineers. He learned fast. At the grand age of 16 he used to be given a rail ticket to Coventry, and there he had to collect a new car and drive it back to Norwich. I suppose the garage taught him how to drive. He recalled having to drive through thick fog for long distances (we don't seem to get those fogs any more) with the windscreen opened by the hinge at the top.
Can you imagine the reaction to that from the Elf n Safety people of today? Our nation used to accept responsibility for our personal actions back then. He never did have an accident.
During WW2 he was a fitter (naturally) in the RAF and was stationed in India. He learned all the foibles of the various engines which powered Allied planes, and used to tell me all about them. He reckoned (and I believe wasn't alone) that the Packard-built Merlins were superior to the RR units.
Can you imagine the reaction to that from the Elf n Safety people of today? Our nation used to accept responsibility for our personal actions back then. He never did have an accident.
During WW2 he was a fitter (naturally) in the RAF and was stationed in India. He learned all the foibles of the various engines which powered Allied planes, and used to tell me all about them. He reckoned (and I believe wasn't alone) that the Packard-built Merlins were superior to the RR units.
Jabosoc said:
so called said:
My Dad had a 1925 1000cc Brough Superior back in the 50's.
He got behind with some rent back in 1959 and gave the bike to his landlords son as payment
It used to be in the National Motorcycle Museum but not sure if its still there.
I was there on Friday, and can confirm that there is a 1925 1000cc Superior in there. Whether or not it's your Dad's I cannot confirm.He got behind with some rent back in 1959 and gave the bike to his landlords son as payment
It used to be in the National Motorcycle Museum but not sure if its still there.
I'll have to check it out in the summer. :-)
My second uncle sadly passed away last year, but he was a very clever engineer. He built then campaigned an MG Midget in hillclimb events, but found the competition was tough. So instead of hillclimbing he adapted the car for off-road trials. An MG Midget. Let the tyres down for more traction, if it got stuck he and his co-driver simply lifted it out!
I wish I could locate some pictures of it. I'll have to speak to my aunt. He is sorely missed
I wish I could locate some pictures of it. I'll have to speak to my aunt. He is sorely missed
My dad having been through Arnhem and survived then went into Norway to take the surrender, after that things got a bit dull so he managed a transfer to Germany, he ended up as part of the team running the VW factory, he had one of the first 50 post war convertible beetles for himself, also a mercedes staff car of some sort.
They were selling beetles through the officers mess and to americans via the PX, for some reasonsUS officers had to pay more than UK officers.
They had a sign on the office wall saying "All US colonels under the age of 21 will need parents permission to buy a car"
he did well in later years and had a succesion of Silver Shadows
PMA500h
RPM697X
SRT500
I can't remember the other ones.......still miss him, he was thrilled for me when I got my 928 from my own effort at 22 years old
They were selling beetles through the officers mess and to americans via the PX, for some reasonsUS officers had to pay more than UK officers.
They had a sign on the office wall saying "All US colonels under the age of 21 will need parents permission to buy a car"
he did well in later years and had a succesion of Silver Shadows
PMA500h
RPM697X
SRT500
I can't remember the other ones.......still miss him, he was thrilled for me when I got my 928 from my own effort at 22 years old
Monkeylegend said:
Soov535 said:
Key to my Dad's 1982 Henna Red 316 BMW.
On a key ring he got me for my 17th birthday along with the key and insurance certificate, together with the key for my current 535d M Sport.
RIP Dad. God bless ya
Do you still have it?On a key ring he got me for my 17th birthday along with the key and insurance certificate, together with the key for my current 535d M Sport.
RIP Dad. God bless ya
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