London 1960s

[Jukebag]

Was flicking through countless London based vintage 1960s/70s footage and this caught my attention. Spot the Jag Xk150 (judging by the grill) parked on the right at the 0:39 mark. Went through this footage and saw what must have been at least four early Triumph Spitfires (two parked along the same street almost adjacent to each other; you'd be lucky to see one today), MGBs galore, Frogeye Sprite, TR4/5 and a Porsche 356 just to name a few, but not one single E-Type to be seen.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xZBuPDl22GA

Also found this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OxPAowiRZBk

Spot the Aston DB5 at the 16:38 mark.

Love these old films, quite addictive viewing. But why are the majority of them always from London? you never see stuff of this quality from "up north".

Edited by Jukebag on Tuesday 23 April 21:29

[gothatway]

Jukebag said:

Was flicking through countless London based vintage 1960s/70s footage and this caught my attention. Spot the Jag Xk150 (judging by the grill) parked on the right at the 0:39 mark.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xZBuPDl22GA

Fantastic stuff. Yes, that's a 150 (or 150S) and there's another at 2:06:12. And a Bristol (406?) at 2:09:11. Porsche 356 on export plates at 3:51:05. In terms of furriners there are quite a few VWs, and I noticed some Alfas, Citroen and a couple of Americans. I guess being Kensington there would be quite a few diplomats and suchlike around.

[DailyHack]

Great to see this. If you want this kind of vintage get yourself to Cuba, just got back a few weeks ago, literally going back in time in 2019

[Jukebag]

I think that's a Bristol (green one) a bit further up from the dark coloured XK140 or 150 at the 2:08 mark. Even the buses had character as they look absolutely stunning in those colours and shiny chrome, now everything's so bland and soulless.

[droopsnoot]

Jukebag said:

Love these old films, quite addictive viewing. But why are the majority of them always from London? you never see stuff of this quality from "up north".

I think it's just down to there naturally being more people with the money to buy cine cameras and use them, which has obviously evened out a bit now, as well as people considering there might be more interest in films from the capital.

[Riley Blue]

droopsnoot said:

Jukebag said:

Love these old films, quite addictive viewing. But why are the majority of them always from London? you never see stuff of this quality from "up north".

I think it's just down to there naturally being more people with the money to buy cine cameras and use them, which has obviously evened out a bit now, as well as people considering there might be more interest in films from the capital.

Have a look in regional film archives though not all are viewable on-line e.g. http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/search?search_...

[LeoSayer]

Re-runs of the Sweeney, Minder and The Professionals are great for spotting what was being driven around in the 80s.

[LeighW]

gothatway said:

Jukebag said:

Was flicking through countless London based vintage 1960s/70s footage and this caught my attention. Spot the Jag Xk150 (judging by the grill) parked on the right at the 0:39 mark.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xZBuPDl22GA

Fantastic stuff. Yes, that's a 150 (or 150S) and there's another at 2:06:12. And a Bristol (406?) at 2:09:11. Porsche 356 on export plates at 3:51:05. In terms of furriners there are quite a few VWs, and I noticed some Alfas, Citroen and a couple of Americans. I guess being Kensington there would be quite a few diplomats and suchlike around.

Really enjoyed that. '70 Mustang Mach 1 at 4.30?

Would love to be able to travel back in time for a wander around.

[crossle]

Love this old stuff from my childhood!
Remarkable how few imported cars there were, mostly home grown rust boxes!

[bristolracer]

Complete lack of any parking restrictions

No white lines/one way streets

Pavements free of road signs telling you what you cannot do

[lowdrag]

Not a 150S (no script on the door) and nice to see three mini vans all not far apart, a land crab, a Bristol, Imp, Mini Cooper, Renault 4L, Cortina, Popular, loads of Beetles, MG1100, and all the other cars that were of the era. Very evocative!

[Mike-tf3n0]

Fantastic bit of film! At the time this was shot I was living just off Kensington High Street and working for European Cars in the Old Brompton Road in South Kensington, I think it is H.R.Owens Maserati showroom now. Tony, the reason there are loads of VWs in the film is that European Cars was the VW distributor for South London plus parts of Middlesex and Surrey - and we sold an awful lot of VWs! We also held the franchises for Mercedes Benz, Lancia (when they were proper cars), Honda and Daf. It was a wonderful place to work, South Ken was just like a village and so peaceful on Sundays. At one point my company car was an S800 Honda which I remember with great affection, 8500 rpm was unheard of for a road car then. Happy Days!!

[lowdrag]

All I can say is that the plate was issued around 1960 in London. Proving it belongs to that car is another matter.

[LordBretSinclair]

Love it !!!!

Well used MG T type at 1.06.

Looking at the Ford Thames and the Bedford CF you can see how the Ford Transit was such an instant hit when introduced.

[Mike-tf3n0]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I'm afraid I have no recollection of that number, in fact I don't remember the GLC issuing two letter four number like this at that time, as I remember it was all three number three letter until the first suffix plates in 1963. I had two splitties, both 1500cc, and then two panorama type 2 vans, all used for towing my racing car. The swing axle vans were much more fun as they could be slid really controllably on the Michelin SDS crossplies fitted as standard, they only lasted about 7k miles though!

[Jukebag]

Here's more to feast your nostalgic eyes on, not London this time:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qr52qP3VRA

A few non car related observations I noticed here:
No-one wearing viz jackets and acting all authoritarian by pushing Joe public around like cows in a cattle pen, no security and police presence just because there's a carnival on and people just want to have a good day out. No CCTV encroaching on everyone's privacy (which is getting more intrusive by the day thanks to the scaremongering of "terrorism" or crime, if you're so gullible to believe all that. No obsession with health and safety; that girl on that trampoline on that moving truck with no safety harness or enclosed net, they would never allow that today.

No wonder we want to relive those days.

Back to the original video. I wonder how many of those are still knocking about. I suspect most of those MGBs have long since been scrapped, same for those later Spitfire's, but the Xk150s likely still exist I would imagine.

Edited by Jukebag on Thursday 25th April 09:31

[woodypup59]

FAO Thedugmaster - please pass this on to 8Bus on the Splittie fourm

I have a Glasses guide to reg. numbers.

The HX series 1 to 5999 was issued in Middlesex from Feb 60 to Mar 61 - allocated in blocks. 6000 to 9999 were issued from May 60 to Dec 60.

I've noticed this style of issuing for special purpose vehicles (ie buses, dust carts & milk floats) or other commercial vehicles.

Now Middx got absorbed into the GLC, and I happen to know that Ken Livingston ordered all the old paper records be destroyed so there's no chance you'll be able to find your vehicle in the county records.

I know other people similarly stuck trying to legally resurrect a barn find. The DVLA won't play ball anymore with supplying copies of the old log book data.

Edited by woodypup59 on Thursday 25th April 09:43

[CharlieAlphaMike]

Jukebag said:

Was flicking through countless London based vintage 1960s/70s footage and this caught my attention. Spot the Jag Xk150 (judging by the grill) parked on the right at the 0:39 mark. Went through this footage and saw what must have been at least four early Triumph Spitfires (two parked along the same street almost adjacent to each other; you'd be lucky to see one today), MGBs galore, Frogeye Sprite, TR4/5 and a Porsche 356 just to name a few, but not one single E-Type to be seen.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xZBuPDl22GA

Also found this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OxPAowiRZBk

Spot the Aston DB5 at the 16:38 mark.

Love these old films, quite addictive viewing. But why are the majority of them always from London? you never see stuff of this quality from "up north".

Edited by Jukebag on Tuesday 23 April 21:29

Mini's everywhere!

[P5BNij]

The first clip in the OP is most likely library footage shot by a second unit, possibly for use as back projection in some film or other but not used. There's lots of this stuff on youtube with the odd snippet recognisable in various films and TV shows. ITC used it quite a bit.

[crossle]

The second film in the OP starts off at the Thatched Barn on the Barnet by-pass (A1), but the film is reversed for some reason so that we seem to be on the wrong side of the road...

Edited by crossle on Thursday 25th April 16:23