Forget The Foreign Rubbish... British Was Best!

Back along cars were different. Nobody bought this foreign rubbish, it was British and Best! A Citroen just got by as it was imported in bits and assembled in Slough, and Beemers slipped in by calling themselves Frazer-Nash-BMW but anything else from Europe wasn't on.

The Morris I bought in Banbury for £70 in 1945 would have cost about £110 pounds when new in 1932. It was ahead of it's time in having a four speed box, but did have the Morris "trademark" central accelerator. Like even the cheapes cars at the time, it had leather seats and carpets held in by press studs you could take out to clean. The rear wheels are from a later 1934 model

You could buy a Big Yank for peanuts, but only the gravely overfunded could afford the tax and petrol. The nearest you got to buying Japanese was a 78 of Madam Butterfly. You still had plenty of choice, there were Hillmans and Singers and Triumphs and Vauxhalls, you had the Ford V8s that were big and, confusingly the Ford 8s that were small. All clearly distinctive, not relying on badging and logos to proclaim their make.

The Morgan was the rather scourned 1926 four-seater family model, not the magnificent sports machine with a Matchless or JAP aircooled OHV engine stuck out in front, but a very sobersides water-cooled side valve. Two speed, there was a monumentally heavy cone clutch, a foot brake which if you pushed hard enough caused a band-brake to lock the back wheel without imposing noticible retardation, plus an outside lever which had much the same effect. I paid £12 for it and sold it for £35.

If you were a bit of a toff you might have a Wolseley, which was a posh Morris or a Humber, which was an even posher Hillman, or an Armstrong Sidderley. Maybe even a Daimler or its stable mate the Lanchester, with their "Preselector" gears. Or for really serious toffery, a Rover, rightly called the businessman's Rolls Royce.

This Singer is a 1934 Le Mans model. The driver was the late Mr.A.S.Watson. He entirely rebuilt it and offered it for sale at £25. I recall biding £20, but was gazumped by someone who offered £21.

For those at the opposite end of the economic spectrum there were things like Jowetts, quite roomy saloons that put-putted merrily on 2 cylinders of modest proportions, and various 3-wheelers such as the Raleigh, with the front end of a motorcycle and the back end of a pram.

350cc Douglas Motorcycle - Alun Richards 1950.

On the other hand if you were a bit of a dog, you might have an MG or even a Lagonda, Crossley, Lea Francis or a Riley. Some were open with billowing canvas roofs and celluloid side screens; others were "sports saloons". A sports saloon differed from an ordinary saloon in having no room in the back, which paradoxically, seriously curtailed the sort of sporting activities for which they were usually employed.

350cc Royal Enfield - Alun Richards astride a motorcycle that was a former War Department machine released to the civilian market in 1946

Fortunately all saloons had a rear-window blind that could afford a modicum of privacy to such proceedings. The somewhat doshless dog could cut a serious dash with a Morgan 3-wheeler, not a "family" model or one of the later effete offerings with a Ford engine, a 3-speed box and a self-starter, but the real McCoy. These were knee-high machines with an enormous, highly chromed Vee-twin engine stuck out front for all to admire and chromed exhaust pipes on either side. For those perched in the dizzier heights of society there were Aston Martins and SS's, or even Bentleys, not the later badge-engineered Rollers but rorty and naughty machines the size of a small locomotive, with exhausts a cat could crawl up audible in the next-but-one county.

Biker - Alun Richards

There were offering such as Railtons, Brough Superiors and British Salmsons, but you only saw them on cigarette cards. For most people though, it was an Austin or a Morris, the two makes that dominated the British market for more than two decades. Headed respectively by bitter personal rivals Sir Herbert Austin and William Morris (later Lord Nuffield), they generated a brand loyalty of Montague/Capulet intensity right across the range from twee two-seaters to limousines with glass divisions to isolate one from the chauffeur. No Austin owner would be seen in a Morris and vice versa. Actually for a time this was fortunate since Morris clung to the central accelerator long after other makers, including Austin, had gone over to the present pedal arrangement. Thus a driver switching makes would in effect find the accelerator where he expected the brake to be.

Alun Richards - All set for a spin on a modern day BMW machine - not like the old days when British was best.

Not that it mattered too much which pedal one pressed, cable brakes induced minimal retardation and with most small engines stretched to turn out the power of just a dozen or so rather sickly horses, performance was measured with a calendar rather than a stop-watch. There was a leisurely excitement that is entirely absent from modern cars; there is no sense of satisfaction at effecting an ingenious roadside repair, no sense of achievement at the end of a successfully completed journey. But whenever someone says, "They don't make than like than any more", I say "Thank goodness."