I voted for the Austin Princess, purely because when I was 7 me, my mate and his grandma got busted by the police when she drove it at 110mph. I think the copper was secretly impressed that a shitty brown coloured wedge of chocolate cake was capable of such a speed. She was my hero till the day she died.
My Imp did 110mph, but at that speed it took up 2 lanes in a straight line, it floated all over the shop.
Our next door neighbour, when I was a kid had one. He was a carpenter and my dad said he bought it because it looked like a wedge.
Mate had a Hilman Avenger with no seats in it (apart from the drivers of course)....we all just used to sit on an old bench he had in there or, just roll around inside....those were the days...
Vivarri! And that is by a long shot the least miserable thing I could come up with about any of them.
I had to vote maestro, purely because years ago i had a brown, basic 1300L. It did everything asked of it. Cheap and basic, no thrills motoring. Covered plenty of stress free miles in it. I can’t say the same of a 2002 polo i had years later. Utter sh#t!
back in the day growing up near linwood most folks worked at and owned a Hilman. usually only one as multicar ownership was not the norm and trafic jams where a thing of the future. my folks normally went for the likes of the Z's the Capri's, Mini Coopers and GT's. two of each. but i do remember us having a maxi 1750 HLS in the mid 80s long after their sell by date and thinking it was a pretty damn cool car. but i also like the fugly, so wtf do i know.
My dad had one of the first self drive car companies (and the first van rental company) in UK in Blackpool in the mid 60s. Before that he was a professional speedway rider. Anyway, when the new Mk1 Viva came out, he bought 30. He collected them from Liverpool, and drove them all back in several runs with a few lads that worked for him. His verdict: every one a bag of shit.
I bouught a Lambretta from an old fella in Paisley about 12 years ago. Because of my job we got round to talking about his time at Linwood in the 70's. He told me a story of when they made a Chrysler Sunbeam for Petula Clark (she advertised the car) and it was labelled up coming through the build process so that it got "special attention". He said when it got to him in the Paint Shop, it had a door welded shut, a load of nuts welded to the outside of it and a steel toe cap boot welded to the bonnet. I bet some people who worked there wonder to this day why the place closed.
And guess what took its place? Yep, not the obvious almost lookalike Mk1 Cortina........ .........But the bloody Corsair.
I helped a mate fit a Maxi 1750 engine and gearbox into a Mini. Took a lot of time and work, but it went well.
when i worked in aberdeen i knew painters that had been offered work down there at three times the going rate of the day. (pre oil boom) one of my customers in Oban used to work there and tells me the storys. i aint surprised in the least why they closed down, deffo went against the Values of the thatch. and in some way, however small some might argue, they did themselves no favors. anyways, lets not. . a mate had a pimped bedford HA van. cool as. what wa the ctaic with all the fur back in the day?
something i fancied doing. mini's where my thing as a teenager, all my mates had one. mine was an 800somthing with the morris GT engine. rallycross cam, carlos fandango wheels, handpainted black and white with the Freebird album cover painted on the roof. i never once pulled with it.
I owned eleven Minis, but only nine were roadworthy....... Had the proper 1275S engine in two (not the 1275GT Clubman engine); a 970S; an 1050 Oselli engined one; a Radford with the hatchback and twin tanks and several 850s.... Also helped someone put a second engine in the rear......pig of a job to get the pair running right, but when they did it was fun on flat fields. ....and then I learned my lesson and stopped buying them. But these days I would still have a good one rather than the BMW things.
