The first family car driven by your dad (that you can remember).


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Dad and I were having a good laugh at this one. 

He picked it up for 50 pound in 1968 and it ran for near a decade longer.  I remember it taking us to the beach on saturday afternoons when he finished work. 

Hillman

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a little morris minor with a flag thingee that came out either side to indicate. can just remember that. then, as the folks had three young kids, we upgraded to a holden wagon. thought it was christmas. i remember those days - as soon as anyone in the street got a new car, every family would go around and drool over it, no matter what it was. after that, every three years dad would buy a huge american dodge from one of his mates. his company gave him a new one every three years so dad would take the used one. 

at the same time as we had the morris, my uncle had a roller. but we had no interest in cars, other than that they didn't break down, and my uncle was an absolute car fanatic. had a large collection of vintage cars including an old jeep that i think had been used by macarthur's staff (my grandfather worked with him in the war). the old roller - his son still has it - was one which i think was a two door and it had the kid's seat coming out the boot - not sure how else to describe it. always fun to go for a ride. he bought it for five quid originally. he had talked dad into some car rally when they were young and they were in northern nsw i think, driving past a banana plantation when my uncle spotted something among the trees. they went in and spoke to the owner. it was this old roller but it had not worked for years and was now literally half buried in the dirt. my uncle had to have it dug out and towed back to brizzy and then he worked on it for years. thinking about it, i reckon it could be over 100 years old now. or close. 

my uncle was so into cars that he actually patented a number of tools for working on cars. he had the 2nd range rover ever to come to australia (no idea who had the first - head of rover?). so dad gave up the dodges and would take my uncle's range rover every few years. we did have a land cruiser for quite a long while - fabulous car. and after my grandfather died, his rover (which had a V8 and my uncle would arrange to have it serviced by mates who had worked on formula 1 cars, so as a uni student, you can imagine the fun). unfortunately there was an incident and through no fault of my own, the car was front and centre one evening at the very start of the national news on the ABC (as they played the theme music). sadly, i was clearly visible as the driver. so that was the end of that for me. 

we had range rovers until there was another incident and through no fault of my own, the thing ended up in the pacific ocean. so that was the end of that for me. 

cars and my family have always had a difficult relationship. 

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No photos ... too embarrassing.  My father had this quirky view that the people who needed protecting were his wife and kids.  So he pooled around in a beauty old Renault 5 while my mother drove the Yank Tank -- a Ford Cougar.  The more steel between her and other cars, the better, so his reasoning.  

 

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VW Beetle (of course)

5 of us going skiing up the mountains on 34 horsepower. I could walk faster than that thing. Us kids fought over who got to lay on the parcel shelf in the back below the rear windscreen - it’s a miracle we made it into adulthood

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'62 Rambler...crossed the country in it back in '65

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1972/73 Ford Cortina XLE

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Ran for 13 years. I have a lot of fond memories in that car, going on family roadtrips. It didn't come with A/C, but it was an optional extra. The A/C unit was installed under the glovebox, and every once in a while, it would spit out little chips of ice onto the front passengers legs.

My grandfather (my mother's side) once borrowed it to go to Newcastle with a few of my cousins. They came back and told my dad of a terrifying story, whilst my grandfather said the car was junk. He said it revved waaay too much and didn't have any guts. My cousins told my father that my grandfather never changed gears out of 2nd!

As the years went it, that engine would get a little harder to start every morning. It had the old choke lever you had to pull before turning the key. After 9 years, it would need to be cranked over the same number of times it's age before it would start! But when it got going, boy was it fun!

One of the funniest memories was a late night drive in the city. We were going through the Sydney CBD when we had to suddenly stop for a drunk guy shuffling across the road. He was in a complete world of his own, not paying attention to the other cars driving by. As he shuffled in front of the Cortina, my father placed his hand on the horn. My brother and I both leaned forward from the back to eagerly watch the fun. Just as the drunk got to the right in front, my father gently pressed the horn.... bwaaaaah!!!!! The drunk jumped straight up (we could see his feet in the air from the backseat) and quickly ran the rest of the way across. My father had replaced the stock standard Ford horn with a truck air horn!! That thing was so loud and powerful, it would dim the headlights when you used it.

I do miss that car.

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1965 Volvo 122 like this one. This was when he was feeling like a family man.....

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The following year he showed his true petrol head self when he bought this 1966 Alfa Romeo Giulia (he claims that he brought me to the showroom and asked me which car I liked and I pointed to this one. As I was only 3 years old at the time, I think he was just using me as an excuse!)

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Dad alway had station wagons when we were young. Nothing to exciting but it was nice to be able to sleep in the back on the way home from the cabinIMG_0946.thumb.JPG.52b9f6f7e79dfc5b313d3b6ea3df13c7.JPG

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Audi Fox my parents....had, and by the way it ran I would say if you change the O In Fox to a U that may describe their feelings about what Audi did to them....

One of my earliest memories is of my Father pressing the hazard light button on the car and me, as a child, thinking it was what fixed the car.  He would press it repeatedly in anger, and occasionally it would spring to life and off we’d go.  No clue why my parents had this car?  I recall my Dad one time telling my Mom the car was so out of place in the rural Midwest it was sick.  It looked about like this one...’‘twas a turd.

 

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1970 RR with a 440. That's a beast & worth a lot of $$$ now. I hope your Dad took you out & showed you how to do a proper burn out.

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First car I remember was a 1982 Volvo 260 GLE Sedan, silver.  There was a 1981 Toyota Celica that I was brought home from the hospital, but a tree jumped out and wrapped itself around that one shortly thereafter, so the Volvo was the first I remember.

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A great car. We did some great road trips. The most lasting memory was the the family hunting trip when living in Saskatchewan. I was 9 yrs old or so. We were all packed in the car at 0400, driving towards Kindersley, on our way to hang out in Swift Current while my dad when hunting deer.  5 miles back of Kindersley; in the pitch black morning some deer decided to save him the trouble, jumping across the road right in front of him. I have the freeze-frame image seared in my mind of the buck jumping across in the headlight beam right in front of us before impact.

Ever the pragmatic man, my dad put the unfortunate jumper out of his misery where he landed in the ditch, tied him up and took him back to Saskatoon in our now-hobbled car.   The venison was delicious.  Meanwhile, my dad neglected to repair the dented right front corner of the car for several months - I can still remember seeing the deer hair fused into the paint of the corner almost 6 months later. The Volvo was never quite the same. A few years later, we moved to Ontario, the Volvo gearbox said no more, and a series of unfortunately lame minivans followed. 

Ah memories. 

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