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I in the Royal Signals in the early 70's in Dorset and my first car was a Viva HB, light blue and very common at the time. In 2000 I was at a reunion in Blandford and who was the car in front at the lights? my old Viva in immaculate condition. The engine gave out on me in about '73 and the local dealers gave me a PX on a Victor. My old friend shot away from the lights at a rate of knots for if I had been able to talk to the young lad driving I would have had to have made an offer.
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This sort of thing always cheers anyone up when they see a car they assume has gone to the scrapper. I remember seeing my father's MK III cortina GT fifteen years after he had got rid of it, the lad that was driving it must have spent a lot of time doing it up, as it was immaculate.
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I had a brand new Fiesta on a G plate and put 78,000 on it in under two years driving tuition. Nearly ten years later I picked a pupil up from her grandad's house, and there he was outside cleaning his latest aquisition, the very same little white Fiesta!
God knows how many miles were on it by then, and I doubt that whatever the seller claimed to him was correct, but I thought it best to leave him in blissful ignorance about the car's shady past.
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This story goes the other way round. In early the 70's I was standing outside my house in Hertfordshire talking to a friend. We lived on a main road and were amazed when a Ford GT40 drove past. It was silver and had a reg no. DWC something.
A few years ago went on a trip to Le Mans with a group of classic cars enthusiasts. On this trip was a silver GT40, DWC 8 G. I learned more about the car. It was the prototype for a road-going version of the GT40, but Ford never pursued the idea. It had always belonged to Ford. And.... I ended up getting a ride in this car, in France (not a drive, though, Boo Hoo!) I noted an indicated 140 mph on the speedo at one point!
NB - quite a number of GT40's have been adapted for road use after production, plus there's all the replicas and Ford's new supercar version.
cheers, Sofa Spud
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Reminds me of a strange looking vehicle that I saw parked in Liverpool city centre in the late 60s. It was a largish estate type car with the old Rover radiator grill. As I walked past it I met Patrick Wilkes, with whom I had been at college - his uncle at that time was chairman of Rover. The penny dropped when I saw him, and he told me that it was the prototype of a new model that Rover were going to produce, and it had been given to him by his uncle. It turned out to be the Range Rover
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Did this Rover prototype have a grille like the old 3 litre P5 type? If so it was probably a Road Rover - like you say a forerunner of the Range Rover. A few were built, I think one or two survive. They weren't exactly prototypes for the Range Rover, but were possibly going to go into production in their own right - but they didn't! I found a b&w pic of a Road Rover on Google images, but you need to go to the 2nd or 3rd page to find it! That brings up a German Range Rover site that has pics of several prototypes.
Cheers, Sofa Spud
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It was the same grill as the Rover 75 and 90 that were then being produced.
It may well have been a Road Rover, I can't remember the precise conversation I had with Pat so many years ago. I don't recall ever seeing a Road Rover on the roads>
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Pictures of Road Rovers
www.landrovercentre.com/history_Range_Rover.htm
Sorry I don\'t know how to do links
--
Alyn Beattie
I\'m sane, it\'s the rest of the world that\'s mad.
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just make sure you put the h t t p : / / in front of the www. and it will show as a link.
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Thanks Mark
Knew I could depend on you :-)
--
Alyn Beattie
I'm sane, it's the rest of the world that's mad.
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Alyn
Thanks for the link, it's working great.
Very interesting info!
H
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