Back in the late 70s, our family went a holiday to Europe pulling a caravan with a Cortina estate.
There were 5 kids ranging from 8 to 16 and mum and dad.
Although for the majority of the journey 2 would travel in the boot, quite often there would be 5 in the back seat.
I have just discovered that the current Fiesta is wider than the Cortina estate that five of us sat on the back seat!! Could you imagine 5 in the back of a fiesta nowadays???
This all came to light when, over the course of the last week, I have seen on the road around here
Mark 1 Fiesta
Mark 3 Escort
Orion 1.6 Ghia
Cortina Mk 4
Escort Mk2 Estate
Sierra XR4x4
Don't know if there is some collector locally that has decided to put his cars on the road although some seem to be used as daily runners.
I was brought up on Fords, dad always had them as company cars and as a kid, I can probably put my lifelong interest in cars down to Ford! Used to know every model inside out, what the trim spec differences were and even as a kid I used to cycle to Laidlaws , my local dealer, and collect the brochure which came out every month (I Think) and have a good walk round the showroom. Salesmen used to welcome me and gave me free rein of opening doors and sitting in seats .
Somehow I can't see the local Arnold Clark allowing kids to do that nowadays!
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Similarly...
I was speaking to my Mother today and we were discussing that when my sister and I were little we used to go to the beach for the day.
It was such a long journey that we used to stop on the way for a rest and something to eat and drink.
As near as I can work out it was about 55 miles and theaa.com now shows it as 1hr 23m.
It seemed a lot further than that in some old Morris thing.
About the same time my friend and I had to walk about 1/2 mile to a bus stop to get to school. We would stand at the bottom of quite a long hill and reckon to identify every car before it got to us, mostly my its sound and its headlamps.
These days I struggle to spot my own in a crowd.
Lastly, in my teens there was a particular corner that we used to try and get around as fast as possible. I forget now, but I think we were aiming for 40mph, which was verging on the suicidal.
I was thinking about that just a few years back as I went around the same corner at almost double that effortlessly.
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Likewise....recently drove Mother to St Anne's for a few days on her own ( you need to prove you are over 70 to be allowed in) and collect her later this week. We were chatting about family days out in the early 60s.
When I was a nipper we lived in the centre of Bradford, and on special occasions drove to Morecambe on a Sunday, four up with my brother. Herald estate, Simca 1100 et al and it seemed to take forever, with no Bingley, Skipton, Settle by passes. Had to stop for a picnic on Clapham Common to let the engine cool down. I even remember Aunt, Uncle & Grandma joining us some Sunday's. So that's 7 up in a Herald estate or Moggie Traveller! And when you see them now they are tiny.
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There was a Triumph 2000 estate in the car park at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard last weekend. That, I suppose, would have been the choice of a family estate buyer like me 45 years earlier, but it looked small and slight even among Focuses and the like. It might have been fun to park the LEC next to it, but that wasn't what we were there for.
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>> There was a Triumph 2000 estate ......, but it looked small and slight even among Focuses
>>
The difference is in the door thickness. The Triumph looks tiny, but is spacious inside. It will comfortably seat three adults in the back, there is a lot of leg room even with the front seats back. In the days before people fussed about wearing seat belts you could easily swap places on the move - there is 6" gap between the front seats you can walk through.
The other day the man at the farmers' coop was amazed at the amount of space in the boot (saloon). Can you get two bales of horse feed and other stuff in a Focus?
Yes, yes, yes, death trap, no crumple zones, performance grossly in excess of its safety level, but good ride, cornering, visibility, and above all, FUN.
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>> >> There was a Triumph 2000 estate ......,
>>
>> Yes, yes, yes, death trap, no crumple zones, performance grossly in excess of its safety
>> level, but good ride, cornering, visibility, and above all, FUN.
>>
I had a T2000 saloon and was involved in a low speed ( 10mph?) sandwich crash.
Crawling along in rush hour and a Volvo hit the rear of a Transit type motor caravan behind me. I was pushed into a MB estate.
The damage to the Triumph was extensive. Boot, radiator bonnet all obviously rearranged but also drivers door distorted and jammed.
I was pleased to get rid of it.
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>> There was a Triumph 2000 estate .... it looked small and slight even among Focuses and the
>> like. It might have been fun to park the LEC next to it, but that
>> wasn't what we were there for.
I've even started to notice that my 2003 SAAB 9-5 estate is starting to look slim and lithe amongst much more recent company, such as the latest Focus. Even the missus doesn't really think it a big car - but 10 years ago she'd have run away from one in horror, thinking them far too big.
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Thought you had a Mazda, Alanovic. What made you change?
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>> Thought you had a Mazda, Alanovic. What made you change?
>>
Still got the Mazda (6 estate 2.0 petrol auto) too. The SAAB replaced the wife's Golf. But I tend to drive the SAAB daily now as a tank of fuel goes 100 miles further than the Mazda's tank. I stopped using the Mazda daily and took over the Golf for fuel consumption reasons, then we discovered we couldn't get the wife's Brompton bike plus all the children's school bags and sports equipment in the boot some days, so I changed that car for the bigger SAAB.
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>> I was speaking to my Mother today and we were discussing that when my sister
>> and I were little we used to go to the beach for the day.
>>
>> It was such a long journey that we used to stop on the way for
>> a rest and something to eat and drink.
>>
>> As near as I can work out it was about 55 miles and theaa.com now
>> shows it as 1hr 23m.
>>
>> It seemed a lot further than that in some old Morris thing.
Looking back through photos.....
The year was sometime between 1959 to 1961. The car was a clapped out 1948 Morris 8 Series E - one of these -
tinyurl.com/na4m874
The journey was Essex to Portreath for a week in a self catering caravan.
A journey that would now take, about 5 hours, was a - then - 10 to 11 hour journey - remember no M4, No M25, No M3, no dual carriageway a303. Check in time for caravans was about 15:00. The journey required to cut through london east to west, so an early start was needed to get through if you didnt want a 12-13 hour journey.
So about 4 am I was scooped out of bed in my jim jams and blankets and put to bed on the back seat and off we would set. Somewhere just after Blackbushe we stopped for a wee and a brew, and I put on my day clothes.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 19 May 15 at 18:42
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We did a self-catering caravan, I think it was Weston Super Mare. It rained most of the week and the beach had jelly fish on it.
It was magic fun at the time, journey and all - mind you, it involved endless squabbling with my sister about who had a toe on the other's side.
That was in a white Hillman Minx with red plastic seats. I thought it was quite posh at the time. At least it had proper indicators and you didn't have to thump the pillar to get the indicator arm to drop like on the Morris.
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>Somewhere just after Blackbushe we stopped for a wee and a brew, and I put on my day clothes.
There was a transport cafe popular with truckers and travellers on the A30 near Murrell Green. Closed down about 20yrs ago.
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>> >Somewhere just after Blackbushe we stopped for a wee and a brew, and I put
>> on my day clothes.
>>
>> There was a transport cafe popular with truckers and travellers on the A30 near Murrell
>> Green. Closed down about 20yrs ago.
Probably that one then.
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Aged about 13, my best friends parents invited me to join them for two weeks in a tiny self catering place in Mousehole. Along with his younger sister and long haired Collie. We left Bradford in the family Hillman Avenger saloon around midnight, and arrived 12+ hours later. Happy days.
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>> I have just discovered that the current Fiesta is wider than the Cortina estate that
>> five of us sat on the back seat!! Could you imagine 5 in the back
>> of a fiesta nowadays???
How much wider is the fiesta inside?
Cars like the Cortina did not have a lot between the occupants and the outside world at the sides
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Just seen an elderly Jag.(3.4) parked next to a recent Mini-Mini was bigger!
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I had a Maxi years ago; considered to be a biggish car in its day. They look like dinky toys now, though.
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Summer 1974:
1967 Ford Escort 1100 estate (in blue), Manchester to Anglesey and return with big bottleneck at Connahs Quay and old A55 coast road.
Mum and Dad in front, 4 children on back seat, 2 in the load area plus Labrador dog........
and it was hot.
5 hour plus journey, stop at St Asaph for lunch break
Now can't believe we ever did it but pics prove otherwise. Madness, but you could lay a matchbox car on the top channel of the rear bench seat and have hours of fun watching it run across the top at every bend!
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It was a shock to me to find that my new V70 is almost 6" wider than my previous BMW 5 series estate (E61). Look at them on the road and the Volvo looks significantly narrower.
It is only when you see some lovely old (but at the time every-day) cars that you realise how safe new cars are with their associated crumple-zones, side-impact protection, etc.
I used to have a lie-down and a sleep in the back of my parent's car, and there is not a chance in hell of any sane parent letting their kids do that nowadays.
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>>Just seen an elderly Jag.(3.4) parked next to a recent Mini-Mini was bigger!
Un-believ-a-bubble.!
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The current Berlingo is almost 7 feet wide measured from door mirror to door mirror. Wide enough to be excluded from lane 3 in m/way works such as those currently in progress M1 J19>15.
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>> The current Berlingo is almost 7 feet wide measured from door mirror to door mirror.
>> Wide enough to be excluded from lane 3 in m/way works such as those currently
>> in progress M1 J19>15.
>>
I don't spose Citroens have electric folding mirrors. And even if they do, they probably don't work.
:-0
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Do you have to pass through a pair of goalposts to get into this lane, then? Or do you just have to take a sensible definition of the 6'6" (presumably) width limit as measuring the bodywork and not the mirrors?
The width restriction that gives me the willies is the one on Marlow Bridge, enforced with concrete bollards that are well below window height. I know my car will fit between them, but it's an act of faith every time because I can't see what I'm trying to avoid.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Tue 19 May 15 at 14:07
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One of the advantages of parking the car overnight in a garage with an entrance 2.1 meters wide - and even more so reversing it in - is you get to KNOW the width of your car.. and its length... My Jazz with extended wing mirrors is wider than the Mark 1 Jaguar XJ6 I owned . I garaged that as well.
Last edited by: madf on Tue 19 May 15 at 14:15
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>> Do you have to pass through a pair of goalposts to get into this lane,
>> then? Or do you just have to take a sensible definition of the 6'6" (presumably)
>> width limit as measuring the bodywork and not the mirrors?
Assume a sensible definition but strictly speaking I'm out of order. Need to be very unlucky and suffer very pedantic enforcement to get into trouble but nonetheless......
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Width of any vehicle?
Easy, close eyes and select narrow gear.
Pat
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>> Do you have to pass through a pair of goalposts to get into this lane,
>> then? Or do you just have to take a sensible definition of the 6'6" (presumably)
>> width limit as measuring the bodywork and not the mirrors?
>>
>> The width restriction that gives me the willies is the one on Marlow Bridge, enforced
>> with concrete bollards that are well below window height. I know my car will fit
>> between them, but it's an act of faith every time because I can't see what
>> I'm trying to avoid.
>>
I got diverted across there recently by my sat nav and I nearly wet myself driving between those bollards.
I've seen them in a few places down South - what the heck to the Land / Range Rover brigade do? I noticed even the new LandRover Discovery Sport is 6'9" wide, with its mirrors folded in.
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>
>> I got diverted across there recently by my sat nav and I nearly wet myself
>> driving between those bollards.
>>
>> I've seen them in a few places down South - what the heck to the
>> Land / Range Rover brigade do? I noticed even the new LandRover Discovery Sport is
>> 6'9" wide, with its mirrors folded in.
Good lord - what a load of quivering pansies you lot are
See this?
www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.37917,-0.598007,3a,75y,7.05h,68.2t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s0Ht54rPmIer0WA-vGtAWrA!2e0!6m1!1e1
Matter of pride to come off the roundabout at 30 and through that at 40.
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I don't think I own anything that would fit through that.
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Last edited by: VxFan on Sun 29 Jul 18 at 19:57
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We have a slightly less scary looking but same width restriction on a road in Cambridge. However, to add to the fun, it's on a 90 degree bend and one does proceed, as they say, with extreme caution. Well, this one does.
Inevitably the web page in the link to the picture of it also seems to have a nerdy Cambridge issue about the exact signage. I expect he's right though.
bjh21.me.uk/oddities/storeysway/
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Last edited by: VxFan on Sun 29 Jul 18 at 19:57
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>> .......... I wonder if it's to stop off roader types?
>>
It was certainly effective against Google's camera car!
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>> Can't say I've ever seen such an extreme road narrowing device.
>>
Out council use a steel RSJ height restrictors and car sized boulders as access blockers on the car parks that people camping in caravans and Transit vans liked to use. They are no longer a problem.
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Round here farmers use a wall from (I assume) an abanded outbuilding to stop vehicles. Not seen it used anywhere else. No people with vans and 'vans though.
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Cornish farmers often use granite boulders to stop travellers gaining access to certain fields.
If that fails to stop 'em, they'll send for the muck spreader.!!
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>> The width restriction that gives me the willies is the one on Marlow Bridge, enforced
>> with concrete bollards that are well below window height. I know my car will fit
>> between them, but it's an act of faith every time because I can't see what
>> I'm trying to avoid.
>>
When the low bollards first went in they did take a few tyres out as they had sharp edges, they are there for a serious reason as the bridge cannot take heavy use and the old pillar type, slightly wider than 6 foot 6 were ignored by a lot of vans which were overweight. Nothing really heavy goes over the bridge because of the arches at each end.
They do he job and are easily avoided if you don't like them, I am not convinced they are any quicker much of the time, I used to drop my daughter off at Bisham Primary, half a mile south of the bridge, on the way to work years ago and found it just as quick to use the bypass
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Agreed, CD. Even if I'm approaching from the south I'll often continue past Bisham and go in along the A4155, because the bollards create such a queue.
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>> People are also fatter.
>>
I'm not.
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Neither am I, but generally people are. Loads.
I remember being shocked when I returned to the UK about 15 years ago after quite a long absence and noticing just how much fatter people had got.
Tescos at 8pm on a Friday was a scary place.
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Maybe but most are. Just look at a group photo of people in the 1960s Obesity was quite unusual especially in children Now its common. Car manufacturers have responded with larger seats
If you go back to Victorian/Edwardian times people were much smaller still. Try out a theatre seat from this era to prove the point.
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My usual vaguely relevant factoid is that the current Corsa weighs about the same as a Victor FE estate.
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There's a very old and dodgy sort of temporary flyover thing that one can take when coming from Kew to avoid the Hammersmith roundabout and get onto the, er, Hammersmith roundabout to go to London. It's a bit weird becaus it's outside the outside lane, if you see what I mean.
Most people flinch and mimse when they use it because it has these very tight bollards, but I hit it at a good speed and waddle over the increasingly shaky bridge thing which makes noises, clonk clonk clonk. Many here must know it. I suppose there may be cars too wide to use it.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 19 May 15 at 20:50
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>> There's a very old and dodgy sort of temporary flyover thing that one can take
>> when coming from Kew to avoid the Hammersmith roundabout and get onto the, er, Hammersmith
>> roundabout to go to London.
Some people call that the Chiswick roundabout...........
But I know what you mean Lud and agree.
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I've always called it Chiswick roundabout too:)
Pat
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Chiswick Roundabout is the brick built one with the M4 on top just prior to landfall en rote to Smoke.
Tis Hogarth Roundabout. We always refer to it as the tin flyover .
As an aside, since its introduction I have not heard of any truck drivers getting killed coming from the M4.
In the old days when blasting of the M4 and getting the set of lights at ground level green, the roundabout is the next challenge.
With too much speed the option seemed to be go straight over the roundabout.
Unfortunately the pedestrian subway in the middle brought things to a tragic halt.
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>> Chiswick Roundabout is the brick built one with the M4 on top just prior to
>> landfall en rote to Smoke.
>>
>> Tis Hogarth Roundabout. We always refer to it as the tin flyover .
Yes. Well done. I knew that. I was waiting to see who would be the first to spot it...
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Of course the Victor started getting lighter by a a process of oxidation as soon as it left the factory. Corsas are quite rust resistant.
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>> Of course the Victor started getting lighter by a a process of oxidation as soon
>> as it left the factory. Corsas are quite rust resistant.
>>
Steel gets heavier when it rusts. (Until it falls off, of course)
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Lovely post Bobby. Bit like me really in Norman Reeves in Uxbridge when I was a tad younger than now. Sat in one of the last 2.8i Capris in that Lurrvelly green colour. I can remember it oh so well.
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Oh don't get me (or Zero) started on Capris! Always wanted one since watching Bodie drive his in The Professionals!
As a wee boy I got a lift in a relative's Capri who lived down in Birmingham - Shard End or something like that??? I remember it was a mark one and it had a sunroof that I would hang out (and a black vinyl roof I think?)
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Had to be the right Capri. The Languages teacher at my school in the late 60s had one of the first mark 1 Capris, respect for about 2 days till somebody had a look at the badge and found it was a 1300 version.
He did replace it with a 3 litre one 2 years later but the damage was done.
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Car dimensions - No FM2R
