Voitures Anciennes

[RobertArthur]

A rather classic advertisement for power steering, not today.

October 10 1953.

[L Austin France]

A rather classic advertisement for power steering, not today.

My first use of power steering was using feet assistance as well as hand held rope on my soapbox's front axle.

[RobertArthur]

In the post-war years Fiat introduced a small 600 at the 1955 Geneva Salon. A small utilitarian car. A rear-engined (633-cc) saloon. With a price of just £ 265. The end for the Topolino. The following year in Brussels the Multipla, three rows of seats. About 150,000 wre produced. In 1957 the little Fiat 500 Nuova, air-cooled, 479-cc twin cylinder engine. In production until 1975, more than 3,000,000 had been made. Yellow is the colour of a real Italian city street....

[Hotrodder]

Italian cars. Always an eye for innovation, style, and occasionally speed, but sadly lacking in rust prevention and reliable electrics.

[RobertArthur]

French cars and rust prevention: totally absent in the Simca 1100, the swan song of this car manufacturer. One of my collegues had only six years the privilege of being the proud owner before bringing it to the scrapyard.

It used to be better, the Simca 1300 and 1500 and special editions. What about the Versailles and the Vedette Régence, toujours un an de garantie totale.

A safe family car as we can see in this 1956 advertisement.

[Hotrodder]

The little girl in the front seat eager to be the first through the windscreen in a crash.

[exile]

Actually the one in the back is more vulnerable.

The one in the front will smash her head into the fascia. The one in the back will slide up the back of the seats and then project forwards.

How times change.

[RobertArthur]

And this little boy could have escaped through a door, but:

' For among the many features engineered into Fisher Body is the tiny safety catch built into the locking mechanism of sedan rear doors. With this adjusted, children cannot open rear doors with the inside door handle while the locking knob on the door moulding is depressed. '

[DominicBest]

I fear you have missed the point of "Retro" designs. Its nothing at all to do with technical specs. I don't think that many people who buy them are the least bit interested in what lies beneath the skin. Its about the distinctive styling that is so rare these days. I was hoping after the three we have been discussing appeared on the market there would be a revival of the 2cv as well. Probably one of the most recognisable styles on the planet could have been the basis of a great retro model. Inevitably it wouldn't be an "entry level" product but could have been a contender among the genre displaying the style of the original with sensible mechanical upgrades.

I haven’t missed the point at all but I’m far more interested in the mechanical pedigree and am less interested in a drawing by a designer trying to make us think that a big bloated modern car is a fair representation of the past. Firms like Porsche share my views, to them a 911 will always be a rear engined car. It doesn’t matter if their mid engined cars are better they’ve generated a situation where their archaic design is still the one they want to be their flagship and people are prepared to spend huge amounts of money to own. I’m fairly sure that you yourself held your head in your hands when Ford released a front wheel drive Mustang that wasn’t a muscle car. Sometimes nostalgia is about more than the shape of the body. As you know I own an old car. If Ford produced a copy of it next year and sold it as their retro model I would not be interested at all, they would be missing the point by a mile.

[DominicBest]

French cars and rust prevention: totally absent in the Simca 1100, the swan song of this car manufacturer. One of my collegues had only six years the privilege of being the proud owner before bringing it to the scrapyard.

It used to be better, the Simca 1300 and 1500 and special editions. What about the Versailles and the Vedette Régence, toujours un an de garantie totale.

A safe family car as we can see in this 1956 advertisement.

But rust wasn’t a problem that was only found on French and Italian cars it was rife on British ones too. A couple of weeks ago I was talking about a particular Mini Cooper S that my father had owned. They are very valuable now because so few with that engine were ever made. I started telling a friend how I wish it was still in the family but added that when my father bought it it was already rusting apart. I then thought about it and that car must have been at the most four years old when we had it. Four years old and rusted apart. I also read an interesting article in what must have been 1994. It was about getting 25 year old cars, bought new in 1969 through an MOT test. The stats proved that the easiest were made by FIAT and Honda, two makes which in their day had terrible reputation for falling apart.