For those interested in old cars.

[alastairq]

1 hour ago, Killybegs said:

 

I thought 12 car rallies were outlawed a while back or were there just further restrictions imposed. My last one was in 1979!

https://www.motorsportuk.org/get-started/2020-rs-clubman-licence/

 

The 'new' comp licence imposed on drivers & passengers in most major motor sport disciplines. Currently free...but for how long???

!2 car rallies alive and kicking....sa can be seen in the blurb.  Quite rigidly controlled, however.  

NOthing changes

[runs as required]

I’ve always understood that the bairns of the the 60/70s, reared on collecting Matchbox toys became the car designers of the norties. All the up at the back, down at the front stuff on the road - from Bad boys‘ hatchbacks to Nissan qashqais still have that Matchbox stance.

The first children's book his mum bought Matt, our eldest, was “Matthew and his hundred cars”. And the plot, starting with Matchbox toy collecting turned out to be expensively life defining. 
2

Mention above of German Schuco toy cars - I remember after the war that one of the most prestigious (battered) tinplate toy cars to own was a Schuco that always turned away as soon as it sensed it would tumble off the table. The styling was prewar Detroit six light fastback. They far outclassed clockwork Minics.

dh

[Owd Bob]

I remember some model cars called Huskys, small versions of the bigger ones made by Corgi i think

[PhilJ W]

31 minutes ago, Owd Bob said:

I remember some model cars called Huskys, small versions of the bigger ones made by Corgi i think

And quite a few were 1/76 scale.

[peanuts]

see this little beauty trundling up and down the A62 between Huddersfield & Marsden most days so seems to be a daily user finnaky managed to get a snap of it 

[big jim]

Picked up a book from a church Christmas fete last week, published in 1979 (I was 4) To keep kids entertained in the back of the car on king journeys, it’s actually quite interesting in places

 

Note the practically empty M6 through the lune gorge on the cover

 

Proposed and being built motorways, lots of which look to have never happened, looks to be one in the woodhead area and another stoke across to the M1 Nottingham area (current A50 maybe) 

 

Cars you may see 

 

Registration areas 

 

Spaghetti jn 

 

 

 

 

 

[russ p]

Some strange trunk routes included but other significant ones such as a lot of the A14 missing as I'm sure by 79 it must have been planned 

Interesting they show the map that explains how roads get their numbers not many people realise there is a pattern 

This site is interesting for unbuilt motorways and other road trivia 

 

https://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/

[Fat Controller]

7 minutes ago, russ p said:

Some strange trunk routes included but other significant ones such as a lot of the A14 missing as I'm sure by 79 it must have been planned 

Interesting they show the map that explains how roads get their numbers not many people realise there is a pattern 

This site is interesting for unbuilt motorways and other road trivia 

 

https://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/

The A14 wouldn't have been such an important route, as there were only some  relatively small container ports in Essex and Suffolk.

[russ p]

5 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

The A14 wouldn't have been such an important route, as there were only some  relatively small container ports in Essex and Suffolk.

 

By 79 felixstowe was pretty busy , construction of the owell bridge started about 79

[PhilJ W]

The rail structure serving Felixstowe has been much improved in the last 30-40 years. Not obvious improvements, mostly loading gauge enhancements to allow larger containers to be moved by rail.

[russ p]

1 minute ago, PhilJ W said:

The rail structure serving Felixstowe has been much improved in the last 30-40 years. Not obvious improvements, mostly loading gauge enhancements to allow larger containers to be moved by rail.

 

They relaid a long closed spur to give direct to the docks in 1970

[stewartingram]

The A14 today goes in a totally different direction than it used to as roads were renumbered when the A1-M1 section was built. It used to head North from London to Huntingdon.

 

Stewart

[russ p]

2 minutes ago, stewartingram said:

The A14 today goes in a totally different direction than it used to as roads were renumbered when the A1-M1 section was built. It used to head North from London to Huntingdon.

 

Stewart

 

It also puts it in the wrong number series,  as it starts to the right of the A6 it should begin with a 6

[PhilJ W]

The A roads were numbered from London in order of importance and numbered anticlockwise. Hence the great north road as the busiest became the A1. The Dover road the A2. The road to the West Country the A3. The road to South Wales the A4. The road to Birmingham the A5 and the A6 to the Northwest.

[jwealleans]

What is now the A14 was the A45 when I lived in and around Cambridge.

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, peanuts said:

see this little beauty trundling up and down the A62 between Huddersfield & Marsden most days so seems to be a daily user finnaky managed to get a snap of it 

Last of the Summer Wine.......

[russ p]

55 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

What is now the A14 was the A45 when I lived in and around Cambridge.

 

That started further west hence the number starting with 4

[stewartingram]

2 hours ago, jwealleans said:

What is now the A14 was the A45 when I lived in and around Cambridge.

A45 to the East and A604 to the West of Cambridge (rerouted where appropriate during the rebuild).

 

Of interest, the initial stretch of the "new" A14 (the Huntingdon Southern bypass, which replaces the flyover over Huntingdon station), opened last Monday. It is now reported as causing lots of congestion in the Huntingdon area! (why??).

 

Incidentally, Fenstanton village, East of Huntingdon, originally had the A604 running through it. Then they built a bypass (round the back of the dairy) to relieve traffic through the village. Next they built another bypass (around the time that it became the A14). Now, they've built the "new" A14 to bypass the bypass that bypassed the bypass that bypassed the village.......they call it progress I believe!

 

Stewart

Edited December 11, 2019 by stewartingram
typo

[Rugd1022]

Odd thing about the A14 as it is now is that there's no junction 4, 5 or 6 between J3 and J7!

[russ p]

23 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

Odd thing about the A14 as it is now is that there's no junction 4, 5 or 6 between J3 and J7!

 

 

Never noticed that,  normally so wound up on that road with lorries trying to overtake each other too red and sweaty to notice things like that 

[New Haven Neil]

Harrumph.  Some registrations in that book are wrong - CU was not Newcastle (which was mostly BB) but South Shields - the Roman name for which was Caer Urfa.  My home town.

[big jim]

Another thing to note on the cover of the book is the small map of Preston, it has the line from bamber bridge to Preston (old station side) still showing 

[Beechnut]

20 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Harrumph.  Some registrations in that book are wrong - CU was not Newcastle (which was mostly BB) but South Shields - the Roman name for which was Caer Urfa.  My home town.

It’s post ‘74 when local government was reorganised. e.g. Burton-on-Trent was FA but when LVLA’s were created it went to Stoke.

 

Brendan

[big jim]

A few more gems from the book

 

 

A prediction from 40 years back!

[BernardTPM]

Oooh, an Enfield 8000! More aerodynamic than a Ford Sierra or Audi 100.