Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

[Warren t claim]

Growing up in the 70s I remember several big no no's affecting what car we could have, some are utter bollocks.

Grandma_Claim was totally superstitious meaning that we could never own a green car.

Vinyl roofs were veto'd because she really believed that in the event of a car fire, the vinyl roof would catch alight and drip hot plastic onto the car's occupants, a sort of four wheeled Summerlands disaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerland_disaster

Anything automatic was taken off the menu because she read in the Daily Express that a woman was killed after her Mercedes auto somehow went into drive launching her over a cliff.

Nothing BL as the union was holding the country to ransom.

When as a mere seven year old I voiced my interest in being a taxi driver when I grew up, I was presented with a clipping from the paper about a taxi driver (in Chicago) who'd been attacked and had his legs cut off!

[Eddie Honda]

Growing up in the 70s I remember several big no no's affecting what car we could have, some are utter bollocks.

Father Honda wouldn't touch any "French crap". He wasn't that keen on Fords or Vauxhalls either (although we did have a Transhit minibus. Rather than bread & butter brands, he aspired to slightly more upmarket tosh, the peak of which was a BL-era Jaaag XJ12. A series 3, but a wallet-emptying pre-H.E. engined one.

[Warren t claim]

Growing up in the 70s I remember several big no no's affecting what car we could have, some are utter bollocks.

Father Honda wouldn't touch any "French crap". He wasn't that keen on Fords or Vauxhalls either (although we did have a Transhit minibus. Rather than bread & butter brands, he aspired to slightly more upmarket tosh, the peak of which was a BL-era Jaaag XJ12. A series 3, but a wallet-emptying pre-H.E. engined one.

Back in the 70s the family firm still had a buy British policy.

Even 30 years after the end of WW2 the thought of us buying the reps Jap or Kraut cars was utterly beyond the pale.

[Eddie Honda]

Growing up in the 70s I remember several big no no's affecting what car we could have, some are utter bollocks.

Father Honda wouldn't touch any "French crap". He wasn't that keen on Fords or Vauxhalls either (although we did have a Transhit minibus. Rather than bread & butter brands, he aspired to slightly more upmarket tosh, the peak of which was a BL-era Jaaag XJ12. A series 3, but a wallet-emptying pre-H.E. engined one.

Back in the 70s the family firm still had a buy British policy.

He did buy a new Volvo 144 in 1972 which he sold in 1978. His second Volvo was post Jaaag in 1988 and was mine for a short while in 1999. He wouldn't of had an issue buying a Merc back then (and later did).

His attitude to "French crap" was probably because father-in-law had a Renna 16 auto in 1979. (replaced by a Renna 11 hatchback in 1985)

[treehugger]

Dad was a tight arse, when I was a kid he had two skoda estelles in a row, orange ones. If he was picking me up from school for some reason to dash off to some appointment, he would have classical music blaring from the cassette player for maximum humiliation for me as kids at school openly laughed at me and shouted "skoda".
He was completely oblivious anyway and would not have cared.

[slowanimals]

My grandfather had a virulent hatred of the Japanese and their products, a result (as I understand it) of losing his older brother in the jungles of Burma. From my earliest memories (early '80's onwards) he would only have French cars which had to be white, estates and preferably diesel. The only exception I can recall to this rule was a Montego Countryman he bought in about 1992,having been impressed with one my Uncle David had as a company car. Ownership, it transpired, was a different matter and he only kept it for a few months before chopping it in for a 405 estate. Not very long before he passed away my Nan took it upon herself to pass the 405 on into the family and brought home a brand new Nissan Serena (white, diesel..) in the grimmest spec available. Grandad was so incensed by this that he refused to travel in it and would deliberately close the sitting room curtains so that he didn't have to even look at the miserable thing as it sat on their driveway.
On my father's side of the family, Grandad was almost invariably a Vauxhall man and my father has been a Peugeot loyalist since 1987, neatly overlooking how fugly they've become since his sole 406 back in 1998. His sister, my aunt, regards all green cars as unlucky and refuses to countenance a Volkswagen because she once rode in one my Grandad had a loan of and it made her carsick. That was in 1952,but the prejudice still holds. Nice thread idea by the way, I'm looking forward to reading some others' memories.

[mercrocker]

My grand-father would never have a Ford for some reason. He also suffered a few years of ear-ache from my Gran for buying a Wolseley 15/60 from her Uncle which she regarded as a "hand-me down" although the previous used cars from complete strangers didn't bother her at all.

Conversely, my own parents were apparently shit-scared of secondhand cars and so all the ones we had came from other Uncles.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

The references to older relatives not buying German or Japanese cars because of the war reminded me of a couple of things.
To this day you won’t see an Orthodox Jew driving anything German, parts of North London are full of Lexuses, Volvos and Jags where you’d normally see Mercs ,Audis or BMWs in neighbouring areas. Also there must be more battered to death Previas in the Tesco car park in Brent Cross than anywhere else on the planet.

Conversely, my history teacher drove a purple Mazda 818 and he was a survivor of the Burma Railway. His name was Mathews and we called him Boney M because he was still skeletal 30 years later- kids are nasty cunts.

It’s reckoned that Mike Hawthorn would always refuse to “ Let a bloody Kraut car past” and is possibly how he was killed trying to keep Rob Walkers 300SL Gullwing at bay in his MK1 Jag.

My Grandad on his 90th birthday refused to go to his Birthday Lunch in my brother’s e34 B10 “ The bloody German’s ruined my 30th birthday, I’m not going in a fucking Nazimobile today!” He was born 6/6/1914 and almost drowned on Sword Beach , he was saved by his mate Arthur who later copped it in Ouisterham “ In a knocking shop doorway” or so Grandad claimed. Although after a few rums , his stories always got a bit more unlikely.

[Eddie Honda]

Paternal grandfather Honda when he eventually did pass his test only ever bought Minis until he died in 1977.

[captain_70s]

My parents just bought whatever offered the most space/economy for the money.

When budget was low it was decade old Rondas, then diesel estates (C5, Octavia) and cheap 4x4s (Explorer, Freelander, CR-V). They both got weirdly obsessed with Binis for a while, my Dad had a Cooper S and when mum started driving she had a One CVT, then a later Cooper and then a convertible coupe type thing. I think the constant niggling faults got the better of them, the things spent more time at Mini being fixed than at home...

Now they're on their 3rd Honda CRV, they just a buy a new model when the last one becomes too expensive to fix/weld up, and Dad has a Vauxhall Combo for work.

My Grandad on Dad's side had second hand Volvos and Datsuns and a fleet of Mini vans as part of a business. On my Mother's side it was whatever could be bought from the pub for not a lot, from a Morris Oxford to a Vauxhall Viva with a jacked up rear axle...