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My dad had a red Cortina 1.6. 🙂
Blue 1.6 Sierra.
Fair play to CH for keeping that close to the 6R4 too.
My dad had a beige 1.6 Cortina estate.
It's a revelation and all the more welcome for the move away from the usual macho posturing.
Last Cortina my dad drove was a 1.6 MK3 in dog-pooh brown.
Ford escort mk3 metallic blue
Ford Sierra Mk2 red
Ford Focus mk1 maroon
Dad had a red Cortina estate, it was written off by a lorry running into it.
Next up was a VW Santana followed by a Vauxhall Carlton 😁
green Mk1 Escort estate here.
Really enjoyed that. Nice to see behind the façade of the celebrity a little bit. Is it wrong as a farmer to notice the specially laid track to the barn to cover the normal shite 🙂
The 6R4 was the same one they had on Car SOS the other day that Fuzz Townshend drove.
The last bit in Grizedale Forest, I know those roads and trails very well. The bit to the ferry was very staged - from the layby in Grizedale, it's about 5 miles and all signposted so for them to take the roads they did was very obviously a set-up. I mean, I'm not complaining, I know how it works. Just saying... 😉
I think the worst car my dad ever had was his Austin Princess. It apparently drove nice but you could watch it rust before your eyes.
Was a fantastic episode. Proper emotions with their dads cars.
My mum always did the driving, so not got a "dad's car" to remember. The one I remember was an Austin Allegro, the first brand new car they bought. Speedo died after a week.
Superb.
Dad - Ford Sierra.
Mum - Subaru Legacy, back in the McRae rally days. Cool AF
That was simply brilliant. I did have a chuckle at all the continuity errors in and around the north Lakes though
Many many Princesses. Leyland company cars so never long enough to rust. They were otherwise pretty good cars to be honest.
Regular ritual of removing polythene covers on the new seats and holding spanner inside the car whilst dad fitted rear seat belts.
Welshfarmer.... First thing I thought... canny farmers got a new road in exchange for borrowing his barn... funny program and glad lambo still producing utterly bonkers cars!
That road across Caldbeck common is part of a beautiful road bike loop from Keswick. Great family telly!
Good episode, really enjoyed it.
Doubt they were driving the rally stage though and if they were, there's no way CH in a 300bhp rwd escort was only 12s behind the Stig in a 380bhp 4wd group B 6R4 😂
My dad was a massive fan of bangernomics never had anything newish/exiting/worth much. Probs remember his 1989 Nissan Sunny saloon the most though, learned to drive in that car.
Great episode, good mix of daftness, nostalgia and cars. Looking forward to heading back to the Lakes!
Probably by chance, but my mum seemed to have cars that had notable rally connections
Mini
Metro
205
Legacy
Enjoyed that. My heart sank when I saw that the 3 classics were all in good nick and was expecting to see them trashed but no, they just had some fun in them without mindlessly damaging them. A nice change that.
Mum had a 2000E (!) Corsair at one stage. It was never driven anywhere slowly, I got a love of going fast from her. It did go wrong once in Yorkshire when she nearly killed the three of us (me, sister and mum) with a dodgy overtake. I think we ended up on a very wide grass verge while the other driver correctly had a go at her.
Oh and as we're into listing parent's cars:
Dad's:
Cavalier
Strada
126 Bis
Panda
Corsa
Corsa (again)
Mum's:
500 (the original)
126
127
Uno
Pony X2LS
Rover 213
Dad's were all new, mum's were all old or hand-me-downs from family.
First proper car I remember was a Hillman Avenger. Dad had a Morris 1000 before that which I have a vague memory of because he shut my fingers in the door.
It was the vinyl seats in a hot summer I remember most. Used to stick to them and have to peel my legs off them.
My heart sank when I saw that the 3 classics were all in good nick and was expecting to see them trashed but no, they just had some fun in them without mindlessly damaging them.
I was wondering where they'd sourced three such mint condition classic cars from. Guess they were privately owned collector's cars and they must have been under instruction to look after them. I enjoyed the Lake District roads, was up there during a lull in lockdown last summer and had a fantastic road ride on those northern lanes.
We had a 4-door Alfa Romeo Alfasud. It was dark blue with beige/orange interior and a battery that went flat as soon as you turned on an interior light.
Driving to my grandparents (I was about 5), my Dad did a risky overtake and my Mum was gripping the seat in terror. My Dad, quite relaxed, was like "it's all OK, I'm a good judge of distance". He then turned into my grandparents driveway and crashed into the garage wall. 😂
My dad had a cracking Cortina that was stolen when we went to panto at the Beck theatre in Hayes. Dad swears it was the best car he ever owned. He then got Sierra then Granada. Mum drove Fiesta
I agree about never asking for directions though. I’d rather drive round all night. Never, ever ask.
I think my dad's cars were 'different'...
He had a motorbike for years in India.
UK we had:
SIMCA 1100
Fiat Amigo camper (based on a 500...)
Austin Ambassador
Ford Sierra
A series of Citroen BX estates.
Lovely piece that, quite emotional.
Triumph Toledo..
Dad's cars, all company cars ...
BL Maxi
Metallic blue Mk3 Cortina
Beige Mk 4 Cortina
Red Mk 4 Cortina (Sport? - had black vinyl roof, alloys, front spots)
Green Mk 4 Cortina 2.3 V6 GLS (I think)
White Sierra Sapphire
Beige Vaxhall Cavalier (that I took to 113 mph on a local B road aged 18 ... WTF did I think I was doing?!).
Enjoyed my Mum's cars too.
Red Fiat 126 with roll top sunroof
Gold Renault 5 (which I wrote off, aged 17, dicking about in the snow)
Blue VW Polo Classic (which became my second car)
My first car was a white Mk1 Ford Fiesta, followed by the Polo, then a red Mk 3 Escort 1.6 GLS.
Memories ...
The trailers made me think "I'm not 14. Aahm ooot".
Harris has bought the 323 according to his insta, No surprise though he loves his old BMW's. The Cortina looked pretty tail happy for a 1.6!
Cortina estate 1.6l in white, Cortina estate 1.6GL in metallic brown with a vinyl roof, Cortina 2.0 Ghia in silver (vinyl roof, sunroof and power steering. It could do 60 in second and could power skid up to about 45mph. Those were the days.
Various transit vans that we were free to roll around in the back of "it was the 70's" first car was a green Hillman Avenger estate. He once got stopped by police because Yorkshire Ripper was thought to be driving a crappy green Avenger at the time.
Showing my age-my Dad’s first car was an Anglia 105e deluxe he bought new in 1960 the day he passed his driving test at 17.
That was a great show! Like a couple above, when I saw the cars revealed, I thought “no, surely they’re not going to rag the nuts off those!” But they treated them with respect, and with some real emotion about family.
When I was a kid, I went everywhere on the back of my dad’s Francis-Barnett motorbike, and when we finally got a car in 1967, a 1955 Hillman Minx, he died before we ever had much of a chance to go anywhere in it, and my mum sold it. 😢
My Dad had a Cortina 2000E in metallic blue, with the vinyl. It was stolen a total of 14 times and the last time burnt out.
I think at that time one in three Ford keys worked in any Cortina, so it was very easy to steal.
Is it wrong as a farmer to notice the specially laid track to the barn to cover the normal shite 🙂
And the hastily stacked bales outside to make some room in front of the doors😂
I liked that, nice change and some real emotion from the lads. Nice to see the relationship mature between them.
Flintoff's hair looked ridiculous in the 'studio' though!
Brilliant episode! Chris Harris was nearly in tears several times...
Anyway... My Dad had some pretty decent cars that I can remember...
-Porsche 924 (he bought this apparently as a "practical" car with rear seats and a big boot for a pushchair!) when my mum told him she was expecting me!
-BMW E21 316
-Volvo 260GLT estate (think this was a work pool car, but he used to bring it home lots)
-BMW E28 528i... Possibly the coolest car he owned, and ALWAYS had a tin of sweets in the centre console, and usually had Tina Turner or Dire Straits cassette in the Blaupunkt stereo!
-Jaguar XJ6, the 2.9 not the 3.6... Worst car he ever owned he said, sold it after about 6 months from new!
-Audi 80 1.8L saloon... About all he could get his hands on quickly to replace the Jag, and infinitely better in every way he said!
-BMW E34 535i... 1988 car, one of the first in the country. His favourite car he ever owned he still says to this day, did 90k in it in 3 years and it never went wrong once!
-Merc 300E 24V... Great engine, awful 4spd Auto box, boring old man's car and my Dad was still in his 30's (just) and he hated it, but couldn't afford to exchange it for a while so had to stick with it until my mum sadly died and he inherited her E36 325i and sold it.
-BMW E34 540i... Special order "Avus" Blue that was only an M series colour, and a manual box... Great car! I remember sitting at a constant 155 (that's what they were limited to) on the German Autobahn on the way to Austria, with a purple Lamborghini Countach QV slowly overtaking us at near enough full chat vividly!
By the time he got rid of the 540i I was 17 and learning to drive myself, and with only a couple of notable exceptions his car history went seriously downhill from then on...
My Mum though... Don't remember all of her cars, but my Dad tells me that when he met her, she was earning a lot more money than he was and already had an MGC (she was a teacher, he was a trainee accountant), and I've seen photos of some of her Mini's she had when she was younger (PROPER original Cooper S included)... The cars she had whilst I was around though before she passed...
-Mk1 Fiesta
-Mk3 Escort
-Peugeot 205GTi 1.6 (had this from new, and it was sooooooooo cool!)
-BMW E30 318i
-BMW E36 325i
The memories! 👍🏻
Enjoyed that. My first car was a Mk1 Fiesta* so that was a nostalgia trip for me.
I was trying to work out what model it was; they mentioned 53 brake so that was the same engine as mine, the 1.1. The flirty little attempt at a rear wing / spoiler should imply a Sport or early XR2 I think, but the rest of the car didn't fit at all. Popular Plus with an aftermarket addition maybe?
(* - just off to change all my website security questions...)
Red Anglia, followed by a navy blue mark ii Ford Escort with black vinyl seats that melted the skin from your legs in the summer, followed by a 1.6 Ford Cortina in white with black vinyl roof. Unfortunately my dad's choice in cars then went way down hill with an Austin Montego 1.6. Hateful car. He's had Peugeots ever since. I miss having the job to push the Cortina away in the snow as a young boy.
My first car was a MK1 Escort given to me by my parents, Chocolate brown mostly hand painted. I couldn't wait to get rid of it, total shite.
Haven't got waves of rewritten history fueled nostalgia, so have no desire to own one again.
My first car was a 1981 fiesta complete pov spec, 950 engine, plastic seats so in summer it was like a sauna, winter freezing, no parcel tray, engine fan ran all the time.
But it was my first car and it didn't break down. I could just about keep up with the hgv s on the m6.
I guess it shows my dad’s age ( and mine) that his first car was a 1938 Austin 12, his second a 50’s Standard Vanguard and his third a Messerschmitt KR200. The first I remember being driven in was a Humber Hawk and then my favourite, a Rover P5. All, bar the Kr200, were at the end of their useful life shall we say, indeed the Rover had a spectacular big end failure on the Farnham bypass.
The reason he had to sell the Kr 200 was that he soon realised taking him, my mum and three children under two in it wasn’t really practical (!)
My mother’s first car was an early split screen Morris Minor
Best episode for ages, very emotional. Kryton Jnr said when CH said he wasn’t allowed to touch the buttons “just like me in your car Daddy” 😀
My dads cars:
Hillman Avenger
Citroen Ami 8
Hillman Imp
Morris’s Minor estate
Leland Sherpa van (he became a Scout Leader)
Escort Mk4
Pug 106 after we all left home.
Will never forget my dad getting his dream car, I was 10 yrs old, it was a brand new 1990 H reg Golf GTI mk2 in metallic black with BBS wheels.
We travelled on the train as a family from Penzance to Paddington to go & collect it from the dealership in W London!
Very unfortunately as a 90's hot hatch it was pretty highly sought after by thieves and it was stolen a few years later. Even now my dad gets abit misty eyed if that's mentioned. I do wonder where it ended up, we never heard anything of it ever again.
My father didn't have a car till I was about 15, then he became rather fanatical about 'buying British'. He had an 1100, which was ok, then a Marina, which wasn't, then an Allegro, oh God, then a Maestro, which spent longer being fixed than bring driven
The next time I saw him he had a Golf.
I do wonder if, in 20-30 years, our kids (collectively, I won’t be having any) will have the same nostalgia for cars that are available now, they just seem a bit soulless compared to those we grew up with.