grandad wrote:
StuartW wrote:
[-o<
Doesn't bear thinking about what would have happened if you'd been driving a Mk1 Cortina 40 years ago.
I doubt many MK one Cortina's would have been still on the road in 1980. They stopped making them in 1966.
Certainly not many, but sounds about the age of the car my dad would have bought
But I should maybe have said *50* years ago, because the car I was thinking about in particular was a Mk1 Cortina my dad bought, and that must have been about the time I started school, so around 1970.
Still remember how pleased I was because he bought the navy blue four-door Cortina, which I'm sure was £225
There was a burgundy coloured one beside it in the showroom but it only had TWO DOORS
and it was only £175, and as my mum and dad were pretty pi$$ poor that extra £50 was probably about two or three weeks wages.
In fact thinking back I'm surprised that we were able to afford a car from any kind of showroom at all, although it certainly wasn't new or even nearly new, or whatever.
But I still remember where we were driving when it went round the clock, which was a big achievement back then
Anyway, certainly no airbags back then, and can't even remember if it had seatbelts. Probably did, but they were pretty cumbersome to use when they were first fitted to cars (as I'm sure you might remember better than me) and I'm pretty sure we never wore them to start with.
Of course, then came the Clunk Click campaign - led, of course, by Jimmy Saville
- then compulsory seatbelts, and the rest is history.
And which I'm sure Jimbo is pretty pleased about today