Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

[Sun Chariot]

I had one of those C&A jumpers with the rainbow stripe across the middle. At least everyone new where we shopped.

My mother invented NSE livery I was wearing a home-knitted tanktop in those colours and stripes, a full 6 years before Chris Green's 1984 sector launch.

 

[Ashley Hill]

My mother knitted me two jumpers. One was Scotrail,the other Provincial. She took pictures of coaches to the wool shop to colour match.

 

[AndrewE]

My mother knitted me two jumpers. One was Scotrail, the other Provincial. She took pictures of coaches to the wool shop to colour match.

That's real devotion!
(and I suspected, maybe just hoped, it was leading up to a punchline... I'll try to think of one.)

 

[Ashley Hill]

That's real devotion!
(and I suspected, maybe just hoped, it was leading up to a punchline... I'll try to think of one.)

Sadly like my mother those jumpers have long gone and Mrs H cannot knit. I did wear them on railtours back in the 80s.

 

[D6130]

The two Reliant Robins - one painted in blue/grey/yellow original HST livery and the other in InterCity executive livery - which we're often to be seen parked-up at the P Way access gate on the up side of the ECML between Great Ponton and High Dyke.

.....or - come to think of it - any Reliant Robins or any other type of three wheel car.

 

[AndrewE]

The two Reliant Robins - one painted in blue/grey/yellow original HST livery and the other in InterCity executive livery - which we're often to be seen parked-up at the P Way access gate on the up side of the ECML between Great Ponton and High Dyke.

Is there a picture anywhere?

.....or - come to think of it - any Reliant Robins or any other type of three wheel car.

In the '60s one of our neighbours had a 3-wheel bubble car where the whole front hinged off. I believe its reverse gear was blanked off so that it could be driven on a motorbike licience... I think I remember them pushing it backwards (luckily) down their run onto the road before driving off in it. (It wouldn't have worked for us, from our house on the other side of the road it was uphill to road level!)

 

[Lloyds siding]

In 1996, I looked at a Victorian terraced house in Wantage where the plumbing consisted of a cold tap in the kitchen and an outside toilet.

Could have been worse...might have been on a common supply pipe...where several houses were supplied from one pipe off the main...meaning that, if one of your neighbours turned the (one) tap on, you and your neighbours had no water pressure.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Is there a picture anywhere?

In the '60s one of our neighbours had a 3-wheel bubble car where the whole front hinged off. I believe its reverse gear was blanked off so that it could be driven on a motorbike licience... I think I remember them pushing it backwards (luckily) down their run onto the road before driving off in it. (It wouldn't have worked for us, from our house on the other side of the road it was uphill to road level!)

The front was, as you point out, hinged, and it was the only means to get out. Consequently, if you drove too close to a frontal obstruction you could neither exit the car nor reverse away from the obstruction. Whether this actually happening was an urban myth or not, I don't know, but those features created a source of ridicule in anecdotal conversation at the time

 

[Tester]

The front was, as you point out, hinged, and it was the only means to get out. Consequently, if you drove too close to a frontal obstruction you could neither exit the car nor reverse away from the obstruction. Whether this actually happening was an urban myth or not, I don't know, but those features created a source of ridicule in anecdotal conversation at the time

Again not sure whether urban myth or not, but I recall hearing that the requirement to disable reverse gear was abolished following a number of related accidents.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Is there a picture anywhere?

This is one of those two cars in an earlier guise; apparently it was repainted into one of the other liveries - I think it became the InterCity one - because Virgin Trains had a bit of a hissy fit about it... ( can't think why!! )

 

[AndyPJG]

In the '60s one of our neighbours had a 3-wheel bubble car where the whole front hinged off. I believe its reverse gear was blanked off so that it could be driven on a motorbike licience... I think I remember them pushing it backwards (luckily) down their run onto the road before driving off in it. (It wouldn't have worked for us, from our house on the other side of the road it was uphill to road level!)

BMW Isetta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta. My elder brother had one, and indeed reverse could be blanked off for licence requirements of the day (3 wheeler able to be driven on motorbike licence); other 3 wheelers were available too....

 

[AM9]

BMW Isetta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta. My elder brother had one, and indeed reverse could be blanked off for licence requirements of the day (3 wheeler able to be driven on motorbike licence); other 3 wheelers were available too....

Didn't some bubble cars have two closely-spaced wheels at the rear effectively making them four-wheeled vehicles?

 

[contrex]

Is there a picture anywhere?

In the '60s one of our neighbours had a 3-wheel bubble car where the whole front hinged off. I believe its reverse gear was blanked off so that it could be driven on a motorbike licience... I think I remember them pushing it backwards (luckily) down their run onto the road before driving off in it. (It wouldn't have worked for us, from our house on the other side of the road it was uphill to road level!)

I had a Reliant Regal (the model Del Boy had in the van version, and the model before the Robin) and I used to get annoyed at people calling it a 'Robin', or worse, a 'Robin Reliant'. My pal when I was 16 had a BMW Isetta which had the hinged front.

 

[Harpo]

An art teacher of ours (ok, an out-of-work artist trying to pay the bills) told of finding his lurid pink messerschmitt bubble with a completely caved in front and top.

He found there’d been a circus parade including an elephant trained to always sit on a giant pink drum whenever passing it.

 

[gg1]

They had technical drawing at my school, I suppose this was made redundant with the advent of ECAD in the mid 80s.

A few years later than that at my school, I sat my GCSEs in 1991. Technical drawing was rolled up with metalwork, woodwork and electronics as a single subject, CDT (Craft Design and Technology) at my school.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Before the A5 bypassed Tamworth it passed between the two parts of the Reliant factory. I distinctly remember seeing body shells being moved across the road in gaps in the traffic - presumably the glass-fibre shop was the opposite side of the road to the mechanical one. They were quite light and from what I remember they were dollies and pushed across by a couple of blokes, who moved pretty quickly.

 

[AndrewE]

BMW Isetta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta. My elder brother had one, and indeed reverse could be blanked off for licence requirements of the day (3 wheeler able to be driven on motorbike licence); other 3 wheelers were available too....

I was always surprised that German aeroplane makers survived the war and were offering these things, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_KR200 and a Heinkel too!

 

[Western Lord]

The front was, as you point out, hinged, and it was the only means to get out. Consequently, if you drove too close to a frontal obstruction you could neither exit the car nor reverse away from the obstruction. Whether this actually happening was an urban myth or not, I don't know, but those features created a source of ridicule in anecdotal conversation at the time

I believe that all bubble cars with front opening doors had a fabric opening roof panel which could be used as an emergency exit (or a sun roof!).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jan 2025 ==

Didn't some bubble cars have two closely-spaced wheels at the rear effectively making them four-wheeled vehicles?

Under the regulations. two wheels close together counted as one. One of the most outrageous bending of regulations occurred in the mid sixties when a motor cycle sidecar racer named Owen Greenwood built a vehicle with a Mini Cooper engine driving the front wheels of a special chassis with twin rear wheels which counted as a three wheeler and cleaned up in sidecar racing until they, firstly, made him start from the back of the grid (he still usually won) and then changed the rules to require two of the three wheels to be in tandem.

 

[gg1]

.....or - come to think of it - any Reliant Robins or any other type of three wheel car.

3 wheeled cars may be a thing of the past but there are 3 wheeled scooters around now with a clever suspension system so they can lean into bends the same as a regular scooter/bike.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

3 wheeled cars may be a thing of the past but there are 3 wheeled scooters around now with a clever suspension system so they can lean into bends the same as a regular scooter/bike.

Having seen a few of these, they seem to have some versions which include two wheels close together as one, as discussed above for bubble cars?

 

[Indigo Soup]

Something else you no longer find in the office stationery cupboard - pads of pale blue printed graph paper.

In my line of work, we still do use enormously large sheets of graph paper. Nobody has yet invented a more reliable and accurate way of measuring the heel of a ship than a very long pendulum, a sheet of graph paper, and an engineer with a sharp pencil.

Various electronic gadgets have been tried, but they genuinely don't work as well.

 

[GordonT]

(Deleted - posted in wrong thread.)

 

[McRhu]

My father had toyed with the idea of getting a three-wheeled car in the late sixties/ early seventies, but saw a horrendous accident when one, emerging from the Glen Fruin road onto the A814 above Faslane one stormy evening, was completely overturned by the wind into the path of another fast moving car.

 

[GusB]

I had a Reliant Regal (the model Del Boy had in the van version, and the model before the Robin) and I used to get annoyed at people calling it a 'Robin', or worse, a 'Robin Reliant'. My pal when I was 16 had a BMW Isetta which had the hinged front.

The term "Robin Reliant" is very irritating. You wouldn't go around saying that you drive a "Mondeo Ford"

It's funny that the topic of three-wheelers has come up. I had a video about the Bond Minicar pop up in my YouTube feed the other day. Staying on the same theme, who remembers the Invacar? I used to see quite a few of them around when I was visiting grandparents, although I don't recall seeing many around here. You could have any colour you wanted, as long as it was "Ministry Blue"!

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Buch-t CC BY-SA 3.0 de

 

[Sun Chariot]

A glorious Reliant Scimitar passed me this afternoon, locally. I had forgotten what an elegant vehicle it was.

 

[Killingworth]

The term "Robin Reliant" is very irritating. You wouldn't go around saying that you drive a "Mondeo Ford"

It's funny that the topic of three-wheelers has come up. I had a video about the Bond Minicar pop up in my YouTube feed the other day. Staying on the same theme, who remembers the Invacar? I used to see quite a few of them around when I was visiting grandparents, although I don't recall seeing many around here. You could have any colour you wanted, as long as it was "Ministry Blue"!

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Buch-t CC BY-SA 3.0 de

My aunt had one. She loved it but it broke down quite often. Very basic but she'd never had a car and when she got it aged over 60 to her it was wonderful.

 

[MadMac]

I remember a transfer of bullet holes, that may or not have been a tie in to an early Bond film.

It was Regent petrol IIRC, not sure what the pretext was.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jan 2025 ==

Did anyone else have an insurance clock? Idea was that you put half a crown in a slot in the top, which would wind it up for a week. The woman who came round once a week would periodically empty it to pay the premium. Ours was through Scottish Legal, and I think they discontinued them around 1970.

 

[GusB]

A glorious Reliant Scimitar passed me this afternoon, locally. I had forgotten what an elegant vehicle it was.

The Scimitar is a car that is on my "wouldn't mind having a go" list. They're rare now, but back in the day they seemed to be quite a common sight. I lived in RAF "married quarters" for a brief period and there were a few households that had Scimitars, Stags, Spitfires and other "sports cars" parked outside - I assume that those particular households hadn't yet generated any kids!

 

[contrex]

Staying on the same theme, who remembers the Invacar?

When I was at secondary school, mid-60s, one the 6th formers came to school in one of those.

 

[Tester]

The term "Robin Reliant" is very irritating. You wouldn't go around saying that you drive a "Mondeo Ford"

It's funny that the topic of three-wheelers has come up. I had a video about the Bond Minicar pop up in my YouTube feed the other day. Staying on the same theme, who remembers the Invacar? I used to see quite a few of them around when I was visiting grandparents, although I don't recall seeing many around here. You could have any colour you wanted, as long as it was "Ministry Blue"!

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Buch-t CC BY-SA 3.0 de

I certainly remember seeing them as a child.

More interestingly, in the late 1970s I saw a warehouse full of them, neatly parked, in Watford Junction goods yard.