Here’s a nice short look at the state of vintage car collecting (and racing) in Great Britain circa 1963. Needless to say, the prices of some the cars you’ll see are from another…time and place.
CC Cinema: “Look at Life” Looks at the Vintage Car Hobby in 1963
– Posted on February 14, 2018
Sobering to think that the newest cars hovering in the background would now be just as old at the vintage machines were then! Great find, Paul. I’m pretty sure I visited the Montague Motor Museum as a small child (probably in 1961).
I remember watching Bullitt on TV and realising that the one or two pre-war cars parked on the street would only have been three decades old at the time – equivalent to a late 1980s car today.
Isn’t that the truth?
Great film. Odd to see the rusted-out hulk of a mid-1920s Chevrolet at 01:38.
Interesting Jeep(?) station wagon at 31 seconds too.
1963, wow my pet car was only four years old and still in production, didnt see one in the background though.
The nearest I saw was at 1:05, just to the right of the Humberette driiver’s head, an ‘Audax’ Hillman Husky.
As someone born about the time this film was made, it brings back memories of the Matchbox “Models of Yesteryear” offerings. I believe that I saw one or two real-life Models of Yesteryear in the film.
Now, many of the contemporary cars featured in the background are as old as those veteran cars. Some of them – including the Austin Cambridge – were offered in the Matchbox range at that time as new cars.
Hah! They’ve worked it to make that 1912 Model T look quaint while still in general use in East Anglia. It was just 51 years old at the time of filming.
My driven daily 280 S turned 50 last January!
Ummm, now I think about it…within the last month a pedestrian has told me how he has a 4 speed 250 S and how his grandfather bought it new. I would have liked more info but had to move on.
Later an elderly van driver told me a 280 S was his first car and the best thing he had owned – he jokingly asked if it was for sale. The dumbest thing about that exchange was not me declining, but later telling my wife I had. Ouch!
And on Monday a man in a shiny new E400 cabrio told me his first car in 1971 was a 280 S. And he foolishly believed he still had the better car!
So, yeah, I guess car and I are both getting on. My son just rolls his eyes at these tales. He has no appreciation of his forthcoming inheritance and has diagnosed me as a “crap addict.”
Vintage enthusiasts might like Downton Abbey’s supporting cast of early vehicles, including a Renault Landaulette, several Model Ts, a Sunbeam limo, Rolls-Royces, and a Cadillac carrying Shirley McClaine.
Speaking of British vintage car hobby, there’s an amusing 1953 British movie called “Genevieve” starring Kenneth More. The movie is about two overly competitive friends who enter their vintage autos in the famous London to Brighton rally.
“Genevieve” is a 1904 Darracq.
I first saw “Genevieve” at school when I was about ten years old, and that scene at the vintage car show reminds me of the classic car shows I have attended here; it’s just the cars on display now are the everyday cars shown in the background on this movie. But now that I mention that, I wonder if the classics on display here are still around.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to click on the next “Look at Life” film – “Down in the dumps”. It includes coverage of Jones’s scrapyard in Waltham Cross, where I spent many happy teenage hours searching for parts for my side-valve Ford and checking out the remains of favourite cars of my childhood.
What a great film. Thanks for sharing.
Theres a few of those old Bentleys in town tonite for Art Deco a thousand pounds might get yo a wheel nut