A large part of my life has been spent riding around in automobiles. Each had its own motor personality and embodies memories of periods of my life. This little ‘auto-biography’ reminisces through the lens of the vehicles in which I rode.
1946 Plymouth coupe, when we lived in Venice (California). This car had no first gear so when we visited my aunt Thelma in Topanga Canyon my Dad would get up a good run so that we could make it up to their house.
Because we were moving from California to the UK in 1951 my Dad bought a Nash Rambler, a ‘compact’ car by American standards but still a bit of a hog in the UK. Ours was green with the fake wood look around the windows.
Here’s my Dad’s friend Emil in front of our Nash Rambler, parked outside our flat at 5 Lancaster Gate, now a hotel.
The Nash was sold when we lived in Wiesbaden and we had a VW Microbus which we took back to the US when we moved to Omaha, Nebraska. When we passed another one we’d stop and they’d stop and we’d exchange notes on being members of what was then a very rare breed
My best friend Jimmy Wickencamp in Omaha had a ’49 Pontiac Chieftain convertible. We were the ‘Condors’ so it was the gang car and we all chipped in for gas money. One cold winter’s night we were macho posing in 25°F weather with the top down at Shada’s Drive-in. The car wouldn’t start. We were shamed as we got out and pushed it down to the adjoining highway to get a bump start. We were the talk of Omaha Central High School the next day.
Jimmy then bought an Oldsmobile Super 98, the ‘muscle car’ of its era. Aged 14 I did my first 100 mph in it, with Condors aboard, in driving rain on Route 6 west of Omaha. An oncoming truck splashed water over the windscreen so I was driving blind for several seconds. They cheered me (with relief) for holding firm. Jimmy dropped out of school and ran away with Carol Corbley, who painted her fingernails different colours (radical - this was Omaha, 1958). He had painted all the chrome with gold paint.
In 1959 we moved to Chateauroux France where our first car was a Renault 4 CV - it was the first manual I ever drove.
My mother and I went up to Paris in 1959 and collected a brand new Renault Dauphine from the Billancourt factory on Sequin Island on the Seine. It was quite revolutionary for its time. Soon after, in 1959, we drove it to Valencia via Pamplona and then took the ferry to Ibiza.
In London in 1966 I bought an Austin 12 from a Kiwi friend for £12. Painted the front wings white and the chrome gold. (Wickencamp’s influence?). Got stopped and searched every time I parked outside the Head Shop on Kensington Park Road.
The Austin gave up the ghost and I then drove a Thames van with a mattress in the back and a little camping stove. Drove it to Glastonbury where we camped with Mark Palmer and John Michell and believe we saw flying saucers over the Tor in October 1967.
In 1968 drove nights for Yellow Cab in Philadelphia. The suspension on some of the cars was so bad I could barely stand after an evening of driving. I stuck to North Philadelphia which many drivers avoided as it was a black area, but there were lots of profitable short rides as supply was limited and demand was good.
I had a Ford Fairlane in Philadelphia but the transmission was on its last legs and I got rid of it and bought a Studebaker Commander from one of our commune members - we shared a big house in Philly and then all moved to farm near Doylestown.
The 1955 Studebaker Commander was a dream. It had been resprayed gold. I did have to put in a gallon of oil every time I filled up the tank but it got me from Philly to Los Angeles on Route 66 and the clouds of blue smoke disappeared once it was running smoothly in third gear.
Some drunken guys in Venice (California) driving a 1956 Studebaker Commander at 60 mph through a red light smashed into my 1955 Studebaker Commander. They were members of ‘The Organisers’ - a group who were working with the police to keep tabs on the more radical Black Power activists. So the police were disturbed when 2 Organiser guys jumped out of their car after the crash and were seen running up the street with automatic rifles. Double agents.
After the crash I bought a car that had seat belts and a more substantial chassis - a 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible
Back in London in 1969 I had a 1961 Vauxhall Cresta. Nice fast car. Painted it black and yellow so it looked like a wasp.
In 1974 I got a Hillman Minx convertible for £15, worth the drive across to Walthamstow. But a lot of the front wing was a plasticky repair substance and it started falling off, no MOT possible, goodbye
Then I got a Rover 105, a great car and utterly reliable. A bit stodgy for a hip young groover, but I had a family and I had heard all the urban legends about how Rovers emerged intact from accidents that would have crumpled any other car.
My first Citroen, a DS 19. Lovely ride, the suspension lifted the whole car up when you turned on the ignition.
A used Ford Executive was a poor man’s luxury car - their secondhand value was low as they were such gas guzzlers. However, I owned it at the time that we had monthly board meetings in Coventry with Wilson King, our investors in Whole Earth. It was a great motorway cruiser
My Peugeot 604 was OK, but not the love of my life. I had bought it at auction and was glad to be rid of it.
The Rover 2000 was rock solid, perfect for drives to see the MacLagans, London friends who’d moved to Wales.
The Citroen XM was a superb car. I sold mine to my wife Josephine and bought a stretch version, resprayed emerald green. It was actually inconveniently long and made parking difficult, even with a Kensington and Chelsea residents parking permit.
I only ever bought a new car once. It was a Land Rover Discovery and it cost me £39000 in 2005. I bought it because my brother Gregory and I had been stranded on a track in our woodland and had to be towed out. So I wanted a robust 4 wheel drive to avoid a repeat. 3 weeks after buying it I got bogged down in a field in not very challenging terrain and had to be towed out by a farmer neighbour. It was also too big to easily get in and out of our garage. I sold it 13 weeks after I bought it and was lucky to get £26,000. I lost £13000, £1000 a week, also probably not far from the total that I’ve spent on buying all the other cars I’ve ever owned.
After that I then got a Land Rover Freelander, which was lighter and smaller and easier to navigate across fields and through the woods. I loved it. But it had the notorious Ford V6 engine and eventually the head gaskets blew, the metal warped and it went to the scrapyard.
I wanted another Freelander and this time I bought one over the phone from a dealer in Rye for £1750. It has the 4 cylinder BMW diesel engine. I’ve been driving it for nearly a decade and apart from brake repairs, has served me faithfully and costlessly.
