Local paper car ads from 1983

It was par for the course. Late Sixties and Seventies stuff was damn near worthless back then, mileages over 100k were almost unheard of as most stuff was knackered by the time it had notched up 70k.....if it had survived the tinworm.

That brings back some memories. I passed my driving test that summer, and celebrated by buying a 1967 Triumph 2000 Mk1 with a year's MOT and just 55k from new for £110. That wasn't a standout bargain at that time particularly, although it sounds absurdly cheap now. Average wages (if you were lucky enough to actually have a job, Thatcherism was in full bloom back then) were about £65 a week.......I've still got my first wage slip from my first full-time job and 40 hours in the Parts Department of my local Ford dealer in October 1983 earned me a whopping £61. A gallon of four-star (unleaded petrol was just a twinkle in the eye of the industry back then) would set you back about £1.40 (about 30p a litre), 20 Bensons would set you back just over a quid and a pint of lager would relieve you of about 70p. So it was all relative, if you bear in mind that the average wage now is about eight times that much (2017 average: £26,500pa), petrol and a pint are cheaper in real terms, only ciggies have kept pace. An average three-bed semi around here would have cost you £18k back then, as opposed to £200k now.

It was par for the course. Late Sixties and Seventies stuff was damn near worthless back then, mileages over 100k were almost unheard of as most stuff was knackered by the time it had notched up 70k.....if it had survived the tinworm. 'They don't make them like they used to' is absolute balderdash, my mum ran a procession of late 60s Fords in the early-mid 70s and most of them were as rotten as a pear by the time they were five or six years old. Fords were probably worst of all in that respect, along with the majority of early Japanese tin. Seventies British Leyland products were a bit better rust-wise (although their 1960s output was shocking). If you knew what you were buying, you could sound out a reasonable Marina or Mini for next to no dollar.

I remember buying and selling a few cars back in the early 80s, we were lucky in that we had a local car auction where you could pick up a real bargain if you were savvy. I paid £45 in 1986 for a tidy '71 Mini Clubman from my local auction which I ran daily for six months before banging it back through there with a bit of rattle can TLC (and the bulb removed from the flickering oil pressure warning light....LOL) for £110. Or the £40 V-plated Princess 2000HL with 65k on it that failed its MOT a couple of months later on a driveshaft gaiter. That was it.

Things haven't really changed that much. It's just the number of zero's.