So we have had a number of threads about how rubbish life is today, how its all gone to hell in a hand basket and all that, and obviously the implication being that through our rose tinted spectacles, life was better back “then”. Yes, the glorious days of “then”, when the sun was always shining, petrol was cheap and I got laid easier than the Fonz does.
But lets face it – we can’t lose sight of the fact that life is so much easier now than it was “then”. We have so many conveniences and although things seem more expensive they are actually cheaper even though the price has gone up…
So now I can sit at my desk and idley purchase a car off eBay by whim, arrange for it delivering and even pay for it without even speaking to anyone. A few taps of the keyboard and another old nail is on the way to my custodianship.
But how did it used to be? For our younger viewers, here is a day in the life of AlistairK aged 17 or 18.
Well, take a roll into town. Put 2 gallons (yes gallons) of petrol into the car on the way up and park in the multi-story. IIRC it was 20p for the morning so no problems fitting my busy schedule in there. Wander over to the newsagents at the top of the arcade. The arcade is now a shopping mall with a roof over it and everything. GT news I’d pick up ten Bensons and a bottle of Panda Pops. See, you could buy real Coke and Pepsi but they were like 3 times the price. Like 40p a can and in GT Panda Pops were 8p a bottle, and stuff like Lilt or IRN-BRU was 19p a can. I’d buy a Marathon bar as well. You know in some countries they call the Marathon a “Snickers”. Whats all that about then? “Marathon – its SO satisfying!”. Pack of 10 fags was under a quid then too.
Anyway wander down the arcade to Arcade Records. I’d have a shuffle through the new releases and see what I’d be buying when they made it to the bargain bin. New releases were like £1.50 for a single and £7 for an LP. Give ‘em a few weeks and they’d be 99p and £4.99, or 50p and £3 in the clearance corner. Anything new by the Meteors, King Kurt, Sisters, James Ray, etc. Maybe buy an Exploited 7” (always in clearance for some reason Oi!) and pay the man his 50p, rang up on one of those old tills, and a paper receipt just said 50p on it. If you bought more than one thing he had to add it up before he rung it through the till. 7” single was handed over in a paper bag. I remember these were white with pinky-red stripes and had the shop name “Arcade Records” over-printed in a void on the bag front, and often the print was fuzzy or not in the right place.
So I’d wander down the arcade a little further, hang about outside “Miss Townie” or what ever the place was called, there was a bench there and I’d smoke a fag and drink my Panda Pop and maybe try chat up some of the lasses going in and out of the shop. It was a bit of a Mecca for scrubberish lasses at the time. Now obviously I was hardercore-than-thou at the time but I also had teenage horemones...
Well, having wasted a little time I'd get down to WH Smiths, where you could read the Automart in peace without the shopkeeper chasing you off yelling “Oi this isn’t a library you know pish off” and hitting you with his broom. And they wore those big brown overcoats like on "Open All Hours". Its true.
Now back then the Autotrader was called the Automart. I actually worked in cold canvassing for Automart back in the day and we did used to say “Hello, Autofart” which is probably why they changed the name. I only worked there about 3 weeks though so I doubt it was all down to me. Probably me and Sunil. Sunil was worse than me. At leats if people said "pardon" I'd say "Hello AutoMart" properly. And back then there was no computers or teledialers. I sat at a desk in a office block with a phone and an ashtray and I drank coffee from a machine and smoked endless fags (in the office, yeah) while trying to con people out of £12 to put their car in the mag (or £8 for a line ad) and the "sales leads" were just copies of the local paper which were 2 or 3 days old... "I wondered if you'd sold the car yet..." Mind you I suspect lots of cold calling places operate on broadly similar basis still.
Anyway the best course of action was to read the Automart and see if thewre was anything in there that I needed to buy. If there was then it was a case of how many cars of interest there were. If there was only one or two then I’d write the numbers down on the paper bag from the record shop with a biro brought along for this express purpose (plus recording the telephone numbers of any of the scrubberish lasses I might have got from Miss Townie) or if there were a good bunch of cars in there I might actually buy the whole magazine. Come on, it cost 80p back then, and that was a lot of money!
So after paying I have to go phone up about these cars of interest. Now back then there was talk of some new kind of hand held telephone which didn’t need to be plugged into the Post Office Telecoms network to work. But until such Star Trek style technology became available to us mere mortals I would have to either drive home or find a public phone box to call from. So with a big bag of change I could go get the details from the chaps selling these delightful old bangers and write down the instructions to their house in the margins of the Automart or on the back of my paper bag.
Then I could go pick up my “partner in crime” mates and we’d go view and occasionally buy all manner of tat across the region.
Here are some examples of the tat we looked at or bought back then. Obviously these cars were all for sale with T&T for under £600 or so which was usually our top budget. Usually half that….
So next time we’re wibbling on about the horrors of the age, wonder if you’d want to go back to the good old days of having to scour every newsagent’s window and free paper to find the cars. eBay and the like may be the “big evil” but it brings us choice to our door stops…
Always a good selection of Minors.
looked at a fair few of these. Back in the 8-0s you could still get one owner cars for a few hundred quid.
I really wanted an A55 or A60 but when I was 17 the insurance was way to high
nearly bought one of these several times
and so on.
Well, the fun only just started then, because of course you needed to have got your cash ready in the week because thebanks didn't open on a Saturday so you were limited to trying to find a cash point. A few branches had these by then but they would only let you have like £100 or £150 cash out in a day anyway.
The big arzey thing was insurance.
You see back in the days before interweb insurance was the high street broker. I had a look around the other day when I was in Nottingham and I couldn't even find one of these left. But back then this was your only option. This was before there was even those Call-Centre-Direct type places and the whole deal was done in person.
I'd wander into the broker, for some reason the one I have then best memory of is the one up the top of Carlton St in Nottm, which has since become a food place called SNACK! or something. Anyway, it was just like all the others, a single shop unit with the window display area empty except for a sign which said "We give FREE motor insurance quotations" and one of them had a nice 1/4 scale model car in it. Some has like pedal cars with menekins of kids in them or something. Some had plain obscure glass. Well, inside it was all wood panneled, and there was a foxy young lass with big plastic ear rings and big other assets behind the counter. (Ah, now I rememebr why I remember this one!)
Fitty "can I help you"
Me "I'd like a motor insurance quote please"
Fitty" OK, I'll go get someone"
<a minute or two passes>
fitty returns
Fitty "Someone will be with you soon"
She'd offer me to sit down but I could admire her chest better from standing up. (rememer the horemones?)
anyway after 5 mins this dweeby old guy (prob only about 30- but looks going on 50) comes out of a back room
Dweeb - can I help you siiiiiir
Me - I'd like a motor insurance quote please
Dweeb would then ask a million questrions about me, the car, etc.
then Dweeb would get out a big book like a parts catalog and tell me that either my car didnt exist, wasn;t listed or wasn;t availabel in that combination of options "No, they never made a 2 litre Cortina estate in 1973. It saus here, 1971-1972 model, 1974 - 1976 model. No 1973 model I'm afraid. It must be .... .... modified... " now the word "Modified" was always preceeded by a clap of thunder and the sky turned black. You'd need to get a freakin engineers report if it was modified. So I'd argue the toss and either way he'd then have to phone someone up to get a price. "yes, he CLAIMS its a 1973 2 litre estate... yes... I know there isn;t one in the book... but he's young...."
This would take 5-10 minutes easily. Even if they agreed that my car did actually exist. Then they'd give me a price and I'd be off to the next place to get another quote. This would take 10minutes walking time plus another 10 mins in the broker, more if you had to queue obviously...
And most of the swines were not open on a weekend.
It took a whole week of lunch times to get half a dozen quotes
So prime car-buying days were Saturday and Sunday and you couldn't even get a quote for insurtance until the Monday! I know people bought cars they couldn't insure that way but what we had done wa got quotes for every concievable car during the week and we had a portfolio of old quotes and based out guesses around them.
I remember one broker, the fat 50 yar old slug behind the couter laughed when I said "£1000" for the value of a Morris Minor. And he refused to look if there was a classic car policy for it because it was "only some old banger"
I also remember also one broker telling me "the whole point of insurance is to stop people like you owning cars like that" (I was after a quote on a Packard I'd found for £995 ONO with T&T...)
Gimbles.
So much as we curse word about call centres and online forms and the way insurers are today, think about how it was a few years back!
Car's I couldn't insure in the 1980s, but were cheap enough for me to drool over.
Packard
Merc 450 SEL
1957 DeSoto (Still sore about thios one!0
XJ6 S1
Granada Mk1 V6
Mk1 Capri
[img src="[http://classic-car.y2u.co.uk/Photo_caq/Ford_Capri_02.jpg"]
But lets face it – we can’t lose sight of the fact that life is so much easier now than it was “then”. We have so many conveniences and although things seem more expensive they are actually cheaper even though the price has gone up…
So now I can sit at my desk and idley purchase a car off eBay by whim, arrange for it delivering and even pay for it without even speaking to anyone. A few taps of the keyboard and another old nail is on the way to my custodianship.
But how did it used to be? For our younger viewers, here is a day in the life of AlistairK aged 17 or 18.
Well, take a roll into town. Put 2 gallons (yes gallons) of petrol into the car on the way up and park in the multi-story. IIRC it was 20p for the morning so no problems fitting my busy schedule in there. Wander over to the newsagents at the top of the arcade. The arcade is now a shopping mall with a roof over it and everything. GT news I’d pick up ten Bensons and a bottle of Panda Pops. See, you could buy real Coke and Pepsi but they were like 3 times the price. Like 40p a can and in GT Panda Pops were 8p a bottle, and stuff like Lilt or IRN-BRU was 19p a can. I’d buy a Marathon bar as well. You know in some countries they call the Marathon a “Snickers”. Whats all that about then? “Marathon – its SO satisfying!”. Pack of 10 fags was under a quid then too.
Anyway wander down the arcade to Arcade Records. I’d have a shuffle through the new releases and see what I’d be buying when they made it to the bargain bin. New releases were like £1.50 for a single and £7 for an LP. Give ‘em a few weeks and they’d be 99p and £4.99, or 50p and £3 in the clearance corner. Anything new by the Meteors, King Kurt, Sisters, James Ray, etc. Maybe buy an Exploited 7” (always in clearance for some reason Oi!) and pay the man his 50p, rang up on one of those old tills, and a paper receipt just said 50p on it. If you bought more than one thing he had to add it up before he rung it through the till. 7” single was handed over in a paper bag. I remember these were white with pinky-red stripes and had the shop name “Arcade Records” over-printed in a void on the bag front, and often the print was fuzzy or not in the right place.
So I’d wander down the arcade a little further, hang about outside “Miss Townie” or what ever the place was called, there was a bench there and I’d smoke a fag and drink my Panda Pop and maybe try chat up some of the lasses going in and out of the shop. It was a bit of a Mecca for scrubberish lasses at the time. Now obviously I was hardercore-than-thou at the time but I also had teenage horemones...
Well, having wasted a little time I'd get down to WH Smiths, where you could read the Automart in peace without the shopkeeper chasing you off yelling “Oi this isn’t a library you know pish off” and hitting you with his broom. And they wore those big brown overcoats like on "Open All Hours". Its true.
Now back then the Autotrader was called the Automart. I actually worked in cold canvassing for Automart back in the day and we did used to say “Hello, Autofart” which is probably why they changed the name. I only worked there about 3 weeks though so I doubt it was all down to me. Probably me and Sunil. Sunil was worse than me. At leats if people said "pardon" I'd say "Hello AutoMart" properly. And back then there was no computers or teledialers. I sat at a desk in a office block with a phone and an ashtray and I drank coffee from a machine and smoked endless fags (in the office, yeah) while trying to con people out of £12 to put their car in the mag (or £8 for a line ad) and the "sales leads" were just copies of the local paper which were 2 or 3 days old... "I wondered if you'd sold the car yet..." Mind you I suspect lots of cold calling places operate on broadly similar basis still.
Anyway the best course of action was to read the Automart and see if thewre was anything in there that I needed to buy. If there was then it was a case of how many cars of interest there were. If there was only one or two then I’d write the numbers down on the paper bag from the record shop with a biro brought along for this express purpose (plus recording the telephone numbers of any of the scrubberish lasses I might have got from Miss Townie) or if there were a good bunch of cars in there I might actually buy the whole magazine. Come on, it cost 80p back then, and that was a lot of money!
So after paying I have to go phone up about these cars of interest. Now back then there was talk of some new kind of hand held telephone which didn’t need to be plugged into the Post Office Telecoms network to work. But until such Star Trek style technology became available to us mere mortals I would have to either drive home or find a public phone box to call from. So with a big bag of change I could go get the details from the chaps selling these delightful old bangers and write down the instructions to their house in the margins of the Automart or on the back of my paper bag.
Then I could go pick up my “partner in crime” mates and we’d go view and occasionally buy all manner of tat across the region.
Here are some examples of the tat we looked at or bought back then. Obviously these cars were all for sale with T&T for under £600 or so which was usually our top budget. Usually half that….
So next time we’re wibbling on about the horrors of the age, wonder if you’d want to go back to the good old days of having to scour every newsagent’s window and free paper to find the cars. eBay and the like may be the “big evil” but it brings us choice to our door stops…
Always a good selection of Minors.
looked at a fair few of these. Back in the 8-0s you could still get one owner cars for a few hundred quid.
I really wanted an A55 or A60 but when I was 17 the insurance was way to high
nearly bought one of these several times
and so on.
Well, the fun only just started then, because of course you needed to have got your cash ready in the week because thebanks didn't open on a Saturday so you were limited to trying to find a cash point. A few branches had these by then but they would only let you have like £100 or £150 cash out in a day anyway.
The big arzey thing was insurance.
You see back in the days before interweb insurance was the high street broker. I had a look around the other day when I was in Nottingham and I couldn't even find one of these left. But back then this was your only option. This was before there was even those Call-Centre-Direct type places and the whole deal was done in person.
I'd wander into the broker, for some reason the one I have then best memory of is the one up the top of Carlton St in Nottm, which has since become a food place called SNACK! or something. Anyway, it was just like all the others, a single shop unit with the window display area empty except for a sign which said "We give FREE motor insurance quotations" and one of them had a nice 1/4 scale model car in it. Some has like pedal cars with menekins of kids in them or something. Some had plain obscure glass. Well, inside it was all wood panneled, and there was a foxy young lass with big plastic ear rings and big other assets behind the counter. (Ah, now I rememebr why I remember this one!)
Fitty "can I help you"
Me "I'd like a motor insurance quote please"
Fitty" OK, I'll go get someone"
<a minute or two passes>
fitty returns
Fitty "Someone will be with you soon"
She'd offer me to sit down but I could admire her chest better from standing up. (rememer the horemones?)
anyway after 5 mins this dweeby old guy (prob only about 30- but looks going on 50) comes out of a back room
Dweeb - can I help you siiiiiir
Me - I'd like a motor insurance quote please
Dweeb would then ask a million questrions about me, the car, etc.
then Dweeb would get out a big book like a parts catalog and tell me that either my car didnt exist, wasn;t listed or wasn;t availabel in that combination of options "No, they never made a 2 litre Cortina estate in 1973. It saus here, 1971-1972 model, 1974 - 1976 model. No 1973 model I'm afraid. It must be .... .... modified... " now the word "Modified" was always preceeded by a clap of thunder and the sky turned black. You'd need to get a freakin engineers report if it was modified. So I'd argue the toss and either way he'd then have to phone someone up to get a price. "yes, he CLAIMS its a 1973 2 litre estate... yes... I know there isn;t one in the book... but he's young...."
This would take 5-10 minutes easily. Even if they agreed that my car did actually exist. Then they'd give me a price and I'd be off to the next place to get another quote. This would take 10minutes walking time plus another 10 mins in the broker, more if you had to queue obviously...
And most of the swines were not open on a weekend.
It took a whole week of lunch times to get half a dozen quotes
So prime car-buying days were Saturday and Sunday and you couldn't even get a quote for insurtance until the Monday! I know people bought cars they couldn't insure that way but what we had done wa got quotes for every concievable car during the week and we had a portfolio of old quotes and based out guesses around them.
I remember one broker, the fat 50 yar old slug behind the couter laughed when I said "£1000" for the value of a Morris Minor. And he refused to look if there was a classic car policy for it because it was "only some old banger"
I also remember also one broker telling me "the whole point of insurance is to stop people like you owning cars like that" (I was after a quote on a Packard I'd found for £995 ONO with T&T...)
Gimbles.
So much as we curse word about call centres and online forms and the way insurers are today, think about how it was a few years back!
Car's I couldn't insure in the 1980s, but were cheap enough for me to drool over.
Packard
Merc 450 SEL
1957 DeSoto (Still sore about thios one!0
XJ6 S1
Granada Mk1 V6
Mk1 Capri
[img src="[http://classic-car.y2u.co.uk/Photo_caq/Ford_Capri_02.jpg"]
[/CENTER]
Still i did spend most of my free time when i was at college at a well known Colchester pub, where the pints were £1 (£1.20now) ;D
but here we all are chatting across country and the world.
