30 cars - 50 years

Vernon Wood recalls half a century of private vehicle ownership, with many marques (and sadly, rare plates) that no longer exist . . . Unless you know otherwise?

Like many drivers in their seventies, I have owned a number of motor cars which, had they survived, would have commanded premium prices as veterans of a bygone age, treasured for uniqueness, rarity or even for sheer cussed eccentricity. My own tally of ownerships since passing my test in 1954 is 34, and as you might expect, the earlier ones are the most interesting.

From the viewpoint of a carplate number-nutter, even more intriguing are the registrations that went with the cars, and I can only shudder to think of the small fortune that has slipped through my fingers in the past half century as I sold both car and plate for a few paltry quid.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing they say, but for my money foresight is a more valuable attribute, which, (had I been blessed with it in relation to 'old bangers'), might have funded the annuity of which my Equitable Life pension plan promised so very much, but delivered so very little.

Whoopee
My first car was built the year I was born, and came into my possession 23 years later. It was a pert little Morris Minor 2 seat ragtop tourer (sporting hand-knitted seat covers!), with spare wheel mounted on a delightfully curved rump which Angelina Jolie might envy. ‘Whoopee’ as she became affectionately known (WP 2804), was purchased for £45 jointly with my parents. (They were anxious to divert my petrolhead aspirations away from the Panther 250cc OHV motorbike I had secretively acquired by swapping a camera worth £5, without parental approval). The bike had originally emerged from the Phelon and Moore factory at nearby Cleckheaton in 1937 as a gleaming sample of 2-wheel technology, but was now a rusty wreck which I rebuilt rather badly into something of a death-trap. I recall having to wear fishermen's waders to ward off the oilspray that emerged from the engine's valvegear at speeds over 20 mph.

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