There were a few Renault Dauphines to be seen, although they were built at the Renault factory in Acton.

Lovely Aston DB on the top floor as well!

Indeed. 😄 The only way you can do London to Heathrow in fifteen-minutes these days, is to take the Heathrow Express from Paddington.

Depending upon one's age, most have a particular Blue Peter era. Mine is Peter Purves, John Noakes & Valerie Singleton.

​@@analogueman123456787Mine is Sarah Greene I'll leave it there.

Getting back from school and after some cartoons and newsround it was blue Peter time 😊

@@jonathanperry4189 - Mind you, I recall some kids used to prefer Magpie over Blue Peter in the '70s.

@@analogueman123456787Teenage boys? 🤔😂

Yes, and he leaves the top down! 10/10 for having and wearing a seat belt though, something most of us never came to terms with until the 80's.

@@aib0160 Did you also notice that he wears a bobble hat - they mandatory until '71

Bobble hat was sorry once. Alpine etc.

I still see girls/women wearing them every winter. It was NEVER a good look for a bloke though, even then...

Bobble hat free with every MGB in those days it seemed! Christopher Trace was pretty tall, so he'd want a hat of some kind that didn't blow off in his little Spifire.

Everyone should have at least one silly hat..!

@@analogueman123456787 a wooden football rattle and bobble hat was compulsory in 60's Britain

👌😂 Indeed, full to the brim.

Also he claims to be watching jets when they are clearly turbo props. Honestly, just can’t trust blue Peter presenters! 🙄😆

@W2APS - nowadays that abandonment would also require putting your hazard lights on before leaving your car @antmerrit - yep, only one plane in sight and definitely not a jet

And he tosses his car park ticket into the open back seat… hope it hadn’t blown away when he went to leave 😊

And look at all the space between the cars, plenty of room to open the door and get out. No giant tanks like today

Not quite you cannot to the lavatory in the high street without the police knowing all your movements ( forgive the pun ) The establishment knows the size of you shoes by you car Reg

Absolutely splendid😃

@@glenbetton3146 Also, if I may be so bold, unreservedly capital, wizard & corking.

Spiffing! Hey what?! Chaps!

@@davidnarbett Also top-hole, smashing, beezer, and - for any Aussie viewers out there - bonzer.

@@DeannaAllison Ripper, also for our Antipodean cousins

I had no idea tgat "Top Cat" was so intellectually challenging! I learnt a lot about life from watching "Rainbow" and "The Sooty Show" Those two shows alone really helped to bolster my emotional strength.

Were you a £10 Pom then?

@@hermanmunster3358 I was a famous ten pound Pom ...I;d never had a holiday and within three weeks I was passing through the Panama canal ..my eye was so big .We stopped at Cristobal Atlantic side for refuel so me and a couple of lads from Liverpool went ashore ... Wow..

@@dodgeboy9052 You travelled to Australia via the PANAMA canal? Not the usual route one would expect.

Not irony.

@@noplace82 - The irony being, that as the speeds went down, the roads filled up. And you needed that explaining? How ironic. 😄

@analogueman123456787 Well, yes - since you didn't mention that in your first comment. Introducing a 70mph limit at the end of year, by itself, isn't ironic.

I was wondering about that. Clearly having been born in 1976 I have only ever heard about the 70mph speed limit myself

@@Ravendarkwytch - Oh, there are still some (increasingly elderly) folk around who remember the new motorways before the national restrictions came into force. Mind you, the average family car back then wasn't exactly 'nippy'. Of course, if you were minted with an E-Type, you could just let rip! 😄

What on earth is a hostelry

Do you mean pub? Just call it a pub

@@handsoffmycactus2958 I chose to employ the word hostelry. If I’d wanted to use pub, inn, boozer, tavern, watering hole, then I would have. English is an infinitely rich language.

BBC insider culture is incredibly clicky.

​Looks like you've offended a they/thems ​@@markshrimpton3138

My parents had one just like it

Yeah, love that kind of music. Very evocative of the 60s.

Back then "as fast as you like" usually meant about 60 mph if you were lucky, as precious few cars of the day could even make it to 70!

Quite strange that anyone believed that that it wouldn't be very crowded sooner or later. Same in many countries. Rather shortsighted concept especially in cities where you can not add another lane.

I remember speeding on my motorcycle down a partially built M25 towards the Dartford Tunnel in the early 80s with very light traffic. A distant memory.

I remember the M1 being opened around Leicester, which made the trip to Nottingham a lot quicker with hardly any traffic.

Agreed. I'm now retired, but frequently had to travel to sites via the M11, parts of it are still only two lanes. Considering all the container ports that now use the A14/M11 corridor, even though the A14 near Cambridge has been widened, the same hasn't been done to large stretches of the M11, which as well as servicing all those ports, is a route to Stansted Airport.

My father could reach 80mph in his MG, if you believed the sketchy speedo, but my mother's Triumph could barely manage 70mph flat out. May they Rust in Peace.

There weren't a lot of cars that would do much more than 60mph, unless you had a big Jag, or Rover P5/P6. Many ordinary cars would overheat if you sustained a prolonged high speed, so 50-60mph was a happy medium for most cars.

I've heard that urban legend all my life, and it is utter codswallop.

There won't be much left of any bodies now, due to the lime in the concrete. There will probably just be a void, where a body once lay.

@@hermanmunster3358 yes he told me about the lime and the Pig farm that was used in west London. Great stories that have credibility. Loved me old pops !

@@jdb47games sorry to hear that.

He was 37 and still living at home !

Mk II Triumph Spitfire

Highly unlikely to happen.

@@briansaiditsoitmustbetrue4206 True!!

The motorway speed limit was introduced as a trial in December 1965 actually and the trial continued into 1966. The speed limit was formally introduced then

You’re wrong

​@@handsoffmycactus2958 I'm Wrong!! 🤣 Yer, thank God we got that sorted, can't imagine the confusion my comment must have caused 😂

@@handsoffmycactus2958 It wasn't just the motorway, it was for all class of roads that the 70mph limit was introduced. Once you were outside a speed restricted area there was no limit prior to the introduction.

Yes, and just one year later, in 1966, the UK recorded its highest ever peacetime death toll on its roads, over 7,800 deaths in one year, a record that still stands, 58 years later. Compare that to today, with 3 times more vehicles on the road and 'only' 1700 deaths, on average, a year, on the UK's roads. Most of the cars made at the time were really deathtraps on 4 wheels.

Remotely by cable, so not that surprising really.

Too many IDIOTS on our roads to de-restrict speeds. Some don't even know what their indicators are for. I am in favour of an increase to 80mph, but we cannot allow IDIOTS to treat the roads as a Race Track without repercussions.

Wish many years ago in 2019 it could have been temporarily unrestricted again, to celebrate 50th anniversary

One of the most beautiful little British Roadsters ever created. But my dream car has to be the Jensen Interceptor, I love a nice GT. Closely followed by a LATE model Jaguar XJS. We did produce some stunningly beautiful cars here in the UK.

I think people, and communities were probably better back then. And people were proud of who they were, and where they came from. We had immensely strong industries back then too, and British manufacturing was renowned for quality products. Then the 70's came, and the wheels came off as we entered the EEC, and had many restrictions placed upon us "for the greater good of the French and Germans" Didn't feel much like we were the Victors from then on.

@@hermanmunster3358 "the wheels came off as we entered the EEC" - I'd say we were probably saved by that move. The reality is those industries didn't go to Europe, they went to the developing world as it was then. Japan first, then China and other Asian nations. We couldn't compete with the manpower and the resources that Asia put into practice. They initially copied the west and quite soon, outpaced them in every way - perhaps not always in quality, but certainly in quantity. "restrictions placed upon us "for the greater good of the French and Germans"" Oh, I doubt that was the case either. Rather it was a collaborative effort - and no, it probably wasn't always entirely fair, but that fairness pendulum certainly swang in our favour many times. Germany and France were struggling in the 60's - yet Britain was booming - so it was very much sharing and we absolutely saw so many rewards over the decades. It cannot be stated often enough that the demise of many Industries in the UK - and indeed in Europe - was simply down to being unable to compete with the East.

I had just obtained my Agricultural Tractor licence, aged 15.

We used to do that at Newcastle Airport during the 70's too. It was a spectacle to see all of those planes carrying all of those people to where they wanted to go. And on special occasions, we got to see Concorde, relatively close up, which was usually a much hyped event.

... what are you on about? Lots of cars used to catch fire back then!

@@Geshmaal he’s another idiot who follows the conspiracy theory that EV cars are always catching fire, ignoring the fact ICE vehicles catch fire too.

Then we joined the EEC, and watched on as our empire, the greatest empire that has ever been, crumbled away to dust!

@@hermanmunster3358The empire had pretty much gone by 1973 when we joined the common market.

@@reddwarfer999 If you say so Cherub!

@@hermanmunster3358History says so, not just me. There was little left of the empire by 1973. Go look it up.

@@reddwarfer999 No need to be twisting your knickers over it petal.

That was the knock off type nut that retains the wheel. The bits that stick out are so you can knock it round. I think they were opposite threads to the wheels rotation.

@@TheCounty90 yeah I know but my joke wasn’t funny if I said that 😂

I have this habit of writing factual nonsense at the risk of humour, banter, conversation, friendships, marriages…. I mean I could go on.

Perhaps he thought, to keep up the Ben Hur link* here, he was driving in a motorised chariot race, like the one Stephen Boyd had, to wipe out his fellow contestants? * One of Chris Trace's 'claims to fame' was being Charlton Heston's 'body double' in a number of scenes in the 1959 film Ben Hur. Absolutely true.

A good idea when travelling at 70 mph, a pity many people currently driving in the UK regularly don't bother to wear one. Seat belts were not mandatorily fitted to cars until the beginning of 1965, although many manufacturers had already done so in advance. Wearing a seat belt in the front seats of a car only became mandatory in 1983 in the UK.

Yes, back in the days when cyclists would actually cycle on the road, not the pavement.

Lovely crossply tyres that would let go above 25mph on a roundabout. ❤

Optional extra. Not yet compulsory at that time, and neither were windscreen washers. There are too many gadgets on cars nowadays!

No they are just Londoners.

@@paulhellawell5920 - Whoah!! Chip on shoulder, much?

Just drive sensibly and you won't get "fleeced".

The motorway speed limit was 70 mph in 1965. It's still 70 mph now. So no we couldn't drive as fast as we liked then anymore than we can now. Maybe you dreamed it?

You'll be doing well to have the opportunity to go fast enough to be "fleeced" these days. When the overhead gantries are displaying a 50mph limit, I'm usually looking at them thinking "if only"

I can't afford to drive fast, so much extra petrol is used at 70mph. TBH I'm quite happy to potter along at 50-55.

They're perfectly acceptable wheel fasteners. In any case, if you got that close to a moving car you'd have more to worry about, methinks.

The 70 mph limit on motorways was actually introduced in December 1965, where it remained until 1973, when during the Oil Crisis of late that year, maximum speeds were reduced to 55 mph for a short time, in order to conserve fuel. That was scrapped once the 3 day week and the fuel shortage was over in early 1974. So it's likely this film was recorded earlier in the year in 1965, when there was no speed limit. His Triumph has a registration number issued between 1 Jan to 31 Dec 1965, a Coventry registration, which is where Triumph cars were manufactured.

Mea culpa, slight correction here. During the Oil Crisis of Autumn 1973 in the UK, the maximum speed limit on UK roads was dropped from 70 mph to 50 mph, not 55 mph. I think the 55 mph was introduced in the US at the same time. At the time, I was driving a 1960 Morris Minor Traveller, blessed with only a 948 cc engine, top speed around 65 mph. I had seat belts fitted when I bought it, as originally they hadn't been fitted, that only became mandatory from the beginning of 1965 in the UK.

Eight and a half million in 2024 money… still quite cheap.

You don't have to be old enough to drive to have an interest in cars and motorways!

I think that thousands of cameras were added to the London street scene long before Sadiq Khan became mayor. If he's added thousands more, maybe there are actually some which can produce images which don't look worse than those from the 1960s cameras in this film!

Yes., driving was fun, but highly dangerous compared to today. The following year, 1966, the highest number of peacetime road deaths was recorded in the UK, a record that still stands, 58 years later. Over 7,800 fatalities in one year, compared to more recent figures, last year around 1700 deaths. Cars in that era were deathtraps, few cars even had seatbelts that could be worn (the fitting to cars of front seatbelts only became mandatory in early 1965, wearing them only became compulsory in 1983). By the mid 1960s, one of the highest death rates for people under the age of 25 (especially males) was as the result of a car accident.