Yep- that was the Mk1. We also had one. I really liked it as a kid.

Ian's comments of it quickly changing up from 1st to 2nd are a result of not using kick-down. 2nd and 3rd are the running gears with first being there for when all else fails with a family of 6 in the car towing a large caravan. Holidaying from south Cumbria to Scarborough was just too tempting an opportunity for Dad to take the caravan up Sutton Bank. Of course the Mk1 3 litre Granada Ghia managed that task - dropping all the way down to 2nd ! (I'm pretty sure 1st wasn't needed - but would have been if we'd got stopped on the hill and needed to restart !

Cutting edge technology.....

“Woolseley” comes to mind...

I agree...and they were pretty good. Ingenious heater controls when you take them apart and look at the,...nice piece of engineering.

As long as you weren't peeing over the red interior your gran must have been proud.

Stick a V8 in it and it'll be more interesting lol

Aussie cars leave me cold.

Turn the heater on mate

There were plenty of these around. I still have one, they had a bit of market share for a while.

Yep, plenty of these about. I bought mine in 1981 and they were common.

Relay ? Not in them days mate - a genuine thermal flasher unit ! Which, despite Australian temperatures, takes a while to warm up ! Maybe the bulbs are under-powered !

@@millomweb There's a relay in the flasher hence the tick. The thermal bit just does the timing, and the relay switches the bulbs

@@Graham_Langley Not in them days ! It's the thermal bit you can hear flipping from one shape to the other - and back. Here's a view inside one: lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/tnG5fVXFPY8KEmUCkQr-ZGkvQRLBNpLB65LEay_BfEqROJAj6bN6bc3PJpBwjxevSIuU7fj4cCJSMtXimEffJFH9x4ZzPwj4PR_fHTyrA_rxnLmQ8z4Kdf3yEq3Bp5t_kQ6cr_8N - not a relay in sight !

@@millomweb I sit corrected, although the one in the link does look unbelievably crude. Only one I've had to take apart was in a '66 Imp after it filled with water from a failed wiper or washer seal - it was fitted terminals up on the column support IIRC.

@@Graham_Langley And did that have a relay in it ? BL/BMC used smaller brick-shaped things: www.britishbikebits.com/media/catalog/product/p/1/p1030672.jpg - and these were very basic - the rectangular shape housed a flattish kinked piece of bi?metal, a stop and a contact post. Very basic ! They used a modified version for hazards late last century. Of course, back in the 60s, I don't think hazards were a thing !

My dad has a Volvo Amazon. Years back he was in south London and this bloke stuck his head through the window "Beautiful car mate! Ahhh you can smell the levver" The only leather in it was a pair of shoes..

Same here, I used to own a Mk1 24/80 back when I was a teenager, lovely car and had all those smells like you describe...I was lucky as the leather upholstery in mine was in immaculate condition.

​Top tip for when you go to sell a luxury car; Soak a rag in some leather cleaner then bung it under one of the seats.

The smell of unburned petrol as a '60s car goes past always surprised me. Did they always run that rich and we never noticed?

Great.car.l.grow.wool.sheep.so.connected.australia.❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

jgv Gjv ; A three H4 SU carb intake was briefly released as an aftermarket item. 116 flywheel hp gross, and they raced them at Phillip Island and even Mount Panaroma if I recall. The B series 6 cylinder version of the 1622 was a really fine engine. My uncle Murray Stevenson had an Austin Freeway 2.4 litre...great car! The thing that killed them after 3 years of good work was a bunch of US inspired HD and HR Holdens and AP5/6 Valiants and the crazy, glitzy XM and XP Falcons and Futura hardtops...not any better but aggressively marketed by the Big Three GM-H, Chrysler Prty and Ford Australia. The marketing wagon rode to a Church, Scouts Guides or gentlemans or ladies cultural center near you and the shear gloss of publicity handouts overwhelmed the richest Commenwealth Colonial outpost in the realm. All BMC had to do was play the same game Vauxhall did with the Velox, Creata Vicount and Ventora and they woukd have owned that Australian market too. Instead, a backward steo to the Austin 1800 four and then a hike up to the Kimberly and Tasman. A conservative 4 inch wider Freeway was designed in England, but although it would have sold well in Australia BMC was already imploding in 1965 with a raft of production line consuming modle profliferations. The wide body BlueStreak Six would have looked like a 504 Peugeot three years before it hit Europe. If only.....

I disagree that the Holdens, Fords & valiants were “no better” in fact they were far far better than these cars, singling out power alone the slant six 225 ci & 273 V8’s of the valiants, the 186 ci Holdens especially the X2’s & 186 “s” engines of the HR’s and the 170 pursuit & 200 ci “super pursuit” engines in the XP Fairmont were what we Australians wanted @ the time that l remember well, it certainly wasn’t about marketing.

James Govett : Actually, yeah, you are right. I see your point. The Wayferer ute, the Safari Station Wagon...The big three offered size, engine power, relaxed cruising with 2.92 and 3.08 axle ratios and 20 to the Imperial Gallon. It was really width that sold in the wide open spaces of Australia. The six seater wide body 327 option Holdens did it too. The AP6 273 Regal was the first to drive that message home, then the XR Falcon. I was born in 1970, so my comments are outside your time domain. Our AP5 had 145 hp gross from 225 cubic inches, our 58 PA Vauxhall Velox, 77.9 hp from a 2.26 litre six. Our non ADR 27 Kiwi spec 1975 Cortina XL 2000, 112 hp gross or 98 hp net. The power race was vertical between 1958 to 1965. BMC languised primarily due to engine power and a lack of suspension competance. Between 1950, when Austin was number one in Austrailia, and 1965, the failure was to adapt to TransAtlantic styling and better engine power BMC couldnt cope with making six seater bench seat cars that could drop 18 second quarter miles and still do 18 miles per gallon like a Jag could. The basics were right...the wide body six seater, six cylinder Farina was rejected. The last 2.6 litre Humber Super Snipe suffered the same fate. The P5 B Rover and Jansen variants and British Pressed Steel Volvo P1800s were all moving to the American ideal, but Great Britians BMC didnt adopt the 1966 wide body six seater ideal the Mark 10 Jag and Cresta and Mark IV Zephyr did. The Europeans and everyone except GM and Ford Europe turned there back against wide body six seater bench seat cars.

My father had a single-colour light grey A55 Farina. Used it to tow a caravan from SW London to Devon in '67 and remember spending time on that holiday polishing it back to a shine. It was replaced by an A60 in blue and white in time for the next year's holiday, this time towing a bigger caravan down to Lands End. That got replaced by a red Renault 16, the first car my father bought new. Managed to break the windscreen with a stone kicked up by the lawnmower and damage the hatchback by driving it into the garage with it (the hatch) open within a few months.

Hooray! Somebody else actually likes lever arm shock absorbers! I think they give a slightly floaty, luxurious ride. But you're not allowed to say anything in their favour, by modern day thought police, who refuse to acknowledge anything before THEIR time could be good

Glad you explained that was a chair in the boot - for a second I thought it was vulnerable fuel tank pipework! ;-)

These cars always needed a six cylinder engine. That rough old four was a complete mismatch to the luxury wood and leather interior. What a pity BMC didn't have the imagination to offer a six cylinder option in the UK. Is this engine significantly smaller than a C series I wonder? I would have thought that a 3 litre version would have appealed to Aussies.

2.4 litres, so a little smaller.

HubNut If the idea was to give it more power can't for the life of me understand why it didn't have twin carbs.

If you ever owned anything with twin SUs you would know. You could feel them go utility of tune within weeks. Also the desire was for torque not peak bhp, so no reason for power tuned carbs.

Ditto my gran's Morris Minor. Bulb in the stalk is L.E.S.

Check out Peter Anderson's channel: kzfaq.info/sun/PLSL5PUw3f6deeqS7qKTvZd9tevTXPgKQQ He does a full restoration series on a 24/80 Mk 1 (I think). Lovely motor ... I've owned a Mk 1 and a Mk 2 ... the first was written off after saving my life ((SOLID beast!); the second died off poverty-induced, unfortunately. Cheers.

I fancy a 6/110 with a 2JZ, could be a hell of a sleeper.

Great to see a video of my first car. Paid $175 in 1976, shaved 60th off the head,7" rims on her, sports steering wheel and 4 speed box and loved driving her in Inverell area.

I've a feeling not all the badges did light up but yes, the question went through my mind too !

@@millomweb not sure myself but it's always my first thought when I see a Wolseley 😀 Don't know if you've seen the stunning MG e-motion concept but it's badge lights up, hopefully that will be carried over when it's finally released.

@@stepheng8779 No, I haven't. Hope it's not red (nose) !!

The badges should always light up, right through to the rare Wolseley wedge. This one did, but you couldn't see it in the light.

@@HubNut 👍👍😀

😈👍

Maybe, however Riley had a 2.5 4-cyl (not a 6) just before the war, 37, 38, 39, and the cars with that engine were called Blue Streak. The engine was referred to as the Big Four. Riley was then absorbed into Nuffield group in 38,39. The Big Four engine was used in some post-war “Nuffield Rileys” . E.g. RMB, RMF. So, Blue Streak name was already in the group.

@@Mancozeb100 that's an interesting bit of synchronicity.

Will tell owner Brian that this has gone live. 👍

Thanks Peter. And thanks for helping arrange it.

Whereabouts in Tassie was that? I've watched twice and can't figure it out 🙄

Mystery location.......called Burnie.

@@peterriggall8409 haven't been to Burnie for years, it's changed lol

They used to break easily,and the bulb used to blow you could unscrew they’d to replace it.

Not much power - but very flexible. How many modern engines can manage with three gears?

@@SM-dt1pr I don't know. How many cars have been configured with three gears? A typical modern 2.4 can quite happily set off in third and reach 80mph in that gear.

@@jasejj none lately.

The US was the same except it managed to setve its own, vast, market pretty well as a whole, even if some individual makes and models did better than others.

I think the tax rules regarding displacement at home led to underpowered vehicles that were completely unsuited to the US or Australian markets. That's why only luxury makes that weren't concerned with economy and tiny sports cars were the only British cars that sold in appreciable numbers over here.

@@seed_drill7135 Much of Europe too , with a 2.8 litre for many years. Effectively a trade barrier to protect against the 3 litre Model T Ford I heard. As far back as that.