The Austin Healey (Frogeye) Sprite was almost my first car but I got the MG Midget instead. However, this remains one of the finest, the best and certainly the most distinctive of the early 1960s sports cars!
Why ‘Frogeye’? Well, you only have to look at it to see why. Where to put lights on cars has always been something of a problem. They have to be in a position where they shine ahead but at the same time you don’t want them to be too noticeable. Before the war, headlights were lovely chrome jobs positioned on the bonnet like spotlights but afterwards the trend was to put them into the front wing so that they were not so easily seen and didn’t detract from the overall line of the car. This is, of course, the practice today where they now form part of the car’s front structure. Austin Healey, however, didn’t take this approach. They positioned the lights, as you can see, right on the top of the bonnet giving them maximum visible impact and making the bonnet the least streamlined it could be!
After the Mk 9 Jaguar came, logically enough, the MK 10 and this was to be one of the most successful Jaguar saloons of the 1960s era, creating a benchmark in silky smooth performance and comfort as well as creating one of the most distinctive and instantly recognisable cars of all time.
A successor to the fabulous and very successful Jensen 541R we look at the Jensen CV8, the sports car that everyone (including me) wanted in the early 1960s.
Ford didn’t make revolutionary cars in the early post war years (although this was soon to change) and their reputation was based on development rather than innovation. For example the Ford Anglia, for which the Escort was a replacement, was a solid, development model that sold and sold and sold throughout it’s quite long production run with little modification.
The original Ford Fairlane was a full size 1950s American car and something of a classic but in 1962 the name was switched to this second generation model which is a smaller and more compact version.
In the 1950s and 60s the big Fords in the UK were very much a development of the luxury of pre-war motoring and aimed squarely at those with a little more in their pocket who could afford to pay for and run a big car.
In the early 1960s the small car market was expanding and car ownership was just beginning its exponential increase that would continue until the present day. Vauxhall wanted to be in on the small action and so, in 1963, they produced an all new car which they called the Viva.
Sometimes there comes along a car that is so unusual that you either love it or hate it and the DAF Daffodil was just one of those cars. It also has the distinction of being a Dutch car which is unusual in itself.