The Way We Were 2000, Newport, Gwent
Petrol was in short supply across the UK – but that didn’t stop this band of Granada and Cavalier fans from getting their calls for action across
‘The nation almost ground to a halt as refinery blockades led to shortages’
Normally we’re all about getting your classic out and sampling the joys of motoring – but we can understand if you gave it a miss between 8 and 16 September 2000.
The nation almost ground to a halt as fuel refinery blockades led to country-wide shortages of unleaded and diesel, with queues of a kind not seen since the early Seventies forming outside most filling stations.
I vividly remember being dispatched to the nearest branch of Kwik Save on my mountain bike to pick up the weekly shop – well, the Simister family’s Range Rover wasn’t exactly ideal in the circumstances – and being greeted by a row of empty shelves where bread and milk were meant to have been delivered. I remember too a mate’s smug expression at the height of the crisis, because the Fiat Cinquecento he relied on for transport could easily eke more than 40 miles out of a gallon of the precious stuff.
So you can’t help but wonder if the participants of this rolling protest, held on the M4 by frustrated cab drivers from across South Wales, were keeping a watchful eye on their fuel gauges in their motley crew of mid-range saloons. Leading the charge are a couple of what would have been considered fairly decadent minicab rides at the time – the Mercedes C-Class had the entry-level 1.8-litre engine, although in this car’s Elegance trim it did at least get a few more niceties than the boggo-spec Classic. There’s another W202-generation car a few rows back – driven by a rather more relaxed cabbie, we suspect, as it’s a 2.2-litre turbodiesel model.
The BMW on the left is an E34generation 5- Series, and although it’s too obscured to discern exactly which model it is, we’d make a fair guess that it’s an entry-level 518i.
Immediately behind our Mercowning protester is Ford’s very capable – and yet utterly divisive – Scorpio, although it’s unlikely that this will be a 2.9-litre Cologne V6 Cosworth model. By this point Ford’s luxurious range-topper had been indirectly superceded by the Jaguar S-Type, but even 18 months after Scorpio production ceased there were still a couple of unregistered examples loitering around the Blue Oval’s dealer network.
It’s flanked by a couple of Vauxhall Cavalier MkIIIs – we can count three in this shot, including a Satin Red, CD-spec example a few cars back, but what’s curious is the conspicuous lack of its Vectra successor here. Maybe a youthful Jeremy Clarkson – who infamously savaged the Cavalier’s replacement in a 1995 episode of Top Gear – had a particularly high number of viewers in this stretch of South Wales?
Look closely and it’s the driver of another big Vauxhall – the Omega, at that time Luton’s flagship – that’s heading up a trio of protesters from Cwmbran-based Tiger Taxis, a firm which is still going strong today. Their drivers are also out in the T4-generation Volkswagen Caravelle minibus, and a MkIII-generation Ford Granada towards the right of
UK DRIVERS GO ON STRIKE
this shot. The Vauxhall Omega, being an M-registered example, would have been one of the first on Britain’s motorways, but by this point it would have been superseded by 1999’s facelifted example, which borrowed a new Vauxhall corporate snout modelled on that of the previous year’s fourth-gen Astra.
It’s easy to get distracted by all the British, German and Japanese motors (well, Washington-built, if you count the Nissan Primera MkI) proudly sporting TAXI roof signs, but it’s worth pointing out a couple of cars further back – we can’t tell if these are owned by disgruntled drivers joining in solidarity at 2000’s fuel prices, or commuters caught up in the convoy’s wake.
The one that jumps out is the second-generation Mitsubishi Pajero, which despite being obscured by a J-reg Ford Granada appears to be a GLS-spec model. Thanks to CCW’s extra-strong magnifying glass we can see that it appears to be towing a WJ-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee – an ingenious way to save on scant fuel, but if the driver passed his test since Janaury 1997 then he’d need a B+E trailer licence to be legal.
Further back there’s a pre-facelift Volkswagen Polo MkIII, a Suzuki Swift and a Golf MkIV, all of which would’ve been a tad too small for South Welsh minicabbing duties, and on the opposite side there’s a firstgeneration Nissan Micra and – at the very back – an N-registered Renault Clio. It’s also worth pointing out the C5-gen Audi A6 right at the back, whose driver is embarking on a lastminute lane change; we suspect that with a starting price of £25k back in 2000, this would have been a couple of years away from ending up in the hands of private hire purveyors.
Just three days after this shot was taken fuel supplies started getting back to the UK’s petrol stations, and the assorted Cavaliers, Granadas and C-Class Mercs went back to work. It also meant no more pushbike shopping trips for Yours Truly – the Range Rover was back in action!