LOSE YOURSELF IN 1958

PREMIERE OF CARRY ON SERGEANT

The budget for this National Service comedy starring the respected character actor, William Hartnell, and up-and-coming comedian, Bob Monkhouse, was £73,000 – low for a main feature even in 1958. But the supporting cast of Kenneth Connor, Hattie Jacques, Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams all performed with verve and producer, Peter Rogers, planned a hospital-set sequel when it became the third most commercially successful British release of the year.

VOLVO SALES BEGIN IN UK

The 1958 Earls Court Motor Show featured such temping machinery as the Aston Martin DB4, Rover P5, MGA Twin Cam, Humber Super Snipe, gold-plated Austin-Healey 100/6 and an unfamiliar

Swedish import by the name of ‘Volvo’. UK sales of the ‘Amazon’ were initially limited to the 122S which, at £1399 7s, was quite expensive. However, The Motor thought it ‘worthy of consideration by any keen driver’ who might have otherwise looked at a 2.5-litre saloon in January 1959, praising the Volvo’s ‘touring usefulness with highly sporting verve’.

THE PRESTON BY-PASS OPENS

Put simply, those eight and quarter miles of road created automotive history. The lack of central barriers and overhead warning signs are about as incredible to a 2020 car owner as the lack of speed limits would have been to a car owner from 1958. Even the warning signs were the new Calvert/Kinneir designs. And so Harold Macmillan

declared Britain’s first motorway officially open to drivers at 11.15am on 5 December. The first private vehicles on it were three-wheeled Minicars from the nearby Bond factory in a cunning example of product placement.