HOLBORN, LONDON

It’s rush hour on a grey Monday – and BMC, Rootes and Ford offerings are trying to escape the capital

This shot, taken from the top of the Daily Mirror o ces, captures a vista of fumes and mutterings about late-running buses. On the left, we have a pair of Morris Minor Travellers, a pre-1958 Ford Anglia 100E (note the tail-lamps), a Standard Ten and, just visible, a Vanguard Phase II. A delivery driver is taking the opportunity to load his Thames 307E van; the upmarket 7cwt version complete with its chromium-plated bumpers.

The owner of the Rover P4 in the next line of tra c is no doubt fulminating about strikers and how The Shadows are leading the youth to ruin. The Austin FX3 is a post1955 model that sports the ‘bunny ear’ flashing indicators in the roof. Departing passengers were prone to using them as grab handles.

A second Standard 10 is waiting behind its Triumph Herald successor, the latter sporting a ‘Gnomist’ panel on the rear screen, while a cyclist edges between a Ford Consul MKII De Luxe and its six-cylinder Zodiac stablemate. The Austin FX4 (behind the A50 Cambridge) must have seemed luxurious compared with the FX3 – although the Public Carriage O ce banned soundproofing on taxis until 1968 becuse it was apparently deemed to be a fire hazard.

Moving rightwards we encounter yet more BMC products in the forms of an Austin A35 newspaper delivery van and an A40 Farina saloon. Another Anglia 100E follows an Austin Cambridge A55 MKII while a second A40 seems awkwardly parked between both lines of tra c. A Vauxhall Victor F-type edges into the bottom of frame as a Humber Hawk MKVI dwarfs the scooter and white Mini to its right.

As for the drivers of the 1957-model Velox E-series, the dark-coloured Mini and the Ford Prefect 100E, they are probably complaining that they’ll miss the Tonight show. However the central mystery of this image is the Zodiac MKII, Mini and Sunbeam Rapier parked in the middle of Holborn. Could they belong to employees of Holbrook (Builders) Ltd. perchance?

Meanwhile, a British Road Services Albion, another scooter and a Riley One Point Five attempt to leave the capital. A Ton-up Boy passes the exquisite Barker-bodied Daimler DB18 Drophead Coupé while the second A55 ‘Farina’ looks modestly extravagant. If the gentleman sitting behind the wheel did not smoke a pipe, he really should have done.

Nearer the camera are a third Anglia 100E and an Austin A30, plus what looks like a Bedford O-type bearing the Toler logo. Near the kerb are an A35 Van, A55 MKII and FX4 while a Bedford CA and another FX3 make their exit from Holborn.

At times of such congestion, one option, should your car be equipped with a radio, was to seek refuge in the BBC Light Programme or find a parking space and wait. The owners of the A30, the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire 346 and Standard Eight apparently opted for the latter and probably headed to the nearest Lyons Corner House.

And my car of the picture – it has to be that splendid Wolseley 6/90 on the right of the frame. ‘In your own time, Sergeant…’

NO PAINT JOB? The Thames was delivered in primer by Ford unless the owner speci ed an exterior paint nish, available for a bargain extra £10.

Film historian and Vanden Plas 4-Litre R fanatic, who loves nothing more than spotting car cameos in lms and TV shows.

PIONEER VAN The split-screen and the grille of this Bedford CA denote that it’s an early pre-1958 model. FINAL FARES These were still being used in London in 1968, even though its FX4 successor had been introduced more than a decade earlier. COMFY RIDE The FX4 was the —rst London taxi with four doors and automatic transmission as standard – no more draughty drives for those long-su˜ering, chatty cabbies. RISKY RIDE Crash helmets were not mandatory for motorcycles and scooters until June 1973, so riders opting not to wear them help to date these archive images.