Laura Brown steers us down memory lane with a look at car journeys
From Simpkins travel sweets to Esso Tiger Tokens, Laura Brown steers us back to our younger days, when car journeys were very different from today’s.
DRIVING is easier, safer and more comfortable than ever. We have gadgets and gizmos aplenty, but that doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes get a bit misty-eyed when we remember the good old days of rolling down the windows, pressing play on the tape deck and hitting the open road.
The 1970s and 1980s didn’t quite make it into the history books as the golden age of motoring, but they were an awful lot of fun.
The first stop on our nostalgic trip down memory lane is, of course, the petrol station.
Back then, everyone in the car arrived at their destination coated in a fine layer of powdered sugar, courtesy of a tin of Simpkins travel sweets.
Good news for those of us who favour the lightly iced look – they’re still available, and we can confirm they are as messy as ever when passed around a car travelling at 70 mph.
Sweets successfully procured – it always had to be Forest Fruits flavour for us, what about you? – an inevitable detour into the colourful grove of Magic Trees followed.
We never did manage to get to grips with the science of that Cellophane wrapper.
Tear it off completely and we risked sending our passengers into a scented stupor; not enough and we could still smell the faint whiff of an unfortunate grocery shopping spillage that happened five years earlier.
In fact, chemist Julius Sämann invented the trees in 1952 for that very reason.
A milk truck driver inspired his range of air fresheners when he moaned about the sour smell of spilled milk that permeated his nostrils every day.
Now known here by their far less magical American name of Little Trees, choosing the right fragrance was important.
Black Ice seemed to be tempting fate on wintry days, New Car was a tad optimistic in a battered old Ford Cortina, and Pine had a rather lavatorial air.
For special trips, we splashed out on a Feu Orange instead.
These traffic-light air fresheners hung from a little gold chain and came with a pin to pierce the perfumed amber lamp.
We wish we’d stocked up before they were discontinued, because they’ve been known to sell for as much as £50 each in recent years.
Classic car enthusiasts buy them to add an authentic finishing touch to their pride and joy.
An air freshener wasn’t our only rearview mirror adornment – oh, no!
Furry dice were all the rage, and it was a wonder we could see out of our windscreen at all. Their cuddly appearance is deceptive – these fun and fuzzy cubes were actually a relic of World War II.
Pilots in the United States Air Force would keep a pair of dice in their cockpits for luck, or so the story goes, and when they returned home from war, the tradition continued in their cars.
Ours looked particularly lovely with the nearby nodding dog on the dashboard.
We have Germany to thank for that flock-covered kitsch, invented in the 1970s and known there as a Wackeldackel.
And don’t forget the his-and-hers personalised sunstrips running across the top of the windscreen – the only way to declare your true love on the road (and easier to remove than a tattoo if it all ended in tears).
Are you sitting comfortably? Thanks to your beaded car seat, a road trip in the 1980s doubled as a mini-massage.
They originated in Taiwan and were a boon to taxi drivers and long-distance lorry drivers alike. Soon everyone wanted in on the action, and these knobbly back-soothers could be spotted in driveways across the country.
It wasn’t a good idea to get too settled, however, because a disturbance of some sort was never far away.
At best, it was the glovebox bursting open on a bumpy road, sending the family’s vast collection of cassettes flying all over the floor.
At worst, a strange banging noise or the ominous smell of smoke would call for an impromptu pitstop.
Yes, even breaking down was different in the past.
Not only did cars seem more temperamental – partly because we really got our money’s worth before moving on to a new model – but we were also more willing to have a go at fixing the faults ourselves.
It wasn’t unusual for women to have to whip off their tights in a layby to shore up a shrieking fan belt, and no end of misguided hammering happened beneath our bonnets.
If we couldn’t improvise our way out of the layby, an AA or RAC telephone box was never far away.
Every major road had one – they had once been sentry boxes to provide shelter for roaming patrolmen on the lookout for drivers in distress, which was great news for those of us who could only dream of having our own ginormous car phone.
Heading home, an exciting part of the journey was yet to come.
It was time to spend all those Esso Tiger Tokens we’d been saving up.
Filling up the car reaped rewards such as crystal whisky glasses, massive soup mugs, digital alarm clocks and portable televisions.
The most coveted free gift of all was the fluffy tiger tail, designed to be attached to the petrol cap so that it looked as if we’d taken the Esso slogan literally and put a tiger in our tank.
It was the perfect finishing touch to a car already laden with trinkets, but it sadly couldn’t prevent us absentmindedly leaving the cap on the roof and then driving off.
Modern-day cars certainly have their attractions, there’s no doubt – they just need more soft toys and silliness, that’s all! ■