Where does one get his affection for automobiles? In my case I seem to have inherited it from my grandfather. According to my mother he was a real car-nut. In the nineteen twenties my grandfather was a personal driver for Sir Henri Deterding, the managing director of Shell. He drove a car with separation; unfortunately my mother can not remember the make. During the late twenties and early thirties my grandfather sometimes rented a car to take the family for a ride in the country. The photograph dates from (I think) the thirties; my mother sits in the rear, the lady in front is my grandmother. The car is a Buick from 1926.

My mother is also an enthusiastic driver. She got her drivers-license at an early age, in 1946, just after the war. The car in which she took her driving-lessons was a Willys Overland Sedan from 1938.

At the end of the forties my mother occasionally rented a car to keep up her driving skills. This one is an Opel 1.3 dating from 1934. Note the two different headlamps!

After that came a Morris Minor. In that car I had my first driving experience. I think I must have been about five, we had parked somewhere, and my mother had stepped out of the car to make this picture. In the meantime I had climbed behind the wheel and somehow unlocked the parking brake. The car started moving and my father, who was in the passenger seat, didn’t have a clue how to stop the car because he had no driver's license. Fortunately the Morris came to a stop by itself when it hit the curb. Anyway, I had become addicted to cars.

It wasn’t before the end of the fifties that my father also got his drivers-license and because he needed a car for his work, he used to rent one for a fairly long term. First he had a Ford Taunus, the model with the globe in the grille, then a light green Austin A40 and finally a white A40 (On both photographs dating from 1959 showing my mother behind the wheel). All these cars he had no longer than half a year.

In 1961 we finally got our own car, a brand-new Ford Anglia. It was a beautiful car with duotone paint, tires with white sidewalls and even, as an extra luxury, a wing mirror. It was a wonderful car, which we have had for several years.

Who certainly influenced me in my love for automobiles was my father’s brother. In the early fifties he drove a Traction Avant (a black one, of course) and when I was still a small boy, I occasionally accompanied him on a business trip. That uncle was also very interested in cars and in 1956 he took me to the AutoRai, the Amsterdam motor show. I still have the catalogue.

In the mid-fifties the Traction was traded for a DKW 3=6 (on the photo with my father sitting on the bonnet), that in its turn was traded for an Auto Union 1000. In the sixties the Auto Union made way for a Fiat 1300 and later a Fiat 1500.

The picture below hasn’t got much to do with my early influence, but it is really interesting. I found it in the Dutch magazine “Autokampioen” dated August 27, 1960. The caption reads: “A fall on the boulevard at Scheveningen, caused by careless parking of bicycles against a lamppost.”

But what this picture is really about is that I can remember that situation well, because the boy picking up the bicycles is me! And the lady on the bicycle waiting impatiently is my mother. I don’t know who the man with the bicycle is. Probably a passer-by stopping the traffic. I had completely forgotten that incident. But I don’t remember the incident as being dangerous (I was already eleven!). We returned from the beach to our bicycles that we had parked against a lamppost. Some other bicycles were parked against ours and when trying to untangle them, the whole lot fell on the street. And of course I had no further attention for my surroundings; in 1960 the Buick was just as ordinary as the Volkswagen and I never saw the photographer.

When I was about twelve, I became a member of the "Jeugd Automobiel Club" (Youth Automobile Club). It was an initiative of Shell who saw that club as a means to try to create petrol consumers at the earliest possible age. Whatever their way of thinking, I was hooked from the beginning, especially when the JAC started to organize races with karts (or skelters as they were called in those days). There was also a monthly magazine called "Volgas" (full speed - click), that I read from start to finish. Around 1969 enthusiasm for the JAC faltered. The club was dissolved and all members automatically became members of the KNAC, the Royal Dutch Automobile Club.

A cousin of mine, Leo, emigrated with his parents to Australia in the early fifties. Leo is about ten years older than I am and in the early sixties he had in Perth a company specializing in the import of used sports cars from Europe, rebuilding the steering from the left side to the right side and then selling them to eager customers. In 1964 he came to Holland to buy some cars. He was especially looking for used Alfa Romeo's, particularly Giulietta's and 1300 Juniors.

Leo is probably the one who was the main influence for me to buy an MGA when I was older. At the end of the fifties he had one in Perth, which he used for club racing. For many years, when I was a kid, the picture below hung on the wall above my bed.

After the Ford Anglia my father has had three Ford Cortina’s. The first one was in 1962, for the sum of 5555 guilders. My father was enthusiastic about this model, but my mother hated it. Especially because every winter all three Cortina’s had starting problems. In one of those Cortina’s I had my first real driving lessons. When I was fifteen, going on sixteen, every Saturday afternoon my father took me to a deserted terrain nearby and allowed me to drive there. At first with him in the passenger seat, later he got out and let me drive my rounds alone. That must have been in 1965-1966. Later, in 1967, my father and I went together on holiday to Spain with the third Cortina, still the model with the round taillights. My father drove the Autoroutes through France, but as soon as we crossed the Spanish border he let me drive the rest of the way. I was seventeen at that time, and of course I still had no driver's license. Quite irresponsible, one would say nowadays, but apparently my father had confidence in me. On the other hand, my father didn’t like to drive and felt more comfortable when he could sit in the passenger seat and look around.

Later that year I finally got my drivers license and my father allowed me to take the Cortina as much as I liked (or as much as I could) to drive somewhere. Two months later, in December 1967, I was on my way home from a friend’s house. When the traffic lights turned from red to green, I accelerated as fast as I could and turned left into the corner, taking it in the style of Sir John Whitmore (click). What I hadn’t noticed was that the road was frozen, so that after three full spins I backed the Cortina into a lamppost. The boot was badly damaged, but fortunately for me my father was quite sporting about it. At least I cannot remember to have had to pay the damage. After that accident  it wasn’t long before I bought my own car.

During the 1950’s and 1960’s my mother worked for an architect, whose son owner “Le Vélo”, the largest Citroën-dealership in The Hague. When the DS was introduced in 1955, this architect was of course one of the first to buy this new model and I still remember the commotion this car caused wherever it appeared. From the day I turned fourteen I could work during the summer months in the workshops of “Le Vélo” where the DS’s were maintained. I started by sweeping the floors, but gradually I was taught the basics of maintenance. One of the first things I learned was how to use the blow-torch, because the bolts, with which the front fenders of the Citroén DS were attached to the body, were almost always firmly rusted.

In later years I also worked in the other workshop of “Le Vélo” where the 2CV’s, the Ami’s and Panhard’s were repaired. Again I did mainly maintenance work like changing plugs, adjusting ignition timing and so on. At first under the supervision of one of the mechanics, later I was allowed to do it on my own. After I had finished a car, a mechanic always took me along for a test drive, because I still had no driver’s license. Whenever the shop manager received a phone call that a Citroën had broken down somewhere, I was allowed to go along with the service van, a bright yellow Citroën HY with a towing crane mounted on a flat bed. Looking from that angle it’s not strange that I have owned a couple of Citroëns myself.

My first car was a Citroën 2CV built in 1959, the model with the old style "corrugated" bonnet. In the "Haagsche Courant" I saw an advertisement for this 2CV and was able to buy it after some negotiations.

But still it was a school friend, who gave me the idea to buy a 2CV. He was a year older than me, and even while we were at school he already drove a Simca Aronde, the “quick” one with the ‘rush’ engine.

After the Simca became too expensive, my friend bought a 2CV at a breakers yard and was able to fix it for very little money. With this car we went on holiday to Brittany in France.

These experiences were the reason that I too wanted a 2CV. Of course there was also a financial reason, because I had seen that a 2CV was very cheap to maintain, especially for a poor schoolboy that had to earn a living by washing cars.

Originality of the 2CV wasn’t important at that time, so the corrugated bonnet went first and was replaced by a newer type, which I found at the local breakers yard. That way no one would notice that I had an old model. It took me about a year to rebuild this 2CV. I kept on buying parts till everything looked right.

Originally it was grey, but I had it sprayed mustard-yellow, a then fashionable color. It was a very good-looking car that was also a pleasure to drive. The picture above shows the car during the rebuilt phase. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of the finished car.

It was early 1970 when I sold the 2CV and bought a 1959 MG Magnette ZB. My father went with me to collect the car and when we arrived, all four doors, the boot lid and the bonnet stood open. Surely the grey car didn’t look like much and my father exclaimed: “You didn’t sell your beautiful 2CV for that thing…?” Still it was a sensible buy, because what my father didn’t know was that the bottom of my 2CV had completely rotted away.

One may wonder why one would buy a MG Magnette. Again I was influenced of course. This time by another friend from my schooldays. In 1967 he drove a black ZA-Magnette (click) and I was deeply impressed by the leather seats and the wooden dashboard. Strangely enough, what impressed me most, were the braided strings, which were used to close the doors.

The Magnette was a very comfortable car and I have owned it for about a year. But when the front shock absorbers gave out, I could not find someone who could (or would) repair them. A pity, because nowadays that wouldn’t be a problem.

Apart from my grey ZB Magnette, I have also had a ZA Magnette, a red one dating from 1956. I bought it early 1971 for the amount of forty euros from a man who at that time also owned the MGA that I later bought. This ZA was ready for the breakers yard, but I could use it for spare parts. Although this ZA was still drivable and it was only one kilometer to my home, there had been no water in the radiator so the bonnet disappeared behind a cloud of steam. The last few hundred meters I had to push it by hand. To the annoyance of our neighbors I parked this car in our street and started to unbolt everything that was possible to unbolt. Behind our home was a small shed for our bicycles which was filled up to the roof with Magnette parts. Most of the spare parts have been used or sold over the years, but I kept the chassis plate. One never knows.

In April 1971 I bought the MGA that I still own. I had seen this car before, because it was owned by a young man who lived not far away from me. He in turn had bought this MGA from the man that sold me the ZA-Magnette I had used for spare parts. The MGA had had a front collision in which one of the front wings was badly damaged. There had been more damage, but it wasn’t until years later I found out about that. My neighbor wanted to repair the damaged wing and I was watching him while he fitted the upper part of a front wing bought from the scrapyard. For the lower part of the wing (which was badly rusted) he cut large pieces of cardboard to size and made them fit with copious amounts of body filler. So you can’t say that I didn’t know what I was buying.

A test drive went quite well, but when that same afternoon I went cruising, I suddenly held a loose gear lever in my hand. Happily I was already quite capable of a roadside repair.

A few days later I was driving on a busy street in The Hague, a tram on the left, parked cars to the right of me. What exactly happened I can’t remember, but I think I hit something on the road and that caused the steering wheel to come off. By braking very hard, the only thing I could do, I brought the car to a standstill. I was fortunate that the brakes didn’t pull to one side or else I would have had quite a lot of damage. Now nothing had happened. I quickly found out that the nut with which the steering wheel was fixed to the steering column hadn’t been sealed, which caused the nut to slowly undo itself.

A little later, in the summer of 1971, I was stopped by two police men in a patrol car. They had followed me for while, and just when they had decided that my MGA looked real nice, they heard an ominous noise coming from my gearbox when I pulled away from the traffic lights. They then started to give my MGA a thorough check. Of course the multi-toned horn that played “The Bridge on the River Kwai” had to go; they heard a leak in the exhaust pipe and found several other small things. They confiscated my papers and gave me three days to have all the repairs done, except the gearbox; they didn’t think that was important.

But that ominous noise from the gearbox came of course from a broken laygear, which not long afterward gave up the ghost completely, so I couldn’t shift any more. I bought another gearbox. After the engine and gearbox went back in my MGA, I found out that the propeller shaft didn’t fit, because the “new” gearbox was from a later model MGA. A correct propshaft was nowhere to be found. I think I must have searched a hundred scrapyards and must have bought at least three different propshafts, before I found the correct one.

Even that wasn’t the end of all the fun. Of course I wanted to try how fast my MGA would really go. It wasn’t bad, I was doing 160 km/u (or some hundred miles per hour), when I suddenly noticed a big blue cloud hovering behind the car. At the same time I heard an awful noise coming from the front. Well, that was the end of the engine.

I used my A as a daily driver, but end 1974, early 1975 the MGA rusted so badly, that a restoration was really needed. New F-sections, new polyester wings and a new paintjob. It took almost half a year to finish the car, but after that the A looked real fine.

Again it became my daily driver until two years later it appeared that the chassis was also badly rusted, so a second restoration was needed. I used a tight schedule in which I worked on the MGA every Wednesday evening and Saturday morning. That way it took me little more than a year. The complete report of this restoration can be read in Project 75024.

The MGA was finished in 1979 and less than a year later, when driving to work, an old Mazda failed to give me the right of way. I hit it exactly amidships. The Mazda was total-loss and so was my A. Luckily I had nothing and the insurance company paid the damage. In addition to the parts needed for the repair, I also bought two new metal front wings instead of the polyester ones.

It took more than a year to finish the job. That was also partly my fault, because for me the fun of driving an MGA was lost. Late in 1982 I started to take the A for a spin now and then, but it was no longer my daily driver.

Because I went abroad for several years, I stored the MGA in a rented garage box. That was in 1988 and it stayed there until 2001. After all those years of storage the MGA still looked very good. Only the engine had seized, but by using lots of penetrating oil I got it turning again. The brakes and clutch were still in perfect condition, thanks to the use of silicon brake fluid. From that moment on the MGA went back into service.

For several years (from 1973 until 1975) I worked for a trucking company that transported fruit and vegetables from the auction in Den Hoorn (near Delft) to several cities in Germany. My job was to do the administration of the workshop, keeping stock of the spare parts, and fetching parts that weren’t in stock. Transport was mostly done with Volvo’s F88 and F89, but there were also several Scania’s.

Later they bought two American Macks F 700, which were imported by a Dutch company called Zwaans. These Macks were Interstaters, specially built for the transport of fruits and vegetables. Normally Mack only made tractors but for the Dutch market they made two long chassis that could be used as straight trucks with a trailer. They were magnificent looking trucks. The Dutch company Lamboo made an elevation on the roof of the cab, in order to make room for two beds. It was the first "double-sleeper". Later Mack made its own version of this design.

Of course Zwaans wanted to sell many Macks and therefore the workshop where I worked was turned into some sort of service point, complete with a large warehouse with spare parts.

Unfortunately the Macks never became a success. They were extremely expensive, not only to buy, but also to maintain. Only a few other companies bought them too, for instance "van Dijk Delft", who bought two and "Looms & Alberts" in Almelo. Zwaans also imported Toyota forklift trucks and because many other trucking companies in the neighborhood used Toyota forklift trucks, I managed to get all these companies to have their forklifts maintained in our workshop. Because of that I also had the supervision over a warehouse full of Toyota forklift spare parts.

It was the sort of company where you could do much as you pleased, as long as your normal jobs were done. I took that possibility to repair Francina’s 2CV and of course there was also a lot to do to my MGA. After I had worked there for two years I was offered a job as a spare parts manager for a British Leyland dealership and that job seemed much more attractive to me, so I took it.

Early 1972 my wife and I saw a little green Fiat Topolino, built in 1949. It’s owner was about to divorce her husband, and because it was him who maintained the Topolino, she offered it for sale to us. It came complete with several large bags with lots of completely worn out spare parts.
       

For my wife the Topolino wasn’t an easy car to drive. Especially when you just have your license it’s not easy to doubleclutch, which meant her driving skills were severely tested in busy traffic. And technically speaking the Topolino wasn’t hundred percent. Not only did the right headlamp burst into life when you first hit it with your fist, it also had a fair amount of play in the steering. The drum brakes, when they warmed up, were very bad and it was necessary to use them as little as possible. I was driving one day when the brakes suddenly refused to function. Fortunately I was able to bring the Topolino to a stop against the sidewalk. After that I started to do a full overhaul of the brakes, that is to say, as far as that was possible, because the correct spare parts were nowhere to be found. Only after a long search I found the correct size of bleeders.

Still it was fun driving the Topolino because people started to wave spontaneously when we drove by. One day my wife was stopped by a policeman who wanted to check if she really did have a driver’s license. When he asked if he should the check the technical condition of the Fiat, she answered that such an action would indeed cause problems. She was allowed to drive on.

Shortly thereafter she had a small accident in which she dented the left front fender and broke the headlamp. We loaded the Topolino on the back of a borrowed Bedford truck and brought it to a lock-up. The shovel that can be seen on the picture in front of the truck was really needed, because just as we wanted to leave, the Bedford refused to start and had to be towed.

The lock-up was on a farm, where the Topolino has been for several years and during that time the car literally disappeared under bales of hay. We had to dig it out. Except for needing a good clean-up, the Topolino hadn’t really suffered from being locked-up for such a long time.

After I had repaired the damage on my MGA, I was finally ready - in 1981 - to start the restoration of the Topolino. I began with the carburetor and air filter, so I could start the engine again. As a next step I removed the bodywork after which I could see that the chassis was rusted through at the rear. When I had the chassis welded and painted, I protected the chassis against future rust with a substance called “on-rust”, an anti-rust protector that unfortunately is not for sale anymore.

For several reasons I never finished the restoration. Busy at work; an MGA that needed constant attention and later our plans to sell our home to start traveling the world.
In 1988 we decided to sell the Topolino.

After we had taken the Topolino to the farm, we needed another car. I found a 1967 Citroën 2CV Delivery Van that was cheap because ‘something’ was wrong with the engine. It didn’t look like a real problem to me and towed the van to the workshop of the trucking company where I worked.

When I dismantled the engine it appeared that one of the push rods had broken. An easy fix, although I remember when I tried to torque down one of the cylinder head bolts, I broke a stud, because either I had not adjusted the torque wrench correctly, or the torque wrench was also defective. It meant I also needed to replace the cylinder head and a “new” one was quickly located in one of the local scrap yards. I also found the time to fix up the body and paint it a rather striking blue.

After we had given away the 2CV Delivery Van, we bought new car. In 1976 my wife noticed a Mini Pick-up and fell for it like a block. It was quite a rare car as no more than ten cars were sold during the years that it was on the Dutch market.

This Mini Pick-up was of course a very basic car; for example it didn’t even have a temperature gauge, which meant that on our first trip we ended up at the side of the road with a boiling radiator. Needless to say that after this event I bought an accessory temperature gauge, but still overheating remained a continuing problem with this car. At the same time I bought a wooden dashboard and to make this Pick-up a nicer car I also added the steering wheel and hubcaps of a Mini Clubman. We have owned this Pick-up for several years and used it for all kinds of transport problems.

As an extra accessory this pick-up had a canvas top over the rear body and on its support rails I had made special brackets on which I could transport my surfboards. Unfortunately this Mini was quite prone to rusting and because of a leaking battery - which was stored behind the passenger seat - the floor also started to rust through. One winter morning I skidded with the Pick-up and ended up facing backward on the other side of the road. Fortunately there were no other vehicles at that time of the morning or else I could have been in a nasty accident. Now I had nothing, but for the Mini it was different. Outwardly nothing seemed wrong, but when I tried to drive on, the car moved over the road like a drunken duck. Later I saw that the subframes, both front and rear, had taken a beating and were bent. The Pick-up remained in our front yard for a few days, but the repair of the subframes proved too costly, so I decided to bring the Pick-up to the local scrap yard.

I have already written that during my school holidays I worked for an Citroën dealer, so it’s not strange that I’ve owned several Citroëns. Apart from the 1959 2CV and the 2CV Delivery Van, I have also had a 1967 Citroën DS 21 Pallas.

I bought it in 1974. It was a half-automatic: no clutch pedal, only a small selector lever on the dashboard. It was a beautiful car to see, but the owner wanted to get rid of it, because his dog had taken a hefty bite out of the rear seat. Apart from that it also produced a very strange noise when you selected first gear and started to drive. The rear seat was quickly repaired by draping a blanket over it, but the strange noise was not so easily repaired. It grew from bad to worse until I finally found out that it came from the front wheel drive. To have that repaired was going to cost more than the DS was worth. I therefore sold it to the local Fire Department who could it for one of their demonstrations. In hindsight I regret that this DS went up in flames, because from the outside it really looked well. The only thing I have left as a memory is the license document, which I kept all these years.

In 1980 I went to work for Honda That company had the custom to offer to its personnel at special prices everything (and with ‘everything’ I mean cars, motorcycles, lawn mowers, scooters and anything else that was imported) that had been used for advertising or had to be tested in any way. In 1981 I bought a royal-blue Honda Accord Sedan EX automatic with less than 8000 kilometers on the odometer.

This was the first new car of this particular model and it had been especially flown over from Japan so photos could be made for the sales brochures. It was a prototype of the model series of the Accord Sedan, and had been made completely by hand. It was a very beautiful luxury car with ‘moquette’ carpets and upholstery. It also had all kinds of novelties as standard equipment, which was then unusual but nowadays very common. For instance it had an electric antenna and a novelty clock. The digits of the clock turned like the pages of a book, very ingenious!.
I had wanted to keep this Accord for a longer time, but after two years it started to rust badly, and therefore I traded it in. Later, when a Honda-dealer wanted to replace one of the wings of “my” Accord, it appeared that a new wing didn’t fit at all and had to be formed by hand.

After I had had the skid with the Mini Pick-up I bought a second Honda Accord Sedan. This was a standard model, more like a plain, grey meatball, which was used only to drive from A to B. And that was what it was extremely good for, I never had any problems with it during the time that I’ve had it. And it shows, because according to the RDW, the Dutch Licensing Office, its registration number HD-08-DT is still valid. Maybe the present owner would like to contact me?

In the early eighties I was summoned to rejoin the army for two weeks (Holland still had compulsory military service in those years). In the army I was assigned to the “Korps Mobiele Colonnes”, an army unit that originated from the B.B., the Dutch Home Guard.

This “Korps Mobiele Colonnes” was supposed to get only in action after very severe accidents had happened. Its primary task was to extinguish fires and look after the wounded. At a later time the corps was supposed to clear the rubble and place emergency provisions like pipes for drinking water. The training I got as fireman was very useful, but of course here we are talking about cars. This army corps still used Magirus Deutz trucks dating from the early fifties. Very Spartan looking trucks, but wonderful to look at and to hear. Click here for the sound of the air-cooled Magirus Deutz engine. After the KMC was dismantled in 1993 the Magirus Deutz trucks were sold to private individuals as collectors items. Now and then you’ll see one that has been converted into a mobile home.

In 1983 Citroën introduced its new model, the BX and I immediately fell in love with it. By trading in two Honda’s I was able to buy a BX 16TRS, the most expensive model in the range. This was a very nice car to drive, also because it had the same hydraulic suspension system as the DS. The dashboard looked a bit boring, until you turned the ignition key. Then all the gauges came alive with colors.

With that BX I drove approximately 120.000 kilometers in two years. After that time it proved very difficult to sell, because Citroën had introduced a cheaper, more basic version, the BX 14, with a noisy air-cooled engine and without all the extra’s that my BX 16 TRS had.

“You never forget your first love” the saying goes and when in 1985 AustinRover introduced the MG Montego, I just had to have one. I described the reasons I bought this MG Montego in my short story “Kalverliefde” (in Dutch only, but in short the story is about my first love for the 1959 MG Magnette ZB and how that car compared with the then new MG Montego).

However, within one week of ownership this MG had to return to the importer, AustinRover Netherlands. It had an electrical fault that made the engine die when I drove with a speed of more than 100 kilometers. The only solution to the problem was the replacement of the complete wiring loom, but a new loom was nowhere to be found. Finally - a few weeks later - the importer received a wiring loom of a Montego Vandenplas from the factory in England and had to make that fit my MG. After that the fault never happened again.
I was completely satisfied with this MG, in which I drove many happy miles. Francina thought different, because this MG had to be very well maintained by the dealer; therefore it wasn’t a cheap car to drive. Even now, years later, there are still family jokes about the times that I had to go to the workshop with this MG.

In 1989 my MG Montego had to make way for a Mercedes 508 motorhome:

The story about this Mercedes is described in part one of my stories called “Travels with Gus”
In 2011, after 22 years of great adventures, I sold my Mercedes on.

In 1991 we made a trip to Australia. We couldn’t take our Mercedes 508 and therefore we bought this 1978 Mazda E1600 campervan from a dealer in Perth. We were happy with it, because the Mazda served us excellent during our trip of 13.000 kilometres. Although we did have some problems on the way: a broken windscreen; leaking exhaust; starter motor and at least twenty flat tires. Eight months later we were back in Perth, where we sold the Mazda to an auction house.