Analogue A35

The ultimate in 'fly by wire' technology must be my old Austin A35 car! This wonderful machine cost £50 and was my first 'bought' car.

When I turned 21 I left my job at Telefusion and went working for Harlow Electronics where I had a company car. This didn't work out well and a year later I went back to my old job at telefusion but without a car. I needed four wheels desperately, so I bought an A35 (can you believe it...I had a brand new Ford Escort at Harlow!)

So many memories of this little car, got me to and from work in Heywood every day, to and from Kaths house in Radcliffe, days out and a real workhorse!

The picture above is Kath and my A35 in Anglesea (OK, it did run out of steam going up a 1 in 5 hill and was rescued by a man with a milkcrate full of water!)

The A35 had a novel design ... stop by wire!

The front brakes were hydrolic, but the back brakes had cables which simply didn't work, in other words this little beast couldn't stop, in fact needed about fifty yards to stop at 30mph!!

The engine was superb, started first time, lively and ran on 'essence' of petrol. I put £5 in at the ELF garage in Whitefield and it would last weeks! Indicator was a big switch on the dashboard, no SatNav, digital readouts, cd player you just drive by the seat of your pants!

Of course I had my rig installed, Pye Bootmount Cambridge with cables to the back of the van and quarter wave home made mag mount sat near the 'chimney' on top of the car.

I still have vivid dreams about this little car and wonder what happened to it, I sent to a scrap yard because it failed it's MOT miserably!

RIP A35!