As a teenager of the 70s the car played an important part in my early interactions with the fairer sex as it was a safe haven from parents at a time when holding hands on the sofa was at the limits of acceptable behaviour with a female friend and showing her your bedroom would have been enough to give my Mother a fit of the vapours.
I can’t pretend that my Mini Clubman Estate played host to many romantic encounters as despite the undoubted genius of its design it was still a very small car. Getting into the back courtesy of tilting front seats was not an easy manoeuvre and although the back seat could be flattened, you would then have to enter via the rear doors which even the most enthusiastic girl was never going to do.
Mood music was provided by the Eight Track Stereo Player but because the Cartridges were nearly as big as a VHS tape ,the storage box was another impediment to romantic activity.
My Dad very generously used to let me borrow his MGB convertible and this certainly seemed to increase positive responses from girls wanting a day out. As my destination in said car was usually Donington Park or Silverstone, I seemed to get through lots of different girls whose enthusiasm for cold and noise did not match my own. I certainly never got anywhere near testing the contemporary MG advertising which claimed that “You can do it in an MG” and even when I got round to owning a particularly rusty Midget, the claim seemed even more fanciful.
My Mum’s 2 Litre Capri was a better proposition: with the front seats pushed right back, it was relatively spacious and the gold pinstripes on the body gave it (but not me) additional sex appeal. Mum was also generous in allowing me to borrow this car but even if things
were going well with a female friend , I could never quite break the Freudian feeling that Mother was lurking in the boot …ready to admonish her son for ungentlemanly behaviour.
So perhaps the reality didn’t quite live up to the dream. Nevertheless, just to be in the front of a car with a young lady on your own was to feel those grown up feelings of desire. The smell of perfume, the odd glimpse of flesh illuminated by the instrument lights and perhaps a bit of a fumble at the end of the evening all served as a preamble to knowledge not yet gained.
The car has never been the most comfortable or romantic place for real romance…but the memories will always remain.
-Richard Usher
