Three Cars That Feel British But Aren’t

I’m going to the UK today, for the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and I’m pretty excited about it. I’m also a bit of an idiot, because I’m not asleep yet and haven’t really packed or anything like that. I wish I could say this was unusual for me, but it’s not. Just the normal level of idiocy I’ve come to accept as standard operating procedure for the sphere of space that surrounds my head. And I still need to write a Cold Start, so here I go.

Since I’m heading off to the UK (Untitled Kingpin) I figured I should do Cold Start about British cars, but then I thought that maybe I should mix it up a bit, and do cars that are not British but somehow seem British, because that I think will help me hone in on whatever the essence of automotive Britishness is.

I also have a little rule for this, too: the seemingly British cars can not be intentionally designed after British cars, because that would be too easy. So that means cars that were directly derived from British sources, like the Hindustan Ambassador, based on the Morris Oxford Series III,

…would not count. Sure, it’s an Indian car and one of the most iconic ones at that, but the design was originally a British machine.

I think this rule also applies to cars that were very intentionally designed to resemble a British car, like the Daihatsu Mira Gino:

…which is clearly designed to resemble a classic Mini. Or even something like an Ineos Grendaier. These would be too easy.

No, I want to just mention three cars that just sorted ended up feeling British, even though that likely wasn’t the intent and they’re not even from a Commonwealth country or anything like that.

First up, we have a car that is extremely un-British engineering-wise, but I always thought felt strangely British overall, the Volkswagen Type 3 Notchback:

The internals couldn’t be any more Volkswagen, rear-engine, air cooling, etc, but some combination of styling and a certain more ineffable tweedy quality just conspire to make Type 3 Notchbacks – and only the Notchback, not the other -backs, be they Fast or Square – strangely seeming like a British car.

It’s sort of dowdy, in an attractive sort of way that reminds me of some midcentury British car design. Understated and a little fussy, but, again, in an appealing way.

In a similar vein is this next non-British Briton-like car, the Volvo 120-series Amazon:

The Amazon has some similar styling traits and shapes and proportions and details that lend a certain United Kingdomitude to the car, but on top of that is the fact that Volvos of this era shared a good amount of technical traits with British cars.

Mostly, I’m thinking about the use of SU carbs and Lucas electrics, both of which I associate very strongly with the British motor industry. I used to have a Volvo 1800S that had both of these features:

… and it always felt very British, especially when it had electrical problems or one of the SUs would drip gasoline onto the hot exhaust manifold right below it, where it would poof into a little cloud of very worrisome smoke.

Point is, Amazons somehow feel British I think is the takeaway here.

One more, how about? I promised three, and you deserve three, so how about this one: the Peugeot 404 roadster?

Of all the French carmakers, I’ve always thought that Peugeot seemed the least French, or, to put it another way, the most British. Peugeot tended to stick with more conventional engineering, a good bit less Gallic weirdness, and with styling that was a little more restrained, handsome but not as daring as, say, Citroën.

The Peugeot 404 cabriolet or convertible or roadster or whatever they call it has so much of that MGB/Triumph/Austin-Healey sort of feel to it that it can’t help but feel quite British, even with those yellow headlights making the road look all saffron-y.

I bet there’s more, and I’d like to hear your picks for British-seeming cars that just aren’t British at all! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to sleep so I can scramble to pack and make my flight. I’ll be seeing our cranky goth designer Adrian when I’m there, and I’ll be trading him some hazelnut coffee creamer for a genuine Sinclair Spectrum. I’m very excited.