JELLY MOULD & POP!
The Ford
Popular, often called the Ford Pop, is a car from Ford UK that was built in
England between 1953 and 1962. When launched, it was Britain's lowest priced
car.
In my DI Sonny Russell series of crime novels I try to help to establish the period by making sure my characters drive the right cars. The police in the 1950s, were known to use the Wolseley 6/80, so that is car that regularly features in my books. However, DC Johnny Weeks has a Ford Popular. They were very basic cars with a feeble 1172cc, 30 bhp engine and a three speed gearbox. The wipers were driven via vacuum from the engine, so when the car laboured up hills the wipers slowed almost to a stop. I know, because it was the first car I ever drove!
In this extract Weeks, in the company of WPC Nettie Sharpe, gives chase to a Morris Traveller. This was the estate version of the Morris Minor, affectionately known as the jelly mould, owing to its distinctive body shape.
"With that the
Morris came out of the track and turned in the direction of Collinghurst.
Unfortunately Weeks’s car was facing the opposite direction. He started the
engine and tried to execute a neat three point turn but the road was narrow at
that point and it took him several attempts to turn the Ford. By then, the rain
was falling steadily, the pathetic wipers were doing little to clear the
windscreen and with only three gears progress was painfully slow. There was no
sign of the Morris.
‘Damn!’ Weeks
exclaimed. ‘We’ve lost it!’
‘Don’t worry.
There aren’t any turnings for a mile or two. Hopefully we’ll catch up with it
soon.
Weeks had his
foot hard to the floor, the side-valve engine struggling manfully. The initial
downpour had eased to a more gentle drizzle, with an occasional squally blast.
There was no traffic in front of them but there was still no sign of the
Morris. Weeks was leaning forward in his seat, willing the car on. ‘Come on,
come on,’ he muttered under his breath. The tyres swished on the wet Tarmac and
crashed through the puddles, spraying water out sideways.
Nettie picked up
on Weeks’s anxiety. She lightly touched his arm. ‘It’s okay, Johnny. We’ll soon
catch up with it.’
But they didn’t."
The Morris
Minor is a British car that made its debut at the Earls Court Motor
Show, London, on 20 September 1948. Designed under the
leadership of Alec Issigonis, more than 1.6 million were manufactured between 1948
and 1972 in three series: the MM (1948 to 1953), the Series II (1952 to 1956),
and the 1000 series (1956 to 1971).
