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© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC -
© Tony Baker/C&SC
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Battle of the barge: part 2!
The ‘barge’ was a large, mass-produced luxury saloon that had its heyday in the ’60s. They don’t make such cars any more because the sort of people who bought them don’t really exist any longer. Brit barges often echoed a mid-Atlantic idiom, an era behind the latest Detroit trends, so they quickly went out of fashion. Not all British stylists managed to successfully project American proportions onto a European scale, which left us with a wonderfully cheesy legacy of tin-tops that now seem puffed up with their own pretensions.
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Daimler Sovereign
The Daimler Sovereign cuts an elegant dash, and is really a performance saloon disguised as a barge. It is quite exotic in this company, but the fact that it is badge-engineered gives it very barge-like credentials, plus the fact that it was just a jumped-up 420 for those who didn’t like the idea of driving around in a ‘vulgar’ Jaguar. This car is unusual in being a manual-overdrive model, and this only lengthens the performance gap between it and most of the others here.
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Daimler Sovereign
Inside, the Sovereign is cosy and intimate. The handsome dash is a model of presentation over ergonomics and the seats are not as comfortable as they look, though there is a sense of occasion about the cabin that only a couple of the others can match. The independent rear suspension gives the car a huge element of sophistication: crests, ridges and imperfections in the road surface that send shudders through the bodywork of the live-axle cars are just swallowed up by the Daimler.
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Daimler Sovereign
Before the big BMWs arrived, the XK engine – even in less-than-ideal 4.2 form – was the best production straight-six you could buy and, allied to the all-synchromesh ’box, it’s a pleasure to urge it through the gears. It sounds tunefully vigorous and has an immediacy that modern saloon drivers would recognise, yet with a long-legged overdrive top gear that allows the car to saunter along at 100mph. The vague variable-ratio power steering dates the Daimler, yet you soon acclimatise and find yourself rushing up to corners quite enthusiastically.
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Mercedes-Benz 230S
This car illustrates what the West Germans were offering the big-car buyer in the mid-’60s. Here is your basic ‘Fintail’ body combined with a six-cylinder engine – the end-of-run variation on a theme that was the cornerstone of Mercedes saloon production from 1959-’68. It’s not a cuddly car, but makes you think of Cold War scenarios and henchmen in Bond films. It doesn’t offer any superficial luxury to distract you from the task of driving, yet immediately feels entirely superior to most of the Brits.
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Mercedes-Benz 230S
Flooded with light and swathed in seemingly indestructible MB-Tex, the 230S cabin makes no attempt to give a cosy, clubland atmosphere. Neither does its austere fascia attempt to overwhelm you with information. A huge steering wheel frames the ‘thermometer’ speedometer that was the trademark of the Heckflosse Mercedes saloons of the ’60s. And the high-set seats give a commanding view along the bonnet to put you at your ease in a car that steers accurately and invites you to drive it hard.
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Mercedes-Benz 230S
There is a wieldy efficiency to everything about this Merc, from the way the doors shut to the crisp automatic gearchanges and the eager thrum of its engine. It invites the use of high revs, and the Merc made a fine rally tool in period. Perhaps if you touched the brakes in the wrong place or did something silly the swing axles might bite, but for all normal purposes the 230 is so nimble and predictable that it feels a generation on from the other cars here.
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Vauxhall Viscount
In many ways, the 1966-’72 Vauxhall Viscount is the perfect barge. With its aristocratic pretensions, its vinyl roof and its tacked-on luxury, it is the embodiment of everything that was aspirational in value-for-money big-car motoring in the late ’60s. The Coke-bottle bodyshell is handsome in a corny way, and certainly has presence. It’s the sort of car an up-and-coming northern club singer might have aspired to, though Vauxhall targeted it at young executives with sensible haircuts – a power-assisted luxobarge for the modern world.
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Vauxhall Viscount
Inside, real leather, walnut picnic tables and crown motifs remind you that this is the poshest of Vauxhalls. There’s plenty of room to lounge, but its real party trick is its electric windows; very cool by barge standards, and a feature only matched in the world of mass-market British saloons by the much more expensive MkX Jag.
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Vauxhall Viscount
The Viscount drives better than you have any right to expect. The 3.3-litre ‘six’ has enough torque to casually spin its wheels, while the Powerglide automatic ’box is faultlessly smooth and the car slips effortlessly into the 90s with minimal fuss. There is no particular sophistication, yet neither is there anything weedy or incompetent about the Vauxhall. It strides confidently down a motorway with a refreshingly honest swagger, a sense of its own ridiculousness that is curiously endearing.
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Vanden Plas 3 Litre
Big Farina saloons have long been one of my guilty pleasures, even when they were still everyday street furniture in the early ’70s. Their unambiguous, three-box angularity represented everything I thought a car should be, and I liked the way that BMC simply plonked different grilles on to give them separate identities, as if it hoped that no one would notice. The faux-Bentley grille is perhaps the best-looking of the Farinas, and I prefer the 3 Litre fins to the 4 litre R’s shaved tail.
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Vanden Plas 3 Litre
The VdP is supremely opulent; I can’t think of any car in the barge world with a more pleasingly finished cabin. The big seats adjust up and down as well as back and forward, plus there are decadent swathes of walnut veneer and Connolly hide everywhere. There is also a particular look and aroma: a blend of leather, plastic, wood and oil that heated in the sun into a heady cocktail that was the essential car smell of my childhood.
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Vanden Plas 3 Litre
Driving the 3 Litre, you realise that people’s focus on the Rolls-Royce-engined car that replaced it in ’64 is rather misplaced. I’d be hard pressed to tell which is the faster of the two, but there is no doubt about which is thirstier. It is quite firmly, almost sportingly suspended, but has the usual understeer and, without any power assistance, there’s plenty of effort needed for the steering. It feels like a vehicle of the ’50s – which, of course, it is.
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Rover 3 Litre MkIII
The Rover 3 Litre is a cut above the general barge rabble. Carefully engineered and finished, it has the feel of a British Mercedes – and that is exactly the position that Rover held in the hearts and wallets of the middle classes of Britain in the ’60s with this, its flagship saloon. A Buick-derived V8 engine and a set of RoStyles gave the 3.5-litre P5B some late-’60s swagger but, in 3 Litre P5 form, this big, handsome Rover is all about decorum, quality and restrained luxury.
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Rover 3 Litre MkIII
Inside, the seats are sumptuously thick, the African cherrywood finishes discreet, the ‘Bache Binnacle’ handsome yet rational. The ‘F-head' Inlet-over-Exhaust engine sounds dignified and remote, and gives you no encouragement to extend it. The 3 Litre simply gathers pace in a steady, unflustered way and refuses to be hurried, despite the fact that this MkIII car has a surprisingly nifty, four-speed-with-overdrive manual gearbox, allied to a pleasingly light clutch.
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Rover 3 Litre MkIII
This is such a quiet car that it is probably going faster than you think, but speed is not – and never was – what these Rovers are all about. Relaxation rather than excitement is the forte of the 3 Litre: an enthusiastic approach results in large coarse movements of the huge steering wheel as your bottom slides across the big, fat seats. It’s ponderous and a bit of an old-man’s car, yet there is just something so thoroughly wholesome about the Rover that you can’t help liking it.
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Ford Zodiac MkIV Executive
Bluff and austere, like a four-wheeled block of flats, the MkIV looks large, but is in fact mostly bonnet. Here was a car that fitted perfectly into the landscape of tower blocks and motorways that was changing around it but which, under the skin, was more sophisticated than was good for it. In particular, its poorly contrived independent rear suspension allowed dramatic changes in camber – followed by rapid loss of grip – when it encountered a bump or disturbance in the road surface.
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Ford Zodiac MkIV Executive
In Executive form, the MkIV paralleled the suburban pretensions of the Vauxhall with its massive seats – usually leather, but not in this case – and token wood veneer. Something about the driving position, the ride and the Ford’s general demeanour would feel more recognisable to modern drivers than most of the other cars here. I like the large MkIV Fords, not because they are especially brilliant cars but because they represent a perfect little slice of British culture, redolent of a society that was rapidly modernising.
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Ford Zodiac MkIV Executive
The pokey Essex V6 motor, lost under that massive bonnet, gives the Executive an effortless feel so driving it briskly seems quite natural, even with the automatic transmission which is reasonably responsive to kickdown. Sitting behind the elongated aircraft-carrier snout and gunsight bonnet motif, you aim the Executive through corners, bracing yourself for the initial wallow as you twirl on armfuls of lock. It’s untidy and skittish but oddly fun in a Sweeney-esque sort of way.
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Austin 3 Litre
I’ve always had a weird crush on these big Austins. When I was a kid they were around in small numbers, and I later learnt that it was a Landcrab-based contrivance, but with rear drive and a straight-six shared with the MGC – a thirsty boat anchor that could barely push it beyond 95mph. I would contest that the Austin has more good points than bad; only from the front is its styling a disaster – in profile, it is balanced and quite handsome in a municipal mayor kind of way.
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Austin 3 Litre
Drive a 3 Litre today and its controlled ride plus resistance to understeer and roll are impressive, even if its low-geared power steering, with a bus-like wheel, isn’t. By any measure the performance is pretty dead and – like most cars Alec Issigonis got his hands on – there is something coldly unappealing about the cabin. The walnut is pleasing, as is the cloth headliner, but the vinyl seats, strip speedo and green flashing indicator stalk of classic BMC biscuit-tin origin give too many reminders of the car’s low birth.
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Austin 3 Litre
Had the VdP and Wolseley versions emerged, then perhaps the Austin’s basic spec would have been understandable. A better engine would have increased the car’s appeal, too, but would have made it a direct in-house competition for Rover and Jaguar. Launched in the same year as the NSU Ro80, the 3 Litre now seems an amusing anachronism, rather pompous and self-important, yet it is the most chilling foretaste of just how bad things were going to get at BL. And that was nothing to laugh about.
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Humber Super Snipe
The Humber is a gentle, quiet and well-mannered car with a ponderous image that is mostly justified. It was ubiquitous not only in the ministerial motor pool, but also used extensively by police forces, private-hire firms and funeral directors. It is imposing in a mid-Atlantic fashion, with its Chevy Bel Air-alike nose – the Super Snipe Series III was the first British production car to have twin headlights – and has some groovy details, such as the reflector in the offside tail-light that doubles as a petrol filler cap.
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Humber Super Snipe
Inside, that slightly uneasy meeting of British and American ideas continues with a ‘dog’s leg’ wraparound to the windscreen and a bench-type seat contrasting with leather and walnut appointments that still signalled ‘luxury’ to big-car buyers over here. Still, it’s a nice place to be, with all of the right smells and textures that are essential to the barge connoisseur.
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Humber Super Snipe
The engine is remote and silky-smooth but, despite its sophistication – hemi combustion chambers, crossflow head – it lacks punch. Being an early monocoque – Humber’s first – the Super Snipe is weighty and it needs all of its 124bhp to make decent progress. The Borg Warner gearbox is smooth but rather lazy, as is the low-geared, unassisted steering, which is set up to take the effort out of low-speed manoeuvring – at the expense of response. ‘Responsive’ is not a word that you’d use to describe the Humber to be honest.