AUTOMOBILIA
No-faster goodies
The days of hot cams and GRP spoilers are past, but you can still have fun adding period gadgets to your classic, says Gordon Cruickshank. All except that ‘Italian wolf whistle’…
From handy to horrible, accessories have always been a lucrative sector of the automotive market
Accessorise! Proud car owners have always attempted to personalise their machine with add-ons, useful or otherwise, and it goes much further back than today’s underbody light sets: in Edwardian years you could buy a rear-view mirror (imagine!), a wicker umbrella holder or a snake’s head horn for your Stutz or Mercedes, or for the more refined a unique mascot for your Rolls-Royce radiator.
“Fluffy dice
on the
mirror have swung from kitsch to retro-ironic ”
It’s yet another area of the collecting hobby, as classic car owners look for ways to travel back to calmer times. Between the wars and even into the 1960s a heater or a pair of swivelling sun visors were comfort add-ons, but they hardly add style. What you really want is visible kit – and in the ’50s and ’60s a windscreen visor was a hot item, made to spark up your Ford
Zephyr or Hillman Minx with a hint of dazzling California sunshine. It’s unlikely you’ll find an original that isn’t attached to a car, but surprisingly, new steel visors for a range of British classics are available online. Just don’t think about the safety consequences for any unintended pedestrian interface events. Although that’s not as bad as in my childhood when my toddler sister was carted around in a clip-on car seat with a metal tray table across her middle which in a crash would have neatly sliced her in half.