THE ARTFUL DODGER

Sweet Sixteen

Having had a family who since the 1970s, have stuck with cars from the Rootes family, it was probably always natural that I would follow in their footsteps once I was old enough to drive. Sure, other cars came and went but it was always the ‘Arrow’ series of cars that both my dad and brother often returned to. Part of this was due to the fact that we lived in Rugby until 1977 so the factory at Rytonon-Dunsmore was always a special place to us all as was Coventry.

Prior to my 16th birthday in 1988, the previous handful of years was really the Rootes period and among these were several Commer PB camper vans which dad owned. Many a time I spent lying on the floor between the bunks looking upwards as the van just rocked gently as it went over the bumps, and the odd occasion when the narrow front track got stuck in road undulations and thumped hard, but it was that suspension that made mum feel sick and so