Big fish for small ponds

Built for the 1960s managerial class, the Ford Zodiac MkIII, Austin A110 Westminster and Vauxhall Cresta PB were symbols of local success

- ANDREW ROBERTS 

The air is thick with the aroma of black coffee, Panatellas and Tabac aftershave. Inside the Maker Space café in Nuffield, an important business deal is being hammered out. The future of a coffee bar, two licensed victuallers and the management of Danny and The Rotavators, Southampton's premier beat combo, are at stake. Meanwhile, the cars parked outside are testament to their respective owners' standing in the community. Not just anyone can own an Austin A110 Westminster, a Ford Zodiac MkIII or a Vauxhall Cresta PB.

The last-named is our trio's rarest. The debut of the new Velox and Cresta PB at the 1962 London Motor Show was a significant talking point: gone were the wraparound windscreen and tailfins of the outgoing PA. Instead, as the in-house journal Vauxhall Motorist accurately described, its new lines were 'clean, simple and restrained'. The 2.6-litre engine was the same as its predecessor's, but front disc brakes were now standard equipment. An entry-level Velox cost £822 4s 7d, but the range-topping Cresta justified the additional £94 13s 4d with the fitment of fog and reversing lamps, leather trim, a clock, a heater, a cigarette lighter and windscreen washers. Not to mention the headlamp flasher and duotone paintwork.

With a wonderful lack of modesty, Luton claimed that the PB was 'very nearly perfect. To increase public awareness of the car, Vauxhall arranged for the Cresta to guest-star as villains' transport in The Saint, as well as appearing in a number of British B-films. In The Earth Dies Screaming, the PB out-acted the human cast and, for sheer style, little could surpass Leslie Nielsen driving a Cresta in the endearingly inept Night Train to Paris.