By Stuart Birch Published: 3:00PM GMT 03 Nov 2009  Stuart Birch with a Vauxhall Wyvern Photo: MARTIN POPE  Jaguar Mark2 Photo: JAY WILLIAMS  Jaguar Mark7 Photo: JAY WILLIAMS  As my Pa's cars moved through my young life like a multi-coloured convoy, what I wanted more than anything else was to drive them. But first, I wanted to choose them.  Despite my brat legs being unable to reach the pedals and my eyes barely level with the top of the dashboard of any car, I reckoned I knew what he should buy to guarantee some street cred.  But my piping voice carried little weight in its pleading as year after frustrating year passed and my dad bought "sensible" cars. How could a finned, dog-leg-windscreened late Fifties Vauxhall Velox or Cresta, with twin rear lights like Dan Dare's spacecraft's rocket exhausts, not be his instant choice? It was even code-named PA – made for Pa! Or surely a must would be a 3.8-litre Jaguar Mk II in British racing green just like those that howled to victory in saloon car races.  Despite all my hopes, all the information gleaned from Autocar and Motor magazines that often escalated to thoughts of dreamworld exotica like the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing and BMW 507, it was the glossy brochures showing stolid family groups that would accrue on my father's desk. An aeronautical engineer, he was totally down to earth about his cars.  So the wrong types of Ford, Vauxhall, Jaguar and Triumph came and went with only an occasional high-cred scorer – like a sleek, sporty, Sunbeam-Talbot Mk III. By the time I was old enough to drive, most of those models – as well as the interesting ones that had got away – had ended their lives as junkyard rectangles of crushed metal, leather and wood.  But now, the few survivors among the cars I coveted are classics, mollycoddled, treasured and loved. Even some that could not register at the lowest level on my credometer have survived.  So, after decades of waiting, I drove some to discover what I – and my father – had missed. I was definitely right about the 3.8 Jag; it was in another league compared with the wholly worthy but unexciting family 2.4, although it wasn't quite what I expected. Simon Cronin, director of the Jaguar Enthusiasts' Club, let me loose in his 1965 model that has covered 300,000 miles and crossed America twice.  A child's-eye memory tends to distort pictures and make things bigger than they are, so the 3.8's cabin seemed narrower than I had imagined as I sat high on the plush leather driving seat behind the leaper mascot.  Then came the moment I had looked forward to for so long: I turned the ignition key, pressed the starter button and drove. The car's non-standard 2in twin exhaust bellowed, first gear whined and instantly the car became a delight as I accelerated, nosing through corners, the distinctive bonnet – louvred like the race cars – stretching ahead.  It wasn't Brands Hatch or Silverstone but, as I hustled along West Midlands lanes, I could imagine Graham Hill, Roy Salvadori, Tommy Sopwith and John Coombs battling bumper to bumper for victory. The car looked, felt and smelled like a total thoroughbred. Oh, Pa, what you missed!  I also tried to cajole him into buying a bigger Jaguar. I knew that despite its bulk and weight, a Mk VII had won the 1956 Monte Carlo Rally – and that the Queen Mother had a 1955 model, so it must be good. It remains a great drive despite its almost feel-less power steering and a hesitant three-speed automatic gearbox. It has not just one but two horn buttons to clear the road ahead, and a high-frequency radio hidden in the rear armrest. A Jag like that would have really wowed 'em at the school gates.  We did have a family E-type for a while, though – a 1954 Vauxhall Velox E, big, black, bechromed and roly‑poly. That was the car I wanted my father to swap for its space-age successor. His Velox had 67bhp which was about 20bhp better than its visually near-identical sibling the Wyvern, an example of which Vauxhall has in its classic collection.  I climbed aboard. A pull starter, steering so heavy it would be rejected as a keep‑fit item by any gym not wishing to be sued, and a clunky gearchange brought back memories of Pa's car. The ride was good but the windows had to be shoved up; there were lots of ashtrays; a very slippery front bench seat and, impressively, a radio hidden behind the facia. The glovebox was adorned by a chrome aircraft design that looked mildly Concorde – but from 1951.  Ford's answer to the Velox was the Zephyr and later the Zodiac, their styling based on the American 1949 Ford Fordor. This was also on Birch Minor's list, particularly the plusher Zodiac version, which had de rigueur two-tone paint and strange corrugated aluminium trim above the back bumper, with a finger-nipping rear number plate that folded down to reveal the fuel filler. And there was a convertible.  The ultimate version of the Zodiac II, called Lowline, had soft leather bench seats nicknamed "Dagenham pillows". That was what I sat on when I sampled Ford Heritage Collection's almost as-new (21,000 miles in 48 years) Lowline, a handsome package apart from a slurry three-speed automatic gearbox and rubbery steering. Its 2.6-litre, 86bhp engine remains smooth and lusty. Another £1,250 Pa failed to spend.  But after the dull Velox E what I really wanted him to buy was its successor, the unashamedly extrovert PA Velox or fancy-trimmed Cresta version. It even had tail fins to complement the back lights styled to look like rocket exhausts. A Cresta in pink and white was the ultimate PA.  The 50-year-old Velox from Vauxhall's museum is in more modest blue and white and driving it was like sitting in a 15ft 5in American art-deco greenhouse. The speedo has a band indicator instead of a needle, the handbrake is a twist and turn affair, the steering is vague and the handling, other than in a straight line at a tremulous 80mph, worrying. But it cheered up other road users who waved and pointed with a mixture of nostalgia, amusement – or possibly pity.  Had he taken my earnest advice and spent £1,073 and 17 shillings on one in black, my father could have driven it while smoking a fat Havana cigar and wearing TonTon Macoute-style shades, which would have been really cool… and school life would never have been quite the same again. But he didn't.
Stuart Birch longed for his father to drive something cool. Fifty years later,    he reports on what it feels like finally to drive a Vauxhall Velox and    Wyvern, Jaguar Mk II and Ford Zodiac.