This view of Lahinch Golf Links dates from 1960 and is from a Dollard post card of the period. Since that time the club house was extended and area where the cars are parked was resurfaced in tarmac and parking spaces marked out. For many years now it has not been an option to park in a casual fashion on the grass like the owners of these cars did.

Nearest the camera is a white Renault Dauphine. The car has an F touring plate but it has a French temporary import “TT” number with white characters on a red background. The car has bumpers fitted with chrome “towel rail” nudge bars and whitewall tyres can just be discerned, all pointing to a USA specification, as Dauphines destined for that market were so equipped. It seems likely that this car has lately been bought new in France for personal export by an American, possibly a serviceman who has finished his tour of duty in West Germany, and he is making his way back home and has stopped off in Ireland for a holiday and some golf.

Moving left is an Austin A55 Cambridge Mk.I with a late 1957 Cork (county) registration FIF918. Next to the left is another A55 Cambridge, this time a Mk.II model with the now familiar Pininfarina styling which was also used on Morris, Wolseley, MG and Riley variants. This is another tourist’s car with its GB badge and its 1960 Glasgow registration YGD557. Yet further left is another visiting car, again a black Cambridge, an A40 or A50 version from 1956 model to judge by its Motherwell (Scotland) registration GM7088. The line ends with a pale blue Morris Minor with a 1957 Dublin number WIK184.

In the distance in line with the club house are two Volkswagen 1200 models of the late Fifties to judge by the large rear windows. Moving to the right can be glimpsed a light grey Minor with a roof rack and then the roof of an Opel Rekord P1 Caravan of about 1958/9. This car would have been assembled by O’Shea Ltd. in Cork and for a brief period Opels were built both by O’Sheas and Reg Armstrong Motors before Armstrongs became the sole assembler of this marque around 1961. Finally, to the right are two Fords of the late Fifties or perhaps 1960, a Zodiac Mk.II, white with a black roof (partly obscured by the Renault) and on the extreme right another such Ford Zodiac, this one all white and the registration mark may be a Cork City issue ZF followed by four figures.

My thanks go to Colin Ring, Chairman, Wood-Printcraft, successor company to Dollard, for his kind permission to reproduce this postcard image from the Dollard Tru-color range.

By COLM O’NEILL

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MEMORY LANE_1960