1950sBuild 01 / 09
1950 to 1959
From the ration book to the open road.
The decade Britain stopped making do and started motoring.
Never Had It So Good
A nation moved from austerity to aspiration in ten short years. These are the milestones that shaped the cars, and the people who drove them.
1950
Petrol rationing abolished on 26 May. Britain starts to breathe.
1951
Festival of Britain opens on the South Bank: 8.5 million visitors, a nation reimagined.
1952
The everyman saloon hits its stride. A-road Britain at the wheel.
1954
Food rationing ends. The last wartime restriction lifts.
1955
ITV launches, giving Britain a second channel and consumer choice.
1957
"You've never had it so good." Macmillan captures the mood at Bedford on 20 July.
1958
Preston Bypass, Britain's first motorway, opens on 5 December.
1959
The M1 opens. And a packaging revolution called the Mini arrives on 26 August.
The fifties began with rationing and a steel shortage and the order to export or die. Britain built the cars, but you were lucky to buy one. By the end of the decade the petrol was flowing, the never-never was paying for it, the Preston Bypass had opened, and a Prime Minister was telling everyone they’d never had it so good.
The cars tell that story better than anyone. The Morris Minor sold right through the decade and became the first British car to reach a million, the millionth leaving the Cowley line in January 1961. Honest, friendly, the safest “this is Britain” car there is. The Popular was the cheapest new car you could buy, sun visors extra. And above the everyday traffic sat the glamour: a Jaguar XK timed at 126 mph, big Healeys built for 100 mph romance, MGs sent abroad by the boatload to earn the country its keep.
This wasn’t diners and tailfins. It was Festival of Britain geometry, A-road touring, and a quiet national relief that the worst was behind us.
The Cars That Did the Work
Two Britains, sharing the same roads. The everyman saloons that families actually owned (the Minor, the small Fords, the A30) and the roadster glamour we exported to pay for them. Both are welcome here. Both earned their place.
Everyday Britain
The saloons that got the country to work and back.
Export Britain
The roadsters that earned their keep abroad.
1950s Landmark
Goodwood Motor Circuit
Where Britain Caught It
Goodwood opened in 1948 on an old wartime airfield, and for anyone mad on cars in the Fifties there was nowhere better to be. No corporate boxes, just hay bales, a length of rope, and machinery you could lean over and touch. People got there early, flask in the boot, to watch men in cloth caps and string-back gloves hustle XK Jaguars and Healeys round in a way that looked like hard work because it was. That's where a lot of Britain caught it. Not the speed, though there was plenty. It was the smell of it, the noise, the fact that the bloke who'd just been sideways through Madgwick was stood next to you afterwards, sleeves up, telling you what he'd have done differently. The early start is still half the fun of any show.
Dean’s Notes
The First Million
A 1951 Morris Minor MM saloon
The Minor in this scene is a 1951 MM saloon, finished in that beautiful deep olive green. It’s got the side-valve engine. Sounds like a sewing machine, but it’ll run forever on oily rags and a bit of hope. In 1951 petrol had only just come off the ration, and a car like this on the drive meant the austerity was finally lifting.
A Minor gets the same treatment as every car I ever sold. Washed, hoovered, the paint compounded and polished, the scratches out and the chrome brought up bright. When somebody comes to look at a car, it should be mint. Not a mark on it.
People look at the Minor now and think it’s a cute little toy. But it was on sale right through the fifties, and it was the car that put Britain on wheels. The millionth came off the Cowley line in January 1961, the first British car to reach a million. Simple, sturdy, and worth keeping in the best possible order.
Dean & The Motor
The One I Kept
Ford Consul Mk1
This black 1955 Ford Consul convertible is mine, and has been for longer than I'll admit. People ask why a man who's fussed over a thousand other people's cars drives a fairly ordinary Ford, and the answer's simple: it's the one I never sold. The Consul Mk1 was Dagenham telling Britain you could have a bit of style without being flash: three-box lines, a bench seat, a roof that folds down for the four sunny days we get. I take it to the shows not to win anything, but because that's where it belongs: parked on the grass, roof down, a flask on the bonnet and a bacon sandwich going cold while someone tells me about the one their dad had. That's the whole point of it, really.
The Real Car
Dean’s 1955 Ford Consul Mk1 Convertible
The real-world machine that stands behind the clay styling. Kept properly, run regularly, and still showing how it's done at Brooklands.
Hood down at Brooklands
A Rare Survivor
You won't see many Mk1 Consul dropheads about these days. Dean's still runs on the honest 1508cc four-cylinder it left the factory with, and the hood still folds right down for a sunny show day.
In clay, outside The Crown Anchor
Petrol cans for company
Where to next?
Tune to another decade
Or stay in the 50s: its designs are just below.
Wear the Decade
Nine designs from the fifties: five Flag Series, and four Neon Car Meets. Hoodie, two weights of sweatshirt, or a tee.
- 1950sBuild 02 / 09
Flag Series
Consul Convertible Strut Pioneer
Part of the Flag Series, from Dean's Classic Cars.
Mid-Weight Sweatshirt£54.99 - 1950sBuild 03 / 09
Flag Series
Bel Air Tropical Turquoise
Part of the Flag Series, from Dean's Classic Cars.
Heavyweight Sweatshirt£64.99 - 1950sBuild 04 / 09
Flag Series
Beetle Split Pastel Green
Part of the Flag Series, from Dean's Classic Cars.
Mid-Weight Sweatshirt£54.99 - 1950sBuild 05 / 09
- 1950sBuild 06 / 09
Neon Car Meets
3000 MkI High Pass
Part of the Neon Car Meets line, from Dean's Classic Cars.
Hoodie£64.99 - 1950sBuild 07 / 09
Neon Car Meets
Consul Convertible Roof Down
Part of the Neon Car Meets line, from Dean's Classic Cars.
Heavyweight Sweatshirt£64.99 - 1950sBuild 08 / 09
Neon Car Meets
Series One Dales Track
Part of the Neon Car Meets line, from Dean's Classic Cars.
T-Shirt£34.99 - 1950sBuild 09 / 09
Neon Car Meets
Minor Traveller Village Green
Part of the Neon Car Meets line, from Dean's Classic Cars.
Mid-Weight Sweatshirt£54.99
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Mind How You Go
That’s the fifties. The sixties are warming up next door. The icon decade, if you’re in a hurry.
Waiting for you in the 1960s
