Irish Motoring Statistics in 1963

MrFoxman360

I recently came across a copy of the Irish Motor Trade Association's annual publication for 1963 and I thought it might be worth sharing.



It is full of information and motoring statistics for Ireland in the 50's and early 60's, numbers of cars, tractors, motorbikes, commercials registered by county and by make, most popular makes, petrol prices, car tax costs, information for garages and dealers etc...

Most old books you find are about particular vehicles, not about motoring in general, and its specific to Ireland. I know a good few on here might like to leaf through it, so I uploaded the more interesting pages to an album on our club page.

https://www.facebook.com/shamrockcarandmachineryclub

An interesting read for those who are into more than just the cars. I have the entire book on file so I will upload all of it a bit later in its entirety.

Don't forget to give our page a 'Like' too, help get things going

Enjoy!

Red Kev

Cheers for that Mr. Foxman, great reading.



Wonder what kind of cars hit the 50 H.P. and above segment?

75 Porsches registered new in 1962,

they were all tractors

.



This is interesting too..... 34 makes mentioned, only about 15 of them survive, others are gone, or amalgamated.

No Japanese or Korean there, BMW retreated from the Irish market, but plenty of Germans there, VW, Mercedes and Opel still exist, Borgward, Watburg ("Wortburg" I presume), DKW, Goggomobil, Lloyd and NSU all either gone or amalgametd to become Audi.

English had over 40% of the market, include Ford in that and it's over 70%.

Skoda were there, then left and came back decades later stronger than ever.

Speaking of Korea, in the early 1960's Ghana had a higher GDP than Korea, believe it or not, now we buy new from Korea and sell old to Ghana.

gobnaitolunacy

What was the car/motorbike ratio?
Imagine a LOT more motorbikes on the road back then, more young lads would have started out on them before buying a car.

carchaeologist

There would be no Japanese here for about 10 years after that was published. Think Toyota came here in 1973?

Red Kev

gobnaitolunacy wrote: »

What was the car/motorbike ratio?
Imagine a LOT more motorbikes on the road back then, more young lads would have started out on them before buying a car.

31,931 new cars sold in 1962
10,195 new motorbikes sold in 1962, so 3:1.

Interesting to see Honda arrive on the marketplace in 1961 and selling 574, then in 1962 selling 250% of that with 1,405. There wasn't such a big drop in sales overall and you can see who Honda were taking sales off. I suppose it was pretty much all Honda 50's they were selling.

MrFoxman360

So technicaly you needed a licencse if you had a radio in your car.....

Testacalda

Good stuff foxman,

Imagine only 5 John Deeres had been registered up til 1963, some differnece now.

Austin, Ford, Morris and VW were the big car players, 2 of them in the same position 50 years on...

Edit: Is the guess the classic competiition on this friday?

MrFoxman360

Testacalda wrote: »

Edit: Is the guess the classic competiition on this friday?

Yep, every friday, I have just posted the first one

Thinkingaboutit

Fascinating. My Dad started his apprenticeship in a Dublin garage around that time. All he has is a guide to reg numbers up to the 60s, and a full set of keys for the premises. A fair few of those cars like most of the Austin and Wolseley lineup were badge engineered efforts, but they had a different market, so valid I suppose. The tiny sales for Rover and Citroen are interesting, the P5 or the 2CV mustn't have attracted much interest. Lots of Ford and Morris cars sold, and I can barely imagine what the Volkswagen model looked liked, total puzzle:p.

Red Kev

Thinkingaboutit wrote: »

Fascinating. My Dad started his apprenticeship in a Dublin garage around that time. All he has is a guide to reg numbers up to the 60s, and a full set of keys for the premises. A fair few of those cars like most of the Austin and Wolseley lineup were badge engineered efforts, but they had a different market, so valid I suppose. The tiny sales for Rover and Citroen are interesting, the P5 or the 2CV mustn't have attracted much interest. Lots of Ford and Morris cars sold, and I can barely imagine what the Volkswagen model looked liked, total puzzle:p.

Maybe a bit like this?

Thinkingaboutit

Wow, that's startling.;)

rotorhead

As an NSU nucase I wonder where all those bike went?. Are the lying undiscovered in sheds an ditches.

captainchaos

The NSU Quigly was the Honda 50 of the early 60s until the Honda arrived !

coylemj

A black VW Beetle was the car of choice for priests back in the 1960s. The P.P. might have had a Cortina or similar (also black) but the C.C. usually relied on the VW.

gobnaitolunacy

rotorhead wrote: »

As an NSU nucase I wonder where all those bike went?. Are the lying undiscovered in sheds an ditches.

The damp weather/crap roads and the Irish practice of not looking after things/leaving stuff out in the open and driving it into the ground put paid to most of them. Anecdotally, I reckon a lot of bikes got traded in when lads were getting their first car, buzzing about in a chicken chaser is all very well for a while in your teens and early 20's. Have a cannabalised Quickly but would cost more than the bike itself to get all the (mostly cosmetic) bits together and get it running.

MrFoxman360

rotorhead wrote: »

As an NSU nucase I wonder where all those bike went?. Are the lying undiscovered in sheds an ditches.

well I have one of them lying in my shed, its a Quickly S23 from 1964

When I have asked people about them they always remember them being called an NSU Quigly not a Quickly :rolleyes:

gobnaitolunacy

MrFoxman360 wrote: »

well I have one of them lying in my shed, its a Quickly S23 from 1964

When I have asked people about them they always remember them being called an NSU Quigly not a Quickly :rolleyes:

The lettering 'Quickly' was in a sort laid-back script type font, presumably hard to make out what it read to some.

On the other hand the 'Anglia' was corrupted to 'Ang Lee' in local patois.

mamakevf

I have 3 NSU Prima D scooters, all Irish reg,d , one complete but in need of a resto, One dismantled but in fair condition and the other a complete rot-box but still with frame no. and reg.

rotorhead

Well it seems their not all lost. The NSU quickly and Max are 60 years old this year and the club will have a display at the Dick Bradley Memorial Rally at Dromcollogher, Co. Limerick on May 19th.

More info here http://www.nsuclubireland.ie/nsu-quickly-60th-aniversary.html