They were unreliable, unsafe, uneconomic, uncomfortable and, in many cases, downright ugly compared with what we drive around in today. Even so, you have to hand it to the cars of yesteryear. They had character. And they had colour, too. Just look around you on the roads or in the supermarket car park this weekend and you will see assorted shades of grey with the odd smattering of pastel. Back in the good (or perhaps bad) old days of British motoring, people were perfectly happy ordering a car in banana yellow, tomato red or some truly execrable shades of brown.