Trille, My Dad’s First Car

It is time for a car story.

Trille (translates to Rolling) was my dad’s first car, a rotten Morris 8 from 1936, which his parents gave him for his 18 year old birthday. It was so rusty that he literally went through the bottom of it, but I suppose it was what they could afford. Dad wanted an MG, but it is very expensive, so the Morris almost had the look.

Dad’s half-brother got a tiny summer cottage which now serves as a shed between my sister’s and my own summer cottages. My dad’s master said he could renovate the car in the garage at his job. He separated it completely, repaired everything – new springs, new bottom, new hood, and had it painted. About half a year  later  he could drive it out of the garage.

Aren’t they sweet? My parents in 1965.

But Trille could not cope with dad’s way of driving - in dad’s own words, he was a young lout who flew too low. When they drove from Copenhagen to the Isle of Moen it broke down several times, and dad repaired it by the roadside. To make it fly a little faster, he put an Austin Sprite engine in it, but he says that it perhaps was a little too much.

When I was a very little girl, I stood on the back seat (no such things as safety belts, child seats or stuff like that back then) fondling dad's hair resulting in a running eye. I think I had been standing beside a crack in the hood, but no one understood why I always had a running eye.

Dad had Trille for eight years then he sold her to a guy from the street, who was a musician.

I have always loved Trille and still thinks it is the sweetest car ever. Many years later a new Trille came into our family – son’s vintage pedal car, which his grandpa found at the dump site and his dad renovated :