Not Just Furry Dice…: Life in the fast lane of car accessories

At its peak, the UK boasted over 8,000 motor accessory shops. Less than 1,000 now survive.

The Automotive Aftermarket used to be a phrase covering the part of motor trade that didn’t actually involve selling cars - just the extras. The fun, trendy or sporting bits.

In the 1960’s windscreen washers and heaters were almost always an extra, if available at all. By 1990 almost everything was included in base models, and these days it is even illegal to change many of a cars features.

In an industry which hardly existed before 1960, this light-hearted story takes you through its surge until the early 1990s, concluding with how it has shrunk down to a shadow of its former self.

From upstairs exhibitor’s tales at the famous Motor Shows at Earls Court and Racing Car Shows at Olympia, to looking at the more off-beat cars in his collection during the period, Chris Mitchell introduces an era of characters that were larger than life and a range of products which went from the sublime, to the ridiculous.

It wan’t just furry dice, after all.