Can I have an e please Colin…?

I'm not sure when it dawned on me. Perhaps it was when I saw a couple of them parked together and thought ‘do they all begin with an e?’ There's an old one parked up near me. It never seems to move but I decided to saunter over and have a look. And lo and behold, its badge read Europa. Maybe it was when I asked the question ‘what the hell does Exige mean?’ Was that the moment the penny dropped? Who knows? Nevertheless, my brow was sufficiently furrowed for it to start to bug me.

Whatever the reason, it all came into focus at some point. A realisation that had been staring me in the face for years. Of course, you all know by now what I'm talking about. The fact that all Lotus car model names seem to start with an e. And they’re weird words to boot. So, in my never-ending quest to find content to fill these pages, I decided to look into this and understand how this came to be. And whilst this thesis doesn't hold as much water as I would hope, it does have some mileage. So let's have a look.

I mentioned recently that my interest in Lotuses (Lotusi?) was fueled by the tricked out Esprit used by Roger Moore in his Bond films. The white wedge of turbocharged death. With guided missiles and excellent waterproofing, it was the Dinky toy I coveted above all. In later life, I came to understand that this was a prop made for a film. I learned that Lotus is a brand that has produced many interesting cars besides the Elite. Not all of them that waterproof.

And many of which start with an e…

Do they all start with a damned e?

To prove my point, try this. List all the Lotuses you can remember. Straight off the cuff, no Googling. Here goes: Elite, Elise, Europa, Exige, Excel, Elan and the errr…Seven. That's all I can do. So, after phoning a friend you’ll find there's also: Evora, Eleven, Éclat and Exos. They even had a small city car in the pipeline called the Ethos, which they cancelled.

That's a lot of e words. Not all actual words to be slightly critical.

Lotus started as a racing team as most will know. Founded in 1952 by the legendary Colin Chapman, the company made high-performance racing cars. They soon built an enviable reputation for developing world-beating track and formula cars.

In this time, a normal driver could only buy a Lotus in kit form for road use. The most iconic of these being the Seven.

The e tradition started in 1957 with the kit based Elite. Until then, the cars had a numerical designation laid out in roman form. This approach actually lead to the e series. When the Eleven was developed, Chapman liked the way it looked written down in words and the e series nomenclature was born.

So even when they rejected the kit car format and moved into producing finished cars the e tradition endured. Other than that, there doesn't seem to have been a grand plan. Just cool or appropriate e-words applied to each car after little or no brainstorming. For example, Elise it's said was the name of a Lotus Chairman’s granddaughter. That’s random!

Bizarrely, this realisation has caused me to worry for Lotus. They're locked into a pattern where they have to find interesting e words to apply to their cars. They started plundering other languages for some reason. Exige and Evora are Portuguese words believe it or not. Worse still, Evora translates as Yew tree of all things. I'm sure if they worked a bit harder, they'd find some great words in the e section of the OED.

Given the terrible financial problems that besieged Lotus in the 1980s maybe they couldn't afford a dictionary. They got caught up in the DeLorean malarkey. Combined with other dubious financing machinations, things quickly started to disintegrate. The stress of this helped to end Colin Chapman’s existence and he exited the world at the early age of 52.

A Chinese company called Geely now owns Lotus, (just like many other formerly British businesses). Happily, it still makes cars at its UK base in Norfolk. And what good cars they are. Cool, fast and all with a strange name that starts with an e.

So, to give me some closure I thought I would wrack my brains and try and think of some good e-based English words. To name future Lotusi.

Here's what I've come up with. Endeavour, Eclipse, Endure, Effulgence, Emoji, Elvira, Enteritis and Egregious, which is perhaps the most apt.

There must be something there they can use. Perhaps, you have some better ideas, so send them in! 

Until next time…

Irish Stew

So goes the old joke.

For those who haven’t heard it: Knock, knock. Who’s there?  Irish stew.  Irish stew who?  Irish stew in the name of the law.

Boom boom and all that! Not the best joke in the world. Not even a joke by modern standards. Not even funny to our sophisticated ears. It has graced the mottoes of Christmas crackers since Moses was a teenager.

I know, I know. What’s he banging on about this for you wonder. Well, remarkably, I do have a point. Have a look at the following picture. It’s of a Ford Crown Vic American police car owned by an acquaintance.

It was bought via a specialist website, and imported to the UK. It’s fully functional by the way. With blues and twos sirens, security cage and even a gun box in the trunk (no firearm though). To all intents and purposes, it’s still a viable US police car. It also reminded me of the Irish stew joke for some reason.

It’s a very powerful machine with a 4.6 litre V8 block. Festooned with external devices for ramming and halting cars in police chases it could do some serious damage if used as designed. You wouldn’t think it would be allowed. Wonder what insurance group it is?

In the UK, our police have equivalents to this monster. Usually souped-up BMWs, they prowl the A roads late at night looking for TWOKKERS and other miscreants. It wasn’t always the case though. There have also been some well-dodgy cars used to protect and serve us.

So I thought I’d do a quick survey of some of our less effective police cars. Tragic examples that have sullied our roads over the years. I’ll mention some of the best too.

Morris Minor et al

Am I old enough to remember a Moggie police car? I’m not sure. Even so, they certainly existed, as did with Minis, Metros and Austin A35s. Known as Panda cars in cuddlier times, they pottered around in bucolic idylls and leafy villages where crime is never committed. Places like Midsomer, Ambridge or St Mary Mead.

The nearest they would come to a high-speed chase would be in pursuit of a drunken farm hand. They would draw up alongside him as he tottered home on his bike. No doubt after too much scrumpy cider in the village pub.

Austin Allegro

Ah, my old favourite. Yes, they used Allegros as police cars. I will write that again. They used Allegros as police cars! Just google a picture of one with comical blue lights plonked on top like a clown’s hat. You can imagine criminals bursting into fits of laughter at the thought of them. And as for being caught in the act. They'll have hopped it whilst the coppers tried to start the godforsaken thing. Good grief.

The most desirable

To be fair, not all early police vehicles were criminal choices. There have been some desirable offerings too. The Daimler SP250 Dart being a good example. Acquired for their speed, they easily chased Ford Anglias or Austin Cambridges that had crept up to a dizzying 32 mph.

More accurately, these powerful cars were acquired to catch high-powered MK2 Jags or burly Ford Zephyrs. Not sure what they did when they apprehended the ne'er-do-wells though. Let’s face it, there’s not a lot of room in the back for handcuffed crim’s is there?

Mark 2 Jags, S Types & Rover P6

That’s more like it. Cars with a bit of grunt. Ideal to chase down the bad guys. Brought into service due to police drivers pleading for decent wheels I'd wager. With too few arrests in the cheap city cars they’d been issued, it was getting embarrassing. Other constabularies opted for the 3.5 litre Rover P6. Whilst maybe not as prestigious, they were still good for the job. Bet traffic officers arrived at work early to get the good cars in those days!

Range Rovers (various)

Still used today. The four-wheel drive Range Rover is certainly a sensible choice for a motorway cop car. These vehicles have to give service in all sorts of difficult conditions so they need to be competent. With a solid engine, room for useful stuff and excellent road stability, early Range Rovers were a solid choice and marked a turning point. One where the Fuzz finally realised that good, utilitarian cars were not a false economy.

Probably the best of the bunch would be the Mark 2 Ford Lotus Cortina. A great car with a brilliant engine. Looked at today, these fantastic cars seem too good to be mixing it with low-lifes on the motorway network. But as historic police cars go, it's the best of the bunch: practical, fast and very, very cool.

Let’s stay safe out there people…

I’ve done a few pieces on working cars in previous blogs. These are the unsung vehicles that tough it out day after day. Those used by the boys and girls in blue work as hard as any others. All to keep us safe and preserve the peace. But they’ve made some bizarre car choices over years, as we have seen.

Today, they have muscular cars with state of the art kit. Modern police cars bristle with crime busting technology that make a wrongdoer’s capture inevitable. My advice is not to tangle with them at all. Especially if you’re out and about in your classic. It won’t end well, methinks.

Is that a..?

Have you had enough of old car magazines? I have! Time to think about other things. Luckily, in our Classic Car world there's always plenty to occupy us. By now, we are well into the 2017 show season. Already I have a few outings under my belt so here's to lots of cars-in-a-field action for the rest of the year.

We're going to encounter many familiar cars as we stroll around and that's reassuring. Knowing both owners and cars are still going strong, keeping themselves and their motors on the scene. It means their passion remains. We can look forward to seeing show grounds fill up with these automotive lovelies year on year.

I thought I'd give some thought to the cars I'd most like to see if I could influence this in any way. Indeed, this has already happened perhaps. Did everyone see the Cord 812 Beverly at Gawsworth Car Show? I had only included a reference to these cars in a recent blog and lo and behold, there it was.

What a car it is! As muscular a machine as you are likely to see. A prewar rocket ship. Resplendent in glossy black with its coffin front and prehensile external exhausts. In recent years, it clocked 110 mph at Bonneville flats. That's quick for a 70+ year old production car. Wow!

Wow! Just, wow!

So what else would make my day?

Well, as we recently lost Sir Roger Moore it would be great to see a white Lotus Elite as a sort of automotive tribute. If Sir Sean's Bond had the DB5, then Moore's car is definitely a Lotus.

People of my generation delighted in the tricked-out Elite from The Spy Who Loved Me. It's so quintessentially seventies. With its dramatic wedge shape and egregious capabilities. I'm not sure if it's due to build quality or rarity we see more DB5s on the scene than Elites. Let's hope one turns out this year.

Right what next? I know! What about a Citroen SM? You all know I'm a Citrophile but everyone loves the over-the-top, and very rare, SM.

This is a Citroen DS crashed into a Maserati Merak. The SM combines the hydro-pneumatic marvels of the French marque, with a six cylinder, 2.7-litre Maserati engine. All with a distinctive body that screams 'yes I'm French, you got a problem with that?'

As a GT car it was fast, comfortable and innovative. Amongst its many qualities is its Divari steering system. This gets heavier the faster the car's going. It ensures stability and the ability to maintain a straight line if car loses a tire. There are a couple undergoing restoration around Stockport to my knowledge. Let's hope one makes it into a field in Cheshire very soon.

Isn't she/he lovely?

From the sublime to the more mainstream. What about a late model Datsun Cherry? In fact, any classic Datsun would be good. There are a few knocking around but not enough. Their rarity is because of their vulnerability to rust. The two Cherries I owned were not outwardly pretty. Nevertheless, mechanically they were brilliant.

Try to find an old Datsun to buy. They are as easy to find as an honest politician and when good ones arrive, they ain't cheap. I'd be love to see the eastern sun rising on one of these on a future weekend morning.

OK, what else? You all know about my obsession with Hillman Imps and there are a good few about so no problems there. However, even amongst Imp enthusiasts, the Sunbeam Stiletto Californian is a coveted car. Still a humble Imp but with a hotter engine, sporty fastback and racier looks. Even the little dagger decals are super cool, as are the gilled hubcaps.

As Imps go, this is the top of the tree and they are rare. If I see one I'll be angling for a sit in.

Right, I'll allow myself one more so it needs to be a good un. OK here we go. Let's have something French again, outrageous and stupendously exotic. I only recently read about one of these and immediately thought, 'what the hell is that?'

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 1948 Talbot Lago T26 Grand Sport. Only twelve of these unbelievable cars exist and all are different in some way. Although there was wide range of Lago cars from Talbot this one takes the Sable Breton.

Only the French

Look at it! Have you ever seen anything so sublime? This is car design where art and engineering are in perfect harmony. It's luxury personified. Only the French, with their love of philosophy in form and function, could conceive of such a thing. I'd walk a long way across a field to view one. It'd be the highlight of my show year if one turned up.

So there you have it. No doubt, you could make you own list, there are plenty of other recherché rides to consider. But no matter what’s on show, I'm sure we will all enjoy our days out this year. Enjoying life in the company of plenty of polished pride and joys. So see you soon

A Brave New (Motoring) World

It's interesting looking at the past through modern eyes isn't it?  I hope you agree, and have enjoyed my peregrinations through the old Autocar magazines that I've been perusing lately. So far, I've concentrated on the pre-WW2 editions where the motoring world was still in its infancy and cars were an expensive luxury.

Luckily, I have magazines that cover cars in the immediate post-war period and which feature vehicles with which we may be more familiar. Indeed, some amongst us may own a few of the models I'll mention.

We see that vehicles have changed. The angular cars of the thirties gave way to cars with curves and rounded panels offering both form and function. No doubt, considerations like aerodynamics, post-modern aesthetics and monocoque construction were the reasons.

The cars now reflect the austerity of the age where the ostentatious, gas guzzlers of the thirties no longer make sense. Peacetime cars, made from scare materials offered better mileage from rationed fuel. Sociologically speaking, we can see the increased democratisation of motoring. The cars, although expensive, edged nearer to the budget of the average family with all the economic advances that would bring.

It's worth noting that UK motoring manufacture started to coalesce into a limited number of familiar brand names. We will all recognise these brands. The exotic wannabes of the pre-war years largely stymied by the lack of commercial opportunities. Wrenched away by total war.

By 1949, our old friend SS Cars had rebadged to Jaguar. The connotations of their pre-war moniker tossed in the bin reserved for unfortunate brand names. The motoring press were swooning over the XK120, the supercar of the day. This beauty had wowed by achieving 136mph on a Belgian 'motorroad'. With a burgeoning range of motoring lovelies to their name Jaguar's future was assured.

What I found in a later mag 1960 mag' is interesting. Have a look at this picture of the Bertone designed Maserati 3000. Is it me or does this look like a seventies XJS to you? If you squint your eyes, it's remarkably similar. Makes you wonder...

As we progress to the early sixties, familiar names abound: Capri, Anglia, Rover 75 and Hillman Minx. There was even an early Jensen Interceptor made in 1961. Here's me assuming that the latter was the name given only to the thrusting 'ubercar' launched in 1966. Who knew?

We also see the emergence of names we now take for granted. Take VW for example. A car brand with a murky past. Here the Autocar mags extol VW's virtues with no questions asked about its dubious genesis. It's well known that it was the British Army who revived the manufacturing of the Beetle after the war. They preserved Hitler's 'peoples' car' not as the symbol of an evil, fascist regime, but as Ferdinand Porsche's engineering tour de force.

On the same theme, I quite like the look of this VW 1500 from 1961. It's the very early version of what are known as the VW Notchback/Variant/Squareback. This is the VW I'd own if I were going down that road. Typically, you don't see too many of these out and about so it’s a rare car but interesting too.

The only car that doesn't seem to have settled on a name is the 'luxurious' Austin Seven. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a Mini and the year is 1961. Marketing hadn't yet done their 'thing' so the 'Seven' was laden with a stuffy, functional name, rather than one that would appeal to the masses. Soon, it would become the Mini that we all know and love and claim its rightful place in motoring history.

Finally, something that made its way into all our lives, and cars. The 'Guardian' three-point safety belt, demonstrated in this picture. Seat belts were by no means mandatory in 1961 and it was years before they became standard fit on all cars. Nonetheless, here is one you could buy and install yourself if safety was a concern. I wonder how many sales they made in these circumstances.

What is clear is that this modest innovation is one that has helped the most to improve car safety. How many lives has it saved? How many people after a shunt have lived to tell the tale due to this simple product? As ever, it took too many years and too much protest from penny-pinching OEMs, for it to become standard kit. Now, of course, it's a legal imperative but I'm shocked that even today some still shun wearing one.

So there you have it. Modernity was on the way and motoring, as we know it, was here. And whilst there was still a good few twists and turns to come, these cars are starting to feel familiar. Having seen many of them on show in various fields in Cheshire it's interesting to see them described as new.

So now that the showing season is on its way I'll look forward to encountering them again with fresh eyes. All thanks to a pile of crumbling car magazines.

See you out and about!

Off With The Edd

I don’t know why but I felt slightly sad when I heard this week that Edd China, the towering mechanic from Wheeler Dealers, has left the show due to ‘artistic differences’. Having watched the show from the very beginning, over the years I came to see him as a sort of sage mentor offering me insight and tips to help me avoid tragic issues when fettling my classic.

Apparently, Velocity, the new producers, want fiddle with the format dumbing down the technical bits because they’re difficult and time consuming to film. This decision made regardless of the fact that these segments are the most enjoyable element of the show. Especially to those who actually like cars and are watching in active, learning mode. 

Apparently this change is due to the continued success of the programme where it has grown from niche cable viewing with a mainly UK audience, to one which is shown all over the world. Talk about being a victim of one's success but it’s probably been brewing for a while.

Such a shame.  I can now see becoming over dramatised and awkwardly edited to accommodate multiple US advert breaks. It will become littered with engineered incidents and replete with unnecessary dramas, imaginary deadlines and overblown cliff-hangers. Just look at shows like Sin City Motors or Fast N’ Loud as examples of that type of format. Oh dear…

I also suspect that more emphasis will go onto Mike Brewer as the cheeky British chappie that the Americans seem to like so much.

As for me, I prefer the depiction of an Englishman; King of his shed fettling his motor, attending to the details and stoically doing the job properly. That, alas, was Edd’s former role.

The new boy is Ant Anstead a well-respected car restorer who will no doubt do an excellent job of the resto’s. However, it’s sure we’ll see less of him and his socket set than we’re used to. That’s probably one of the main reasons I’ll watch: to see the difference. Who knows, it might be like when they change Dr Who: awkward for a while then you don’t notice the difference. I doubt it though.

Wheeler Dealers is the Daddy of car restoration shows TV. Well before this format became the vogue, Mike and Edd have been buying cars, doing them up and flogging them on effectively defining the tone and content of these types of show. It mattered not that cockney geezer Mike often buys cars of dubious quality and doesn't pay Edd a penny in labour to offset the profits.

Over the years they've done up many cars and have progressed from car-lot lemons to high-end motors as their budgets and popularity have increased. Although they have flexed the format over time, the main USP in this show was we saw the restoration being work done in useful detail.  And in that role Edd’s stature grew from backroom boy to greasy-gloved co-host to the benefit of the show to my mind.

I can honestly say I've found Edd's various advices useful as he tackled the oily fingered problems that Mike failed to spot on his buying journeys. In doing so, he has offered some genuinely useful hints and tips when dealing with complex engineering issues.

So, if we no longer find Wheeler Dealers to our taste, what are the alternatives?  Here’s my view of a couple of rival shows that might fill the void.

For the Love of Cars

Channel Four gave this a Sunday night 'Top Gear' airing slot perhaps because they assumed there was a population of blokes going cold turkey for some petrol-head action whilst this other troubled show was is off the air . To my mind, this is done to good effect. As required by the format there's a technical/none-technical duo the former being Philip Glennister, who banters with grease monkey Ant Anstead whose job it is to find rare and interesting motors to do up and flog.

The dynamic is a bit different in this format as Glennister doesn't do a great deal of the heavy lifting but gets to drive the cars, meets experts and owners and narrates interesting background info' about the chosen motors. 

Ant tends to buy the cars and required parts and remains locked in his garage to do the work only emerging to go to various suppliers as the car work progresses and as part of the final triumphant drive of the gleaming results. There is some technical detail but not much.

Overall, the format works well. There's some genuine passion from all involved and the quality of the resulting motors is high meaning they fetched eye-watering prices when sold at auction in the final show. Now Anstead has jumped ship I wonder if series three will ensue – with Edd perhaps!

Car SOS

A few years ago, someone in the Channel 4 organisation thought they'd invoke the classic car zeitgeist by offering another, more philanthropic, programme format. In this effort, they try to pull at our heartstrings by secretly stealing the neglected classics of various people who have had bad luck, do them up in secret and conclude the show with a big emotional reveal to the (hopefully) astonished owner.

Again, it's a two-man effort with Tim Shaw as the roving parts procurer and Fuzz Townshend as the man with the spanners. Luckily, both are competent and likeable and we do get to see some involving engineering that appeals to the hard-core petrol head.

Glossing over the fact that what you're witnessing might be defined as a managed TWOC 'ing or the equivalent of breaking into a house and decorating it, the show does try to take us through the process of restoring, finding parts and doing authentic, good quality work on some interesting and rare cars. It even uses some very creative ruses to cover up the 'crime' and get the clueless owners in situ for the final unveiling.

As they are now getting on for nearly 100 cars restored, hopefully this means Channel 4 have faith in the format and will continue to produce it.

It’s interesting that Channel 5 have also had a few goes at this format.  They’ve offered, The Classic Car Show, The Cars That Made Britain Great and the woeful Classic Car Crisis.  None have hit the mark to my mind and have not achieved any longevity. However, Channel Five Executives do note, if you fancy another go, there’s a tall, TV seasoned mechanic recently come available.  Just a thought…

Here’s to the new!

So it’s so long and thanks to Edd for the time being. I’m sure another format will be developed for us to enjoy his informed ministrations and, as long as the classic car zeitgeist remains strong, I hope there’ll be a production company willing to develop and commit the necessary resources to provide what we really want: good engineering coverage delivered in an amiable and generous fashion.

Yesterday's Vision of Tomorrow

In the seventies, when I was in my formative years, school holiday TV often included old black and white episodes of Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.  These were 'chapter plays' that were originally shown in cinemas in the 1930s. Both starred the square-jawed Buster Crabbe as the eponymous hero prancing around in preposterous man-pants whilst waving an unconvincing ray gun. They were old, creaky, and slightly hilarious but I did enjoy them in a broad kind of way.

Apart from the hammy acting, wobbly sets and misleading cliffhangers, an interesting aspect of features like these was they showed what is called 'yesterday's vision of tomorrow'.  In their depiction of vehicles, weaponry, robotics and clothing the scriptwriters, producers and directors were taking their best guess at what society and technology might look like hundreds of years into the future.

These ideas were given to costume designers and special effects people who worked with minuscule budgets and bits of rubbish to bring these predictions to dodgy reality. Most of the time, their efforts were tragically low quality: the rendering of a rocket ship looked just like a pimped up washing up liquid bottle with a firework shoved in its spout. Usually because that's what it was.

So, embracing this theme, you'll remember that over the last few blogs I've been looking into the car world of yesterday via a pile of ancient Autocar magazines. It occurred to me that the reports from the annual Olympia shows of the thirties, similar to the chapter plays, offer an insight into what the car aficionados of the past thought would comprise the vehicles of tomorrow. Adopting this mindset, I delved into the publications once again and the results are remarkable.

Let's start with this picture of the 'unconventional but attractive' Cord. I can well believe Flash Gordon could get to the planet Mongo in such a thing so maybe the future had arrived. But what else did the thirties promise?

Plastic Prediction

Composite car bodies have been around for some time. Whether that's the high tech carbon fibre of modern supercars or the fibreglass of Reliants or TVRs. We're now quite used to these materials being used in cars as a durable alternative to metal. In 1934, this was pure science fiction. The mainstream plastic of the age was Bakelite that, although functional and attractive, was also brittle and heavy.

How prescient then, the wizard-like Mr. H Potter's prediction that plastics, within twenty years, would be used for car manufacturing. Even in 1934 weight for weight, plastic was as durable as iron or steel.  We should note Mr. Potter was chair of the plastics group in the Chemical Engineering Society so he may have been slightly biased. Nevertheless, was he wrong? No, by Jingo, he was not!

Self Driving Cars?

As modern a phenomenon as you could possibly find. The age of self-driving vehicles is just around the corner. Even as you read, viable SDCs are abroad on our roads. Knowing this, the following advert caught my eye. 'You only steer' it proclaims. What? A car capable of taking care of the majority of driving procedures? In 1934? Did such a car exist? Well, according to Warwick & Wright Ltd it did, as they proudly extolled the many automated functions of the 'Safety Stutz'.

Hmmm, colour me skeptical, but this seems to smack of misleading advertising. The claims, even in these times of alternative facts, are the kind that we would censure in the modern age. Nevertheless, it's amusing to think of their gullible customers, beguiled by the 'fully auto-controlled' claim, sitting on their drive vainly stirring away at the steering wheel expecting the car to do the rest. Caveat emptor indeed!

On your bike!

You may consider the shrill chorus of cyclists complaining about lack of respect from drivers is a modern phenomenon. It's usually the refrain of a peloton of thin, angry, Lycra-clad men but it was also the basic point made by a bike rider from the thirties who demanded 10 feet wide cycling lanes. Even in times of less traffic, this seems an inordinate amount of room for him and fellow pedallers. His claims would get short shrift today when some roads fail to meet the basic needs for cars but it just goes to show biker militancy is by no means new (and still gets so few column inches in the motoring press!)

An iPad?

More a trick of the eye than a true prediction of the future but I couldn't resist including this advert for a radiator muffler as it did cause a double take.  Have a look. To all intents and purposes, he's holding something that looks just like an iPad in a contemporary, ironic kind of way.  Of course, things like TV or computing or apps or, well, iPads were years off so it's a whimsical notion. But fun too. 

To conclude, it's worth remembering that many things included in these crumbling mags were innovative in some way or other, at least to the motorists of the thirties. They give an accurate definition of the idea that almost everything is relative. One day, the advances that are rocking our world will soon look just as quaint which is amazing to consider.

OK, l'll leave you on that thought. So, until next time, happy classic motoring!

All Our Yesterdays

In this blog I thought I would again visit the past and try and get an insight into how the cars and car industry of yesterday promoted their goods and extolled the virtues of their products.  This was in an age when the basic rules of marketing were as haphazard and exotic as some of the cars they were trying to sell. 

It all stems, of course, from the gift of some ancient Autocar magazines I recently received which illuminated the car world of yesterday. They showed not only how things have changed technologically but also how differently we thought about motoring back in the day.

It seems apt, then, to have another look into these ageing mags to find some more precious gems to delight, confound and appal and believe me there is plenty to keep us busy.

Before we begin, it’s appropriate to remember that much of what we will encounter was considered perfectly normal no matter how amusing and horrifying we may find it. Mass motoring was still a good way off and in relation to the earliest of these publications, there is the not so small matter of World War Two separating us from the ideas and attitudes they espouse. Not to mention that things like social mores, rules of the road and the associated legal restrictions were still quite nascent compared to the oppressive sledgehammer of today's big brother state.

On this last point there was an interesting letter in a 1934 Autocar about a Blackpool man who’s defence to a reckless driving fine was that he had covered over one million miles without incident. This implies that, to him at least, quantity was equally important as quality when it came to driving skills. Didn’t prevent a penalty of £1 plus costs though.

The final point to consider before we continue is that, despite the range of topics described in these tomes, cars were still a relatively exotic phenomenon. This is illustrated in a useful infographic that a 1938 magazine provided:

I’m not sure what the position was in Northern Ireland and perhaps we’d better not go there. More interesting, is that today that ratio is both very different and could indeed be the reverse for classic car owners. For example, in my household the car to people ratio is in fact 3:2

Now that I’m in my fifties with over thirty years of driving experience I do consider myself something of a veteran but in 1938 you needed a mere ten years on the road to be considered such. Theoretically, you could be in your mid to late twenties and still be able to join the Company of Veteran Motorists. I equally wonder what was the 1938 equivalent of a souped up Vauxhall Corsa?

We all know that things have changed for women in society since the thirties and WW2 did a lot to liberate women from the household and into workplace. Interesting to find that, Autocar in 1934 was refreshingly liberated in their approach and included a column called ‘tête-à-tête written by one Elsie Wisdom. Her role was to represent the motoring interests of the womenfolk of the thirties. This didn’t, stop her from poking fun at one mechanically naive female.

Elsie whilst at the hair salon recounts overhearing a conversation in which a lady who after finding a greasy pool under her car complained to her mechanic he was overfilling her car with oil and charging accordingly. Soon after the subject was relieved to find this had rectified itself. Unfortunately, this was due to an under lubricated engine caused by an an oil leak and inevitably led to catastrophic failure.  Her reaction, Elsie noted, was being ‘amazed and indignant that if the car had just obligingly run out of oil, as it would out of petrol; then she would have refilled it and all would have been well’.

I will finish by finding some comfort in the fact that even with the distressing turmoil that played out a few short years later some venerable motoring institutions survived and are still with us today.

I think most would agree that if you need some staple sundry for your car that a branch of Halfords will usually be a good place to go and more than likely help you out.  In the thirties, Halfords were not quite so sure of themselves. 

Have a look at this advertisement.  All looks well until you see their get out clause: ‘or can get it’ (in a smaller typeset).  To be fair, given the diffuse nature of the motor industry at the time, it’s unsurprising really. I just wonder how long it would take them to get ‘it’ (whatever ‘it’ may be and good luck if you live in N. Ireland).

  

That’s it for this time around but I think it’s highly likely we’ll feature some of this material again. Whilst we may find some mirth, these magazines do offer some fascinating social history viewed through the lens of the motoring culture of the time.  For car fans like us that is as interesting as a more traditional history book and there’s equally as much to learn.

I’ll get my reading glasses on and find some other gems for you in a future blog! In the interim toodle pip…