Miscellany, April 1999

Jacques Coric of La Boutique in France, who has the Morgan Plus 4 which was once my editorial car, and which I met again at Silverstone in 1993, is hoping to have a great gathering of Morgans of all kinds at Montlhery on May 1/2, including those from England and from all over Europe. This shows that the Paris banked track, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, is active, whatever its future may be. Indeed, the date aforementioned will see another of the highly successful and enjoyable vintage days there. Contact Vintage Montlhery at 21 Rue Gabriel Bachet, F77760 Villiers -sous- Grez (0033-1-45-00-82-28) or M Colic on 0033-1-69-45-05-30.

How sad that things are distinctly not going well for Rover, which if you regarded it as a bit of an ‘auntie’ car, was in fact the winner of the TT, was raced quite well at Brooklands, once beat the Blue Train, and in pre-war Speed 20 form was a fast car raced by some famous drivers at the Track. Moreover, what a great car the mid-engined 3.5 V8 BS coupe would have been had Lord Stokes let it live. Now that BMW has put its oar in we are told that Rover sales minimised to only 9.28% of the UK market total in 1998, and this January were down sharply to 4.64%. This in spite of the German company’s investment of £800,000,000 in 1994 and its subsequent cash top-ups. Its BMWs have earned considerable respect, often bought by those unable to contemplate a Mercedes-Benz, but in the lower executive and family car fields BMW seem to be floundering, with a threat to many British workers’ jobs. Let’s hope they apply to Rolls-Royce their former skills.