Joke!

Sir,

I am very disappointed. You are the last person I would have expected to tell that old chestnut about the Fiat 500 with the brakes on hauling a heavy lorry up a hill.

When I first heard this story the car was a model-T Ford. I am not claiming this to be the original version, for pre-1914 the vehicle was probably a Bebe Peugeot. A century earlier the scene was the Brighton road and the Punch lines were:

Astonished waggoner: “Pray desist, good Sir, your poor greys are smoking,”

Curricle driver: ” Stap me! I have had the drag on ever since coming down Ludgate Hill!”

I am, Yours, etc.

Yeovil. – M. C. Jones.

[Forgive me – the story was told to me in Turin by a member of Fiat’s Publicity Department! – Ed.)