Cars In Books, June 1980

Cars In Books

A FE. miscellaneous motoring snippets appcar in the paperback “For Adults Onlyby Diana Dors t W. H. Allen. 19781, lent to me by my secretary. In 1953 Diana Dors and Sc, first husband were running a “lovely Rolls-Royce” but she admits that her main style of car over the years has usually been a Cadillac. of which her favourite war the one she took to the Cannes Film Festival. It was a powder-blue convertible. matching her gown. But the famous tilm star has “toyed with the odd Rolls-Royce”. and other American makes besides Cadillacs, and there was also hcr specially-built Delahayc exhibited at a Paris Motor Show, which the book illustrates. With its “crystal steering-whecl .d solid gold fittings” n must have been a match fOr those Docker Daimlers. There is a sad little story in the chapter (C for CarS’i devoted w Diana’s white Rolls-Royce which, she says, never seemed to go right. It cost her a fortune and finally, shc says, exploded with aloud bang on a Northern Motorway, so that she had to thumb a lift.

There are also references to Kay Kendall and Rex Harrison, who was then wurting her. driving down to Cookham in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, tubes a boy-friend who was driving Diana Dors in hcr Cadillac in London in 1958 (American .ar-buffs will know which Cadillac model this was) had his licence suspended for a year for disobeying a policeman’s signal, to Si, Carol Reed, the film director, and the Rolls-Royce he had in 1.ondon. and lathe pink Cadillac of a male-friend who used it, to attract the birds. . . The book also refers to Edward Montagu, whom Diana Doss calls her first and dearest friend among thc Peers. But curiously, although she praises his determination and business acumen in building up the Beaulieu estate. she does not mention historic cars or the National Motor Museum. There is also a chapter devoted to Busty Scott-Moncrieff. “purveyor of horseless carriages to the Nobility and Gentry”, who has advertised regularly in maroR SPORT since long before the war. He took Diana Dors out. with humorous consequences. when she was in Instanbul, a story which hug 110 cars of any kind associated with it. Another story is about a private aeroplane which crashed in one of thc ticlds at thc Dors’ 15th-century Sussex farm while Hying low to view — so the Press said — Dianain a bikini: in fact, it had landed but hit telegraph wires on take-off, without iniury 1511 ha pilot but damaging the aeropbne. which had apparent’s. been hired from someone else. Aviation enthusiasts will no doubt be able to pin-point the incident. —