NOSTALGIC

NOSTALGIC

ViTE remarked last month under this heading on the interesting cuttings and scrapbooks :ohich readers send to usfrom time to time. A recent acquisition of this nature is a bound volume of Motoring Illustrated for the second-half Of 1907, lent to 114 by Mr. C. G. Dann of Cardiff. The very first frontispiece photo graph is rather it depicting as it does a Clement-Talbot which collided with at carrier’s cart at Edgware. the occupants being thrown out and injored and the local fire brigade having to attend to the wreckage, which caught lire. The car appears to be an early model, as it has a tie bonnet and the caption states ” It is

rent ark able that the Dunlop tires Cattle 111-115Clithed through the flames.” It depends, of course, on what is meant by unscathed, because the near-side front tyre is very obviously deflated! Turning the pages of this old volume, which in 194)7 was edited by Noel 13. Kenealy and Edward Kcnealy in Watford, we came upon

many intriguing items. There is a picture of one of two 28-hp. six-cylinder Lanchesters. still with tiller steering, built to the order of the Jam of Nawanagar (Prince Ranjitsinhji) and finished in ” a rather striking green, wit It vertical black stripes and red and gold stripe down the centre..” upholstery being in red morocco, with red silk curtains in the State car—which should make Lady Docker think. Another photographic frontispiece depicts a six-cylinder San Giorio car being tested on the Grand St. Bernard Pass, the explanation being that this was the Italian Napier. So high were the

roofs of closed motor carriages in 1907 that Hodgkinson made collapsible ladders for retrieving the luggage towed thereon, while the reckless dri% nig of American motorists in this country occupied Editorials in the simmer issues. The third frontispiece we come upon is a fine tyre-changing study, featuring Demogeot and his Darracq during the Florio Cup

race, which was won by Minoia’s Isotta-Fraschini at over 65 m.p.h. Two-stroke engines and the Commercial Vehicle Trials occupy considerable space. and there is an account of bargains obtained at the tuition sales at the Motor House, Euston Road, where (luring September a ” natty little 6-h.p. Peugeot ” was sold in overhauled condition for as little as 1:16 and a 16-h.p. Lanehester ” with fine

brougham top ” for a mere £45. An 8sh.p. Jackson dog-cart went for £10, lots of other cars for under £20, and a 24/30-h.p. Weller which ” greatly resembled a Napier racer in outward: -appearance, and looked a very fast car,” for only £.55. Madge Carr Cook, who was playing in ” Mrs. Wiggs, of the Cabbage Patch -,in London, is seen entering her Peugeot coupe, a high chauffeur-driven car, and Mr. and Mrs. de Fabregues are shown touring Europe in a vast motor caravan with 35/40-h.p. Vautour motor, shod on solid rubber tyres in front, iron tyres at the back, and resembling ” a railway conch, with wooden Venetian shutters to make it snug at night.” Brooklamds meetings were fully reported, Motoring Illustrated being very moderate about the fatal accident to Hermon, when his Minerva overturned at the Fourth Meeting, although they include in somewhat. grisly photograph of the scene. Chas. J. Glidden, ” the Globe Ginner,” is seen trying a racing Napier at Brooklands and there is a very interesting account, of K. Lee Guinness proving to II wealthy American, Mr. Dngald Ross, who was seeking the fastest car in the world, that the 200-h.p. V8 Darracq

was it, by clocking over 115 m.p.h. at Brooklands and selling the car, it was said for £2,000, to Mr. Ross—an event all the more curious as the Dart-wars engine remains in England to this day ! Britain’s first military airship, the ” Niilli Secundus,” gets a Ampage picture to itself, from which we are reminded that in those days, and we believe up to the 1930$. Farnborough Common, from which it ascended, was an open, unfenced flying-ground, the caption to this picture placing it in Surrey, whereas all who favour the Shire

know this to be incorrect. Today this historic common is vanishing under the onslaught of a ten-year development plan and the flyingground is hidden by ugly iron fencing and guarded by police persons in uniform and guard-dogs (the latter not yet in uniform). There are. pictures of the little Jackson racer, the Lotus of its day, ,hich hid an 8-1r.p. de Dion. 10/12-h.p. two-cylinder Aster or 10/12 h.p. four-cylinder Antstoutz engine under its long bonnet according to choice, at prices ranging front £220 to I:255, and had a delightful little cylindrical petrol tank perehed on supports behind the bucket

seats. Some rather delightful toy cars shown at an exhibition of the Palais Royale. Paris., are shown, of which we would very much like to unearth the Grand Prix racer and steam lorry today! The homebuilt car had appeared, a page being devoted to Leslie W. Brown’s 14-h.p. Farnir-engineil ” special.” which was capable of 40 m.p.h. Percy Richardson’s first 45-h.p. Sheffield-Simplex chassis was illustrated in the issue of October 16th and shortly afterwartla a privately-owned 20/32-h.p. Darracq was shown climbing the I in 5 hill out of Lyrunouth, then in very rough condition. Unexpected is the announcement of a new British steam car, the paraffin-burning E-.J.Y.R., sponsored in Newbury, while historians may know about

another steam car, designed by Lamplugh and said to have rum up and down Shaftesbury Avenue in the early hours of the morning before the Act of 1896. Several competitions were run by this ambitious Id. weekly for the amusement of its readers, the last in 1907 being a limerick contest for which the prize was a new 8/10-h.p. two-cylinder Darracq. In due course headlines announced that “a Man front Dumfries” had Won the car. but this was perhaps tempered a little when the proprietors discovered that the ” man ” in question was, in fact, ” a laddie of fifteen ” who had sent in half-a-dozen limericks and whose father N.-as in the motor trade. However. the frontispiece of the issue dated D VCI• oilier 25th slows the boy and his father seated on the little Darracq Moon to commence the drive front

London to Dim iii They promised an account of their journey but, alas, this must have appeared in 1908. so we dose Mr. Hamra old volume without knowing whether or not they made their destination 1— NV. II. Il’ertistd of old motor journals constitutes, for me, one of the joys of living, and if any reader can supply me with copies of Tire Autoear and The Motor, not to mention The Auto, for the years 1919-1930, loose or bound, to enable me to fill gaps in my collection, I shall be for ever grateful !—Eol