Early Steam

Sir,

Knowing your interest in the rarities of the Motoring World, I venture to forward a photograph which, by an extremely lucky chance; came my way recently. It portrays an experimental motor car to which you make reference in one of that fascinating series “Fragments on Forgotten Makes” as long ago as the issue of October 1966. In that article on the HP three-wheeler you mention that the story really starts with the Rev. W. H. Peacey, Rector of Mordiford, near Hereford. The photograph shows the experimental vehicle constructed by the cleric in question. The original, from which my copy was taken, reveals rather more clearly than does the copy that the Registration No. is CJ 456, and the Hereford Registration Authorities’ records confirm this vehicle as being “a light steam wagon (experimental), weight 12 cwt., finished in varnished wood, registered by the Rev. W. H. Peacey, The Vicarage, Stretton Grandison, Ledbury, Herefordshire, on 6th January, 1907”. Unfortunately, much of the vehicle itself is obscured in the photograph, but the visible parts of it do not seem to provide much evidence of the Darracq ancestry claimed for it in the article. However, it seems to me remarkably lucky that any photograph of this vehicle should survive at all, and the merest chance that it should have come to my notice.

Perhaps we may have the pleasure of more forgotten fragments before long, for they always seem to produce additional information in their wake.

Tenbury A. B. Demaus