To the rescue

Sir,

What an excellent journal yours is. Not only can one read it and re-read it and browse among the adverts, but on three occasions now it has got me out of a mess. The first two occasions were in connection with spares for an Alvis Firefly, and now it has led to getting me out of a predicament in connection with insuring my 1940 Alvis Speed Twenty-five.

Unfortunately the company with which I was insured recently packed up motor insurance and pushed me out on the market. I use my car for business and my firm insists on comprehensive insurance. Could I get comprehensive insurance ? Could I blazes. A lorry had popped out of a side road and caught me amidships when I was cruising along at sixty minding my own business, and under a knock-for-knock agreement my insurance company had paid £160. Oh, no, it wasn’t my fault but the money had been paid out, the car was sixteen years old, it was capable of over ninety miles an hour, etc, etc. My firm is a national one and not without influence but the best quotation it could get me was Third Party Risk with a 75 per cent, loading and a £25 excess on top of that. A broker friend in Glasgow said there was absolutely no hope, so I fished out Motor Sport, rang up Antony Hyde-East and, hey presto, comprehensive insurance for only 50s more than I had been quoted for third party. Motor Sport to the rescue once more.

The annoying thing is that if I had been in a modern car when the lorry clouted me it would almost certainly have turned over and the claim would probably have run to four figures by the time I had limped out of hospital. I hope that when the compulsory tests for cars over ten years old begin this nonsense of loading thoroughbred cars because of age will be dropped altogether. If a car is passed as roadworthy then it is roadworthy whether it is ten, fifteen or twenty years of age.

I am, Yours, etc,

James Buchan, Glasgow.