A Vanden Plas Convertible

Sir,

The article on Vanden Plas in the October number of Motor Sport was of very great interest to me specially as I once owned a 1949 Austin A 135 Vanden Plas Convertible, some rather indifferent photographs of which I now send.

I believe that only two were made but were found much too expensive to produce.

I only kept mine for 73,000 miles as it suffered the most dreadful fuel starvation: the petrol pipe from the tank had been brought along the chassis opposite the exhaust down pipe and under any but cool conditions the petrol used to bubble away in the pipe and fail to reach the three SU carburetters: I replaced the A.C. mechanical petrol pump with an electric pump but this did not cure the trouble.

The three SU carbs on this car were great fun to synchronise and tune: the cold starting was cared for by a fourth (electrically operated) carburetter so there were no complications of disconnecting the normal enrichment device of an SU before tuning.

My total milage of Austin cars I have owned and driven entirely on pleasure bent now is well over 600,000 miles: my original 1928 Austin 12 Windsor saloon completed 120,000 miles and a 1958 A35 Countryman did 148,000 before we parted with it. The best of the lot is my present 1969 Austin 3 litre which has just done 60,000 miles and is a constant source of pleasure making this wonderful car to drive; it was a sad day when they gave up making this wonderful car.

Woodbridge, Suffolk R. S. Schreiber (Major)