V-E-V Odds & Ends., November 1984

V-EN Odds & Ends.—. A reader, now in Hong Kong, wonders whether three cars he owned as a young Air Force Officer still exist. They were a 1934 Aston Martin, Reg. No. probably BLU 417, the ex-Stirling Moss 328 BMW, Reg. No. DPX 653, and a low-mileage LG6 Lagonda dh coupe, Reg. No. AST 2. Letters can be forwarded. The great-grandson of Thomas Dence, one-time Director of the Argyll Motor Company, recalls an amusing incident when, unannounced, this gentleman sent to Australia a car of this make to his eldest son in 1912, which cost £433 for the import draft and another £70 for lamps and other accessories it lacked. It had a good engine but a terrible transmission that had to be serviced every 50 miles. After two years of

constant trouble it was sold for E200 and another car was not acquired until 1919. When told he had no right to send the car out, Mr Deuce Seer, who used to live at “Kingsbury”, pulled down after the war, was very repentant but did not refund the expenses incurred. Our reference to Mrs Kruse and her Rolls-Royce has brought a letter from a reader who lives in her former house in Yorkshire. Apparently her husband, Captain Kruse, bought his Barker-bodied Rolls-Royce (31HC) in 1925 for £1,800 less 15% and it was this car that he got Amherst-Villiers to supercharge, using a special engine to drive the blower, in 1927. Eventually, the supercharger was removed and the car renovated; it is now in Australia, fitted with a later (111 coupe* body. The same correspondent confirms the story, recounted in “Cars In Books”, of a person having three Rolls-Royces, one to travel in, one for the lady’s maid, a third for the luggage, naming the owner as Lord Furness and the lady as his fiancee, Thelma Morgan. In Athens a circa-1906 Marshall steam roller is in use on the drive of a surburban town hall. A reader has found a set of photographs relating to a circa-1920 Rover 12 tourer, Reg. No. KU 973, and if the car still exists, would be glad to send them to the owner. Mr John Perrett, whose article “An Engineer Remembers” we published some years ago, writes to say that the Derby Bentley he once owned has been meticulously restored by Harry Harding of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Some parts thought to be from the front-end of a late-1920s Peugeot and a fevv for an A7 lie at a farm in Hertfordshire. — W . B.