SEPTEMBER "PHONIX"

SEPTEMBER ” PHOENIX “

The locals must have considered that something odd had happened at the Phoenix Hotel, Hartley Wintney, on the evening of September 6th, because you couldn’t get into the car park or, if in, you couldn’t get out. Actually, a V.S.C.C. gathering was in progress and we noted : one Triumph Mayflower saloon, a large vintage Standard saloon, a larger 3-litre Bentley saloon with two interior lamps like flowers and all the makings of a boudoir in the back parlour, two modern saloons with Bentley badges, an undistinguished Riley Nine saloon which looked like a Riley, another Riley which didn’t look like a Riley, two chain-propelled Frazer-Nashes, a Bristol, two Austin Heavy Twelve saloons, an Allard, Lord Cadogan’s very desirable Rolls-Royce Twenty tourer, an 11.E. a very long Bentley tourer with a poor lock, a very long Lancia Lambda two-seater with a good lock, two low-chassis 4i-litre 100-m.p.h. (Coo !) Invicta tourers, a very cream Brooklands Riley Nine, some sort of Alvis saloon, an Alvis 12/50 and an Alvis 12/60, a thing called a Kapitan, the I’resident’s 30/98 Vauxhall, the inevitable Austin Seven Chummy, a very nice fabric 3-litre Hotchkiss saloon, a Jaguar XKI20 (Gee !), an A.C. Aceca two-seater without independent suspension, a VW, and a very-French Salmson skiff with push-pull o.h. valve gear (which isn’t the same as desmodromic valve gear) which had come all the way from Brighton.

So now you know what cars V.S.C.C. members motor about in, although maybe some of them were owned by local drinkers who had got hemmed-in by it all and, one suspects, did not like to ask how to get out.—VINTAGENT.