Imeretinsky's Roesch Talbot

Sir, I was very interested to see in your review of the book “Waves – Wheels – Wings” the reference to Imeretinsky and his Bentley and Roesch Talbot 90 (PL 263).

I bought the latter from him for £295 and ran her in the first of the RAC Rally series, where we came in 15th out of 365 entries. The 1932 Rally was the one where there were three tests at Torquay, and one of them involved 100 yards in top gear without slipping the clutch. I well remember rolling along with three hard, three soft plugs to record 2.3 m.p.h. on the 7.5 compression sports engine and how we cheered when some of the 15 Daimler V12 entrants stalled their engines!

Donald Healey’s Invicta “Roller Skate” won the Rally, and his slow-running test on top was about 1.6 m.p.h., with fastest acceleration of 7.6 sec. to the four equal 2nd in 8.0 sec.

Haslemere.

Donald Monro