Cars in Books, April 1999

Readers continue to feed this feature. I have been told that in Younger Brother, Younger Son – A Memoir, by Colin Clark, whose father Lord Clark was known for the TV Civilisation series, refers to the author’s cars, from MG to a Lola 170 MkIIIB built for Jo Bonnier, said to have been timed at 171mph in a police trap, and including several Rolls Royces, one of which was a 1937 P111 Sedanca de Ville formerly owned by the Maharajah of Jaipur. Family cars illustrated cover a R-R Silver Ghost, seemingly stripped for action, and what is probably a V12 Lagonda, gracing a picnic at Eton. Also described are the many aeroplanes flown by the author during his 1950s service in the RAF, from Tiger Moth to Meteors and Hastings.

The same reader tells me that in A Sparrow’s Flight by Lord Hailsham, his Lordship refers to a Model-T Ford owned by his mother, which he drove before acquiring a 12/50 Alvis at University. During the 1926 General Strike he gained engineer ing knowledge in a small workshop maintaining refuse-collection vehicles, and he bought a 350cc BSA on which to learn to ride, as he had been instructed during the war to form a motorcycle section of his regiment, only to skid on it and end up under an army truck.

From another source lam reminded of the many cars owned by the Hon Alan Clark, brother of Colin, and described, and some illustrated, in his Diaries, in which he mentions eagerly reading MOTOR SPORT.