An historic Daimler
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Sir,
On page 65 of your January issue you have a photograph of three cars in the house at Beaulieu Abbey, and the Daimler is the very car which my father bought “for peanuts” in 1938. This car was advertised in the Hereford Times in 1919 and not sold until father got it 19 years later! He bought it from the late Mr. Fleming, of Leerfold House, Lingen, in N.W. Herefordshire. After the war he sold it to Daimlers, who required it for the Golden Jubilee of the British Motor Industry, and of the Daimler Company itself. It ran in the London procession in 1946.
Then Daimler’s lent it to Lord Montagu for a time, and later it was transferred to the Alfred Herbert Coventry Museum, where Mr. Scott has charge of it. The car originally had tiller-steering and tube-ignition, conversion to wheel steering and coil ignition probably taking place c.1900. ‘The British Motor Co.’s plate inside the bonnet bears number 348. The front wooden apron is broken off near the bottom, as it was when we took it over. It has semi-elliptic front springs and leather-panelled mudguards. Hidden behind the white card which rests upon the bonnet is a Herefordshire Automobile Club Badge, a very elegant one. The club was disbanded in c.1931, father being the last Secretary. The first Secretary was Wilfrid Groom of Hereford. One of the Groom family had Reg. No. C J1 (on a Rex Motorcycle).
Incidentally, I possess the first car licence taken out after the Locomotives on Highways Act of 1896. Its number is 0001. F. R. Simms took it out in London. I found it in father’s collection. I have it nicely framed.
Bournemouth HAROLD BUTCHER