Cars in books - The Green Hat, January 2006

Once upon a time I used to do a ‘Cars in Books’ item, at first in fiction, trying to identify the makes of cars authors had disguised, but then finding real cars in biographies and autobiographies of more interest. I have just found a very apposite reference in the biography of Sir Patrick Hastings (Heineman,1948). The advocate and Attorney-General tells of the big open mahogany-bodied Hispano-Suiza he had, which attracted so much attention that he parked it round the corner from his residence in Shepherd’s Market in London, outside Michael Arlen’s flat. This annoyed Arlen, who, in revenge, said that this was why he made a fearsome Hispano the hero of his book The Green Hat.