The Cowey Car

Sir,

I read with interest your article “Out of the Past” in January’s Motor Sport and noted that you are always interested to see old photographs.

I have actually been a Motor Sport reader for over thirty years and although my allegiance has now moved to motorcycles I still find myself buying a copy each month though I no longer have any hope of owning the sort of cars I enjoyed early post-war and into the late fifties. I came to motorcycles only a couple of years ago and I only wish I had started earlier. What a pity that Motorcycle Sport docs not seem to rise to the Motor Sport standard though it is still the beg of the motorcycling monthlies . . .

My father, Capt. J. Lyell Lee, MC, who died two years ago, was an early motorist and often talked of the Cowey car his great friend Edwin Jones owned in the early years of WW1. I gather Edwin Jones was a principal of the firm which produced the car, and as he was killed in the trench raid when father won his Military Cross nothing further was heard of the car. You will note it had rather strange suspension tank or bottles to the front and rear and father described it as a primitive form of air or hydrolastic suspension.

His death upset father greatly and he still felt it deeply many years later. I think they were dated after the raid and rashly stood on the parapet and lit a cigarette and lightly discussed who would be shot first and I gather that poor Edwin was shot through the head and died in a few minutes.

Edwin Jones also had a Calthorpe, combination and father ran an Indian and a Scott at the same period.

Boot JEFFREY G. LEE

[The Cowey was made at Kew Gardens from 1913 to 1915.—Ed.]