An Inter-Register contest

The Sunbeam S.T.D. Register, Fiat Register, Humber Register and 12/50 Alvis Register will again hold an Inter-Register contest this year, in conjunction with their usual meetings. The holder of the Trophy is the Fiat Register. The first round of the 1958 contest will be the Fiat Register driving tests at Beaulieu Motor Museum on June 1st. This contest will be followed by the 12/50 Alvis Register navigation rally and tests at Woburn Abbey on June 8th while the Humber Register event will follow on July 27th. The S.T.D. Register will probably make its annual Wolverhampton Week-end the occasion of the Inter-Register event, on a date to be announced later.

Good for Glenton

In the past we have not always agreed with the writings of Robert Glenton of the Sunday Express. However, in the issue of that newspaper for April 6th he struck a good blow for owners of cars built prior to 1948, who next year face the compulsory vehicle tests. Glenton concluded a powerful attack on the Minister of Transport’s unnecessary and ill-considered scheme in these words:

“Two million motorists are affected at the moment. Two million family men who treasure their elderly cars.

“I know that there are people who look at these cars nose to tail in the seaside queues and say they should be off the road.

“But it is my experience and the experience of all who have anything to do with them, that they usually have more loving care and attention devoted to them than is given to much newer machinery.

“The reason is simple. A man usually buys an old car or keeps one because he cannet afford anything more modern. His car is a sizeable part of his capital. Is it likely then that he is going to hazard it through laziness or indifference?

“And what makes this testing plan of Mr. Harold Watkinson, the Minister of Transport, seem even more lunatic is that the police have already perfectly efficient powers to stop and investigate the condition of any car they see on the road.

“They make much use of these powers. They work quietly and effectively. That is how it should be.

“If vehicles have to be tested then surely it is far better that the right to decide on them—a decision which may not only cripple family freedom of movement, but which certainly can jeopardise a man’s livelihood—should be in the hands of the men we have trained to administer law and order.

“Not presented willy nilly to private individuals who, if they feel of that turn of mind, can become as complete a set of dictators as this country has seen for many a generation.”

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Which will he choose?

The announcement that. H.R.H. the Duke of Kent called upon sports-car manufacterers to rally to the MIRA test ground at Lindley recently so that he could subject their cars to a series of exhausting tests may suggest a Royal prerogative not available to ordinary buyers of fast motor cars. But it also stamps the Duke once again as a shrewd young man. As he presumably requires from a car the same standards that many other moneyed young men require also, wise prospective buyers in the sports-car market will watch with interest to see what new car replaces the Duke’s Aston Martin. His t choice will undoubtedly result in more than one sale for the manufacturer who is fortunate in getting the Royal order.