Carrying skis

Sir,

As a Canadian, an ardent skier and an ex-owner of an M.G.-A in Canada, I was amused by the well-meaning advertisement you carried on page 69 of your February issue (magazines arrive late in this far-flung outpost of the Commonwealth).

Unless he is merely bluffing for the benefit of his stay-at-home neighbours, WHERE did the young man in the photo carry his skis?

Assuming that they are of an average length, about 6 ft. 6 in. to 7 ft., they are too wide to carry strapped across his luggage rack, which anyway seems to have been used for his suitcase, which is too large for the M.G.-A trunk; located on top of the suitcase, they would chafe lumps out of it on a long run—and it looks like an expensive piece of luggage at that.

Strapped in a vertical slope on his luggage rack, they would fail to clear the roof, running roughly in a line through the terribly vulnerable rear window.

The answer is, of course, to reverse the luggage rack, and let the skis form the hypotenuse from the base of the rack over the suitcase retaining bar, now at the TOP of the rack. In this position as three winters of application have shown, the skis clear the top nicely.

Perhaps, however, I am misjudging this young man’s enthusiasm —perhaps for those 700 trouble-free miles from that little village in the Tyrol he drove with the top down, and the skis resting in the passenger’s space (they cannot be accommodated in this way with the top up, believe me).

When you do find out, would you please let me know? I shall probably buy another M.G. on my return to Canada and I shall certainly continue to ski.

Perhaps, however, there is more room for skis in an M.G.-B.

Charles F. Backhouse.
Nairobi.
[Over to the publicity dept. of A. Schrader’s Son!—Ed.]