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Sir,

With reference to T. S. Millen’s letter, how right he is! I normally spend my holiday touring in Europe and like Mr. Millen I carry camping equipment and four-up. In 1965 I bought a Ford Corsair, one reason for the choice being its large boot to hold the aforesaid camping equipment, without having to resort to a roof rack. Imagine my horror when I saw a list of boot loads was published the Corsair being one of them, and quoted as 100 lb. As an average frame tent weighs from 75-100 lb. this performance is quite absurd. Thinking there must be some mistake I had correspondence with Fords at Warley. They confirmed the boot load as 100 lb. and on top of this stated that the overall load of a Corsair was 720 lb. This of course means that with four 13 st. people in the car it is already fully loaded without any luggage. I still retain these letters from Fords to show my unbelieving friends. Needless to say I got rid of this quite useless (to me) vehicle with considerable financial loss and now own a Ford Zephyr Mk. III which with four up will carry all the luggage I require.

I would advise anyone contemplating camping, or otherwise carrying heavy luggage, to be very careful what car they buy; the Corsair was not the only car in that list whose capacity in terms of weight was inadequate. As Mr. Millen states these figures do not appear in any test reports nor can I find it in any manufacturer’s brochure I have read, except Continental cars who normally publish the load capacity. I think that this figure should be one of the essential statistics of a road report. How many unfortunate people spend their hard-earned money on a car, only to find it will not serve their purpose.

Whitby. R. G. Hines.