Up and over

Sir,

Further to your piece about test hills, you might be interested to know of the test hill that was used by Morris Motors for very many years; it was abandoned only when the power of the cars being produced became such that they were going over the brow too fast for safety! Fortunately, at that time, in the late fifties, the “rolling road” became available and enabled performance checking to be conducted indoors and with greater precision.

To get to the hill, from London, turn left at the roundabout at Headington where the A40 joins the Oxford ring road, following she signs to Cowley and Henley. At the next roundabout, a couple of miles on, turn left to Horspath; at the village, follow the road round to the right, go under the railway bridge and then keep straight on. The idea used to be to pass the gate on the left side of the road by the electricity pylon at 30 mph in top gear and then open the throttle wide. For each model there was a minimum speed at which the car had to go over the brow.

Should you go up this hill, bear in mind that there is a T-junction not very far beyond the brow.

JG. Millward,   Duns Tew, Oxford