Whenever I drive one of my vintage cars, I make a bet with myself that at the first traffic stop someone will lean out of a modern car and gravely assure me: 'They don’t make them like that any more.' This is undeniably true. But then they also don’t make electric light bulbs or radio sets, or so many other things, like they used to, so why do we car enthusiasts drive — and by choice, in all weathers — cars of such great age?
This is an easy question to ask, but has many answers. For me, the first reason is that I like it. Vintage motoring is fun. Old cars are all characters, some good, some bad, whereas modern cars, with several notable exceptions, do not possess such charisma. Most look alike, many are alike. They are totally bland, suitable for a sanitised society, where to conform is too often considered too important. Cars, like clothes, mirror social and political change.
When the old cars that I prefer were new, the world was a livelier, larger place and the cars made then reflect these characteristics. In addition to such famous makes as Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Bugatti, Delage and Alfa Romeo, there are many others less well known. All have their own personalities, often stemming from the attitudes and outlooks of their entrepreneurial designers and manufacturers.
'Gear changes are made by moving a tiny electric switch in a miniature gate on the steering column. No doubt, this seemed a very good idea at the time'
What motor manufacturer today, for example, would proudly advertise his tiny two-cylinder car as having 'The Pull of an Elephant and the Appetite of a Canary'? Or, in describing its performance, would claim, 'With Spurs, would climb Trees'? Jowett from Yorkshire did for years, and in its day was very successful.
Then there was the enormously long Burney, designed in 1930 by the R100 airship engineer, Sir Dennistoun Burney, with a wheelbase of 13 feet and 5 inches, and an eight-cylinder engine hanging out for several feet beyond the rear wheels. At another extreme, the Trojan ran on solid rubber tyres, powered by an engine lying on its side under the front seat, and behind a bonnet empty except for the petrol tank. And what modern car, even with ABS braking, possesses the style of the mighty American Duesenberg, whose driver could adjust the brakes as he drove with a control marked Dry, Rain, Snow, Ice?
These days, my old-car driving is mainly confined to three cars, in order of seniority: a 1935 Auburn cabriolet, a 1936 Cord roadster (both made by the firm in Indiana which produced the Duesenberg), and a 1937 Jaguar SS100.
The author with his 1936 Cord V8: 'The kind of car that Toad of Toad Hall would have enjoyed'.
The Cord has a coffin-shaped bonnet, blunt as a blue-nosed whale; the sort of car Toad of Toad Hall would have enjoyed. The little SS100, so called because it was made by the SS car company, later Jaguar, and could reach a speed of 100mph, is light-footed as a mountain pony, slightly built and, in the wet, skittish as a trainee ballerina.
No one could deny that the Cord is well made. Clutch and brake pedals move on roller bearings, every nut and bolt is plated, and after 50 years, the body of high-grade metal is still free of rust. It was also the first American car to combine innovations such as retractable headlamps, independent front suspension and an engine and gearbox built on a special frame for easy removal.
The Cord had an integral body, totally soundproofed and without running boards, a built-in radio, rheostat-controlled instrument lighting, variable-speed windscreen wipers, headlamp main-beam warning light, concealed door hinges, and many more examples of ingenuity. But it had — and has — a weakness that neither time nor the expenditure of large sums of money by subsequent owners to experts of various kinds has been able to cure completely. This is its means of changing gear.
As an early front-wheel-drive design, the car has the gearbox laid out in front of the engine and front wheels. Gear changes are made by moving a tiny electric switch in a miniature gate on the steering column. No doubt, this seemed a very good idea at the time, because it did away with any need for complicated mechanical linkages. This switch activates solenoids, to open and close valves controlling vacuum servos, which, in turn, manipulate a lever that actually changes the gears. Many a garage mechanic, contemplating for the first time this nest of magnets, wires, valves, tubes and levers, must have echoed Shelley’s words: 'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.'
I have often felt this despair acutely when, after half a century, the solenoids suddenly show their age and I realise with alarm that I cannot engage any gear at all. I coast around roundabouts or across intersections, usually in rush-hour traffic, with irate drivers hooting, my V8 engine racing away, but not transmitting any power whatever to ever more slowly turning wheels. Then, miraculously, energy returns to the stricken vehicle, and the gear changes as slickly as ever.
The Auburn 851 Speedster was an icon of early American design. Pairs well with a Short Sunderland.
The Auburn takes its name, not from the colour, but from the town of that name where it was made, and provides another kind of vintage motoring. In contrast to the Cord, it is as temperamental as a superannuated building society clerk. The engine’s eight cylinders fire obediently in line, pistons the size of flower pots pound up and down, and the car’s sheer size metamorphoses even the shortest drive into a stately progression.
An ingenious device, controlled by a small lever in the centre of the steering wheel, enables the driver to change the back axle ratio as he drives. This has the effect of doubling the gears available (six forward gears instead of three) and also enables him to drive long distances without changing gear manually — useful in the conditions for which the Auburn was designed, tooling leisurely along broad American highways under a high mid-Western sun.
The Auburn was intended, after all, for a big country and an unhurried time when in the USA petrol cost less than the equivalent of 2½p per gallon — and in Britain not much more than 5p. At such prices, who but a miser would complain of the speed at which its Carter carburettor drinks the 20 gallons of petrol which the tank contains?
While the SS possesses such a narrow cockpit that driver and passenger sit thigh to thigh, so close together that the doors have cut-away tops so that their right and left elbows respectively can hang outside in the slipstream, the Cord and Auburn have high doors and weigh around 2½ tons. The feeling is of travelling in an open tank. A 4.7-litre engine churns away about 6ft in front of the occupants’ legs and somehow seems totally divorced from the wheels. In all three cars, after a few miles on a warm day, there is a sensation of heat and the constant drone of many mechanical parts all working hard that is, of course, totally absent in a more modern car.
'The old car was clearly much put out at being summoned so summarily and "driven without feeling" by a stranger. The battery was flat, the tyres soft, and the engine overheated in protest. To show its total displeasure, it refused to start when the actors were ready'
I acquired a Cord more than 20 years ago, after putting an advertisement in the London Evening Standard. This brought a reply from Australia. Apparently, a ship’s engineer who owned the car had bought the paper in Southampton, but did not read it until his ship docked in Sydney. On his return, he sold me my first Cord. I then heard of another that had lain in a shed in Staffordshire for years and bought that and, out of the two, built one.
I liked this car so much that I 'gave' it to a character, Doctor Jason Love, whom I created in a series of adventure novels. When the first, Passport to Oblivion, was filmed, I was asked to hire the car to the studios in Elstree. It lay neglected in the studio garage for months, next to the yellow Rolls-Royce that appeared in the film of that name.
No one heeded my warning that old cars, like old people, can become very crotchety and temperamental if not constantly cared for. Then, the Cord was suddenly required one morning for David Niven, as Doctor Love, and John Le Mesurier, as an intelligence agent, to drive through the winding lanes of Hertfordshire.
A studio employee drove it to the rendezvous, near Aldenham, but the old car was clearly much put out at being summoned so summarily and 'driven without feeling' by a stranger. The battery was flat, the tyres soft, and the engine overheated in protest. To show its total displeasure, it refused to start when the actors were ready. So, just out of camera range, a rope was attached to the front bumper for members of the crew to pull, and I pushed at the rear.
The rich dashboard of the Cord, with the famously complicated mini gated gearbox.
Then, as if to atone for this behaviour, the engine started perfectly and Niven and Le Mesurier drove away in splendid style to the next location.
Here again, temperament prevailed, the radiator boiled and the car stopped in clouds of steam. At this, the director wisely decided to shoot a completely new scene in which this unexpected breakdown had a part to play.
Now every time I see this film on TV — called Where the Spies Are —for reasons never made clear to me, I recall this instance when art imitated not nature, but mechanical mishap.
Since those days, the Cord has been totally rebuilt. In July last year, my eldest son Jeremy and I took it to Brooklands for the annual Reunion of the Brooklands Society, dedicated to keeping fresh the memory and traditions of what was the world’s first — and most famous — purpose-built motor-racing course.
The day was warm and, surprisingly for a Sunday in summer, the roads nearly empty. The big old car bowled along effortlessly. One sits higher up than in a modern car and is able to see over the tops of fences and hedges and the roofs of other cars. The shortest journey thus becomes as important as its purpose, to be enjoyed as an outing for itself, not simply as a means to an end.
Another reason why driving an old car can be rewarding is that something about its appearance, whether it is large or small, brings out the best in other users of the road. Camaraderie between drivers returns — and of course when these cars were new it was customary for motorists approaching each other in cars of the same make to wave a friendly greeting.
'Old cars remind older people of their youth, when they might have owned models of that make. Younger people enjoy seeing examples of individual minds and a pre-computerised age'
Once, I had a puncture, and the feeble jack I had borrowed for the journey from my modern car could not cope with the weight. Other cars stopped, and their drivers offered aid or advice, but the heavy metal defeated them all. Finally, the driver of a passing coach saw the little group of people in the layby with jacks of various types spread about, and instantly assessed the problem.
The driver pulled off the road and produced a huge hydraulic jack that could lift a bus, and once more the Cord was mobile. None of his coach passengers objected to the involuntary stop. They all climbed out and surrounded the car, praising its looks and workmanship. Old cars remind older people of their youth, when they might have owned models of that make. Younger people enjoy seeing examples of individual minds and a pre-computerised age.
While the Cord is a Cunarder among cars, the SS100 provides totally different sensations and reactions. The big car gives an easy, soft ride, but the SS, with its cart springs and shock absorbers set up tightly, feels like riding on a board. If the windscreen is folded flat it provokes such a rush of air that goggles are necessary. Similarly, the wind whips round the side of the screen, even if it is raised, so a leather jacket is a wise precaution. The car has a skimpy aluminium body so that the rear wings can buckle if anyone attempts to push it over the headlamps, and behind the windscreen two cowls that rise like metal breasts to shield the instruments, were not in the best of taste.
A deeper reason for this coolness was that the SS100 could outperform other cars that cost nearly twice as much.
The author's youngest son, Stuart, with the SS100 he inherited from his father.
The SS100 reeks of the open road — and, to some, of the open roadhouse — and so in my latest adventure novel, Tank of Serpents (Collins), when I needed to provide a raffish character with a pre-war sports car, I chose this one, which is rather unfair, since I have owned four SS100s and all have given me an enormous amount of fun at very low cost.
Indeed, I can remember being let down by a mechanical failure only once. This was on an unusually hot day, when the engine overheated, causing the condenser in the distributor to lose its ability to condense. I simply coasted off the road, allowed a few minutes for the engine to cool, fitted a replacement condenser, and went on my way.
Spares for vintage cars are rarely a problem. There are clubs for nearly every make, and dozens of small firms make replacement parts. The Vintage Sports Car Club caters for the interests of all vintage car enthusiasts. (By definition, 'vintage' cars refer to those made between 1919 and 1930, so my trio are all post-vintage Thoroughbreds.)
Samuel Johnson wrote that 'a man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected'. By this reasoning, drivers of vintage cars have to be people of resource and resilience, and, in my experience, they are. Our cars come to possess almost human qualities and failings. In essence, they reflect the personalities and idiosyncrasies of the people who built them — and our own. Perhaps this is really the reason why we like them so much?
This article first appeared in the October 16, 1986 issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
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