Lustrum14: Day 14: A motor car is NOT simply a way of getting from A to B

Readers will know my views of the motor car and its place in society. These views are not well-thought through and nor are they consistent and logical. You will be surprised at this as I am as a rule the epitome of logic and consistency.

I knew that Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built the first steam-powered automobile capable of human transportation. I had forgotten that this was 1796 but would have recalled it being an 18th Century event. What I did not know was that as early as 1807 a fellow called François Isaac de Rivaz designed the first car powered by an internal combustion engine which was fuelled by hydrogen.

I think what de Rivaz did was put together a lot of bits and pieces that others had invented and incorporated something where the combustion of the fuel (in his case hydrogen) occurred with an oxidiser. His machine used a spark for ignition. Isaac Newton remarked in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke in 1676 that “[w]hat Des-Cartes [sic] did was a good step. You have added much several ways, & especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders [sic] of Giants”.

De Rivaz stood on such shoulders. The Romans had invented the crank and connecting rod as early as the 3rd Century. Ismail al-Jazari was a Muslim polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, craftsman, artist, and mathematician. He is best known for writing the The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206. He invented an early crankshaft, which he incorporated with a crank-connecting rod mechanism in his twin-cylinder pump. Like the modern crankshaft, Al-Jazari's mechanism consisted of a wheel setting several crank pins into motion, with the wheel's motion being circular and the pins moving back-and-forth in a straight line. The crankshaft described by al-Jazari[2][3] transforms continuous rotary motion into a linear reciprocating motion.

Alessandro Volta (he gave his name to the volt) built a toy electric pistol in which an electric spark exploded a mixture of air and hydrogen, firing a cork from the end of the gun.

But it was 1886 when the first petrol or gasoline powered car the Benz Patent-Motorwagen was invented by Karl Benz. This car is the first production vehicle as Benz made several identical copies.

Now, none of this was in my mind as we made our way to the British Motor Museum.

We collected The Parents who had been completely exhausted by the previous day’s adventures and determined that we would submit them to another day of rollicking activity. The G has cracked the satnav which is now putty in her hands and we set it to select scenic routes. The postcode for the British Motor Museum is CV35 0BJ. In spite of her mastery of the satnav device, and her mastery is unquestioned and unquestionable, no such postcode could be found. We pumped in Gaydon (which is the place where it is) and off we went.

Now, the term “scenic” should conjure up in your eye, Gentle Reader, and particularly in a English country setting, scenes of idyllic bliss. Be not deceived. We are in England in the middle of February. There is not a leaf to be seen on any tree that is deciduous (and there are few enough that are not). “Scenic” is a relative term. There are, it has to be said, daffodils. It is early for daffodils which means that phrases like “I have never seen the daffs out so early” pepper the conversations of all around us.

The Museum is housed in buildings so new that they had only just been commissioned and the staff knew little about how everything operated. I am sure that there are consultants who will advise the operators of this kind of public entertainment how to lay out their facilities to the best advantage. The public needs easy and low-effort interaction with whatever attractions are at hand.

The Museum had not (had not obviously) engaged such consultants or if they had they could not have taken their advice. Most of the cars on display had information about make, model, performance and so on but some did not. The exhibits date from an 1896 Wolseley and I would have wanted to wander around in chronological order. I could not conveniently do this as there was no useful guidebook on offer.

What passed as a guide brochure for the Museum.

Nonetheless this was a place worth seeing and, in my view, worth going to see. I will simply provide some pictures below with commentary as appropriate (or possibly sometimes not appropriate.

In terms of my own machinery there was no P5 Rover (there were 2 P5Bs) but there was a racing TVR (which is pictured below).

There is no doubt that the Brits built some bloody good cars. There is also no doubt that they stuffed it all up completely in the 1960s and 1970s, in my view, because the car industry was managed by men (and I think they were men) who did not have the vision and capability of William Morris and who were incapable of seeing the way the world change around them. In short they were the products of a myopic English (and here I mean English) education system that stifled rather than encourage individualism and entrepreneurialism.

This is a Standard 8 - the first car I owned. Mine was a 1995 model and it was green though I resprayed it very badly in red. It had an 850cc engine and could not be described as quick off the mark. It had no heater and no ignition key, just a switch.

A TVR - a bitter quicker I expect than my Chimaera.

A bull-nose Morris (I think)

I think this must be a Series 1 Landie.

You cannot have a car museum without an E-type. The G, who knows about these things, says they are uncomfortable. Because I do not know this from experience I would still have one in a heartbeat!

This is an 850 Mini like my Mother had. Hers had the rego ROD228. The starter button was on the floor in these cars. I remember driving it once and the fan belt broke. My mother was in the car and was convinced that I had done something to make this happen. My then girlfriend was also in the car and lent (I should say donated) her tights which (my readers will know) are an excellent substitute for a fan belt.

An Austin 7.

Another Austin 7 but this one is exactly the same as the one my Parents had when I was born. I used to ride in the back in my carry cot.

This car surprised me. It's a convertible A35 and as I was saying to The G that I had never seen one I saw that only one was ever made. There was also something described as an A30. I didn't picture it as I was almost apoplectic because I am sure it was an A35. It had the bigger rear windscreen. I had an A35 which my Father bought me in 1971. Mine had been first registered on 1 January 1959.

A TR6. Beautiful: I had three of these but all mine were Series 1s. This is a Series 2 with the lower compression head and hence only 125bhp compared to 155bhp for the Series 1. It's amazing the clutter than fills up your memory.

A Lotus Europa. My friend Pete had one of these and it was lovely to drive but a bugger to keep in the raid. Eventually it got the better of him and when his potential buyer was test driving it something snapped (but he still bought it).

DB2.

Can't remember this one - is it an Allard?

Land Rover with very big wheels.

An Austin Princess, just a lovely limousine.

A 1909 Albion, 5,600cc and a top speed of 30mph.

My Mother with a Monaco Grand Prix Mini Cooper S. Every boy's dream in 1968 when I was a boy (and a boy old enough to drive).

Austin A90, 1955, was driven from North Cape (furthest north in Norway to South Cape (furthest south in South Africa). The driver was one Richard Pape and he managed to get through two cars (this was the second, the first fell down a ravine) and four co-drivers. So far as I can tell, Pape Richard Pape thought the “export or die” attitude of the British motor-industry was all very well, but, what they should be doing in the post-war 1950s is to prove themselves to the rest of the world that British engineering really was the best. From his obituary I find that he died in 1995 in Canberra.

We saw this picture before but I was hoping the addition of The G and my Father would show the sheer size of the wheels. They are twenty-fo's if they are inch.

1933 Riley Nine Kestrel.

Triumph Mayflower. These date from the early fifties and were often referred to as "razor edges". When I was at University people used to have these cars so they must have been cheap by the late 60s.

Austin A40. I think these were announced in 1959 at etc same time as the Mini. I heard somewhere that, along with the Mini, the British Motor Corporation (BMC) did not know how much they cost to make. No wonder they stuffed up.

Vauxhall Viva: they made these from 1963 to 1979. They went through three generations: the HA (1963-6), the HB (1966-70) and the HC (1970-79) and around 1.5m Vivas were sold during its lifetime. Elvis Costello referred to the car in his 1978 song "The Beat".

Now this is a magnificent machine. I owned for about 3 years (1972 to 1975) a white convertible version of this which would be pretty rare now. It boasts a straight six 1600cc engine. Eventually they replaced the 1600cc with the 2000cc from the Triumph 2000.

Alvis TE21. One of the cars on my list.

A Reliant Robin. One of the cars definitely NOT my list. We used to call them plastic pigs.

Triumph Roadster. They have a dicky seat and have such lovely lines.

Jensen CV8. I remember someone at University had one of these and I have always loved their shape. There was one for sale in Cobargo a while back. How the hell a car like this ended up in Cobargo is really anyone's guess.