Watts Up

Today vacuum cleaners, tomorrow cars. The EC has banned powerful engines in what we used to call Hoovers. How long before they go for cars? They’ve forbidden proper light bulb; they’ve given fridges and washing machines ratings. Cripps lives. The austere Sir Stafford (right) of the post-war Labour government disliked luxury cars and would have banned powerful ones. His fellow-reds in East Europe decreed the Trabant. Other levellers destroyed France’s luxury car industry. Cripps’s colleagues refused car manufacturers steel unless they made one model only.

Competition was deemed wasteful, but those that conformed, like Standard with the Vanguard (below), lived to regret it.

It was only the wisdom and entrepreneurship of the Wilks family, scorned by the powers-that-were for making Rovers so deprived of the means to make them, who got by with aluminium-bodied Land Rovers. The stop-gap saved their factory.

The EC and the Guardianistas have turned the war against carbon into a political movement. Fabian Cripps wanted Emergency Powers to rule by decree and although he never managed it, the EC follows the same principle. It imposes experts’ latest wheeze on the grounds that They Know what is Good for Us.

New vacuum cleaners are forbidden to have motors above 1,600W and, from 2017, 900W. The BBC’s environmental guru Roger Harrabin yesterday assured us that power was not important to the performance of a vacuum cleaner. It gathered dust just the same. You could say that about a Trabant (below); it would get you to Berlin or Moscow, it just took longer, it was noisy and it smoked.

The average vacuum cleaner now is about 1,800W, some as much as 2,200W, but it is only a matter of time before Crippsy bureaucrats marshal “experts”, to decree cars’ power for the sake of the environment, our own safety and banishment of wasteful competition.

They have already imposed rules on exhaust emissions, safety, headlamp heights, crush zones, materials, dimensions, fuel consumption and noise. Make the Watts Kilowatts. That would be 160kW or about 215bhp. And 90kW in a couple of years is 120bhp, about a mid-range Fiesta. Well it’s better than the 20kW or 27bhp of an asthmatic Trabant but then we have moved on haven’t we and we need more power to drive heavy bumpers, high headlamps, catalytic converters, crush zones, airbags…

Atalanta

Details of the Atalanta (left), showing at the International Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace this weekend, are sketchy. It is unlikely to be as avant garde as its predecessor. Only around 20 were made between 1937 and 1939 but it broke new ground as the first British production car with all-independent suspension. Claimed to “maintain true fidelity to its predecessor and offer a unique motoring experience, the new Atalanta exhibits the style of Silver Screen glamour combined with developments from 75 years of motoring evolution.”

However to match the cars backed by racing drivers Peter Whitehead and Denis Poore, besides novel Hiduminium and Electron all-independent suspension it should have adjustable dampers, hydraulic brakes, two spark plugs with at least three valves per cylinder, and a selectable supercharger. We are told that 90% of the new components are designed and engineered directly by Atalanta, including castings, forgings and fabrications and the body is traditional aluminium-over-ash coachbuilt. But originals had the option of an electric Cotal epicyclic gearbox, a sort of early semi-automatic, or a 3-speed dual overdrive Warner.

The first Atalanta engines were designed by Albert Gough, late of Frazer Nash, and they had more than the feeble 60bhp of the 1934 chain-driven sports cars. There was a choice of 1½litre 78bhp or 2litre 98bhp, but before many were made Atalanta had them redesigned. AC Bertelli of Aston Martin went back to 2-valve heads with superchargers to choice from Centric or Arnott. In 1938 a 4.3litre V12 Lincoln Zephyr engine of 112bhp provided a decent turn of speed. The Zephyr was not much more than a side-valve Ford V8 with four more cylinders, but it improved acceleration. Top speed either way was about 90mph; perhaps more than enough because the independent rear with horizontal coil springs was said to produce curious handling although reducing wheelspin. (Autocar 1937 artwork above right)

Atalanta managing director Martyn Corfield, who has experience in car restoring: “Staying true to the original Atalanta design principles, we have enhanced the positive and enjoyable characteristics of vintage motoring in a style that is relevant and exciting today. As in the 1930s, Atalanta Motors provides the opportunity to commission an individual driving machine to exacting requirements. The new sports car offers an exhilarating drive with assured handling and a supremely comfortable ride.”

Visitors to the Concours of Elegance will be able to see a prototype of the new car as well as a 1937 Atalanta, one of seven survivors, owned by Matthew Le Breton, which won Best in Show at the 2007 Cartier et Luxe Concours at Goodwood.

“Atalanta’s presence at this year’s Concours affords a rare opportunity to see and commission a piece of motoring heritage.” The originals were expensive at £582. Commissioning a new one will be a bit more.

EOIN YOUNG

Motor racing threw up some notable writers. SCH Davis, Bentley Boy of the 1920, sports editor of The Autocar over 40 years. Rodney Walkerley, his urbane, witty opposite number at The Motor. Bill Boddy, longest serving editor of Motor Sport; Denis Jenkinson its Continental Correspondent and co-pilot with Moss in the Mille Miglia. Gregor Grant, Autosport founder who never let the facts stand in the way of a good story. The engaging American Henry B Manney III, as funny in life as in print. Peter Garnier, Davis’s astute successor, so close to his subject they made him secretary of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association. Innes Ireland, amazingly articulate and perceptive at Autocar, paving the way for television punditry from James Hunt, Martin Brundle and David Coulthard. Elegant technicians, Laurence Pomeroy son of the gifted Vauxhall designer and LJK Setright, whose classical quotations were almost as good as Pom’s but whose engineering was no match. We had the well-informed David Phipps and nowadays Alan Henry and spirited prose from Maurice Hamilton and Peter Windsor.
Yet none of them were quite a match for the best news-gatherer the sport ever had. Ill-health has consigned Eoin Young to a hospice in his native New Zealand but his From The Grid column in Autocar was obligatory for anybody in the business or out of it. Well-connected ever since he came to Europe and worked with Bruce McLaren in 1961 Eoin had the biggest scoops. His was the best-informed commentary, nobody knew as much as he, nobody spilled as many secrets and above all his writing told readers he was the insider’s insider. It didn’t matter if you were an outsider, Eoin had a way of gaining your confidence.
Eoin Young knew who was going to drive for whom next year – sometimes before they did. He knew who was up-and-coming and who was going down-and-out. He would take notes and print it yet I don’t suppose he ever broke a single confidence. If you told Eoin anything he would take it that you were, in effect, telling the world. He was only the means to the printed page. His veracity seemed to encourage his informants, who told him things they’d confide to no-one else.
Maybe a little rancorous in later years - his personal life was turbulent – Eoin was competitive and neither gave nor expected anything less than determined bargaining in books. His Autocar columns will be a priceless resource to motor racing historians, his books perhaps less so. They were variable; he seemed to grow bored with research or writing at length or in depth. His forensic skills were best in his brief, punchy impertinent style.

Doubts on Diesels

We should have known better. Take politicians’ encouragement for diesels, then about-facing to say no diesels are really bad. They never say oh we’ve changed our mind or anything and Very Sorry. Boris and the rest of them are quite impenitent, They are going to charge diesels more whenever they get the chance.

It was so predictable. It’s not simply that politicians are self-serving, we can all be self-serving, but they just look so stupid. There seemed to be votes in going along with diesels in the 1990s when they could sell them on the back of “environmental” opinion. They may even have thought they were doing the “right” thing. People voting for them maybe believed it too. We in the media told them, quite often as it happens 25-30 years ago, that they were barking up a wrong tree. I liked diesels. They didn’t need sparks and electricity, which always gave trouble in the cars I could afford but they were never clean. Diesel was a byword for soot and smoke.

We, and I mean in this case me and many others, were far more convinced about the merit of lean-burn petrol engines rather than the catalytic converters about which lobbyists had convinced the politicos. It was the same with diesels. They’re sooty, we told them. Particulates are bad and you’ll be sorry, which they now are of course even though they can’t use the word. They listened to noble metals lobbyists and “environmentalists” panicking about global warming and CO2.

The “greenhouse effect” had been scary for years. In the 1960s I suppose, I had read a cautionary paper about it written by somebody I respected. I half-believed in it myself. There were motor industry people I trusted who apparently believed in it as well. I felt obliged to take it seriously and it was years before it became apparent that it was the greatest scientific fraud in the history of the planet.

It wasn’t so much that I was in denial about global warming, as increasingly sceptical about the alarmist messages over its cause. In the 1980s I remained open-minded. But what the reality was, as revealed to me years later by the head of research at Mercedes-Benz, was that industry engineers were only acknowledging a movement bound to enrapture politicians, much as they had in the Los Angeles smogs of the 1950s. The motor industry knew it would have to pay lip-service to greenery and for decades it was forced to continually reinvent “solutions” to appease political vanity. Engineers, it turns out, were more concerned with meeting the demands of legislatures than ever they were about man-made global panic-mongering.

Dr Thomas Weber was a member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, and responsible for Group Research & Mercedes-Benz cars’ development. He told me Daimler was spending €4.4 billion every year guessing what wheeze the politicians would decide on next. Throughout Europe they were obsessed with climate change or safety or whatever cause celebre lobbyists were coming up with.

And now, with diesels, they have changed their mind. Why am I not surprised?

Pictures (top): Not a diesel 1. 1940 BMW 328, tall 2 litre with three downdraught carburettors. OZ80 on cam cover denotes racing engine of Mille Miglia car I drove on Scottish event. (right)
First production diesel car, Mercedes-Benz 260D 1936-1939. (left) And its engine. (Below) Not a diesel 2 Mercedes-Benz test track, Unterturkheim, not as scary as it looks, I drove identical car here with test driver instructing precisely on speed and place on the banking.

Clive Jacobs 1939-2014

Clive and I worked as colleagues on BBC Radio 4’s Going Places and BFBS motoring programmes, as well as a 1970s venture in stereo recordings of motor racing called Competition Cassettes. I marvelled at his professionalism in live studios. I was a hesitant broadcaster, but with Clive you knew there was never going to be a crisis. His rich voice would intervene in its deeply measured way and you were out of trouble in a trice.

You weren’t always out of trouble with Clive. We drove together sometimes on press launches and at least once, when he was at the wheel of a right hand drive car, we faced disaster in a left hand drive country. Meticulous, precise restorer of clocks and watches, Clive made models, loved cars and revelled in their rectitude. He could afford good cars although he had to suffer incredulity with a few, such as his AMC Pacer, at least with grace although not invariably good. This Rolls-Royce was one of his better ones.
Clive and I, you could say, were related by marriage. I was sorry he wasn’t at my recent birthday party; when he wasn’t able to come we knew things were serious but he was cheerfully represented by his son Blair and family. Clive was a great stepfather to Craig, invariably kind, and an everlasting friend.

Divina Galica and Susie Wolff

Divina Galica and Susie Wolff illustrate the difference between quick and competitive lap times. Quite a lot of drivers can manage decent back-of-the-grid laps in a well set-up racing car. I have done it myself. And inside the five laps which, they say, shows you could go faster.

Reaching the middle of the grid is harder. A front row time requires not only native skill, visual acuity, lots of experience or whatever it is that makes a good racing driver. You have to be brave. Professional drivers deny bravery in public but in private they have told me they have caught themselves literally holding their breath trying for a fast lap. Sure there are the Jim Clarks and Sebastian Vettels, who have some magic ingredient that always makes them point something of a second a lap faster – or the Michael Schumachers who take risks on skis.

When it gets to actual racing wheel-to-wheel a driver needs an unusual degree of self-confidence, or maybe lack of imagination. It must get the adrenalin-flow that makes them face danger if not with equanimity at least with resolve. At that point it doesn’t much matter which sex you are.

Divina Mary Galica MBE held the British women's downhill skiing speed record at 125 mph so she could cope with speed. She took part in her first Olympic games at Innsbruck in 1964 aged 19, competing in downhill skiing and slalom. She was in the next two winter Olympics, at Grenoble in 1968 and Sapporo in 1972, both times captain of the British Women’s Olympic Ski Team, finishing in the top ten of the Giant Slalom. Aside from Olympic competition, Divina achieved two World Cup podium finishes downhill, taking third place at both Badgastein and Chamonix in 1968. She even returned to skiing at the 1992 Winter Olympics, representing Great Britain in speed skiing.

Divina drove so well in a 1970s celebrity motor race that she embarked on a new career. She raced karts before Formula 2, finding success in sports cars and later in the rough and tumble of truck racing. She drove in Formula Renault and Formula Vauxhall Lotus and publicity and sponsorship opportunities led to Formula 1. There was more single-seater racing before she switched to Thundersports S2000 sports cars, eventually becoming a racing instructor with Skip Barber Racing Schools. She rose to senior vice president of Skip Barber Racing, managing both its driving school and racing series. In 2005, at the Mont-Tremblant weekend of the Skip Barber Race Series, Galica announced she was leaving Skip Barber to work for iRacing.com as a director in the company.

Divina was cross with me for downplaying her chances in Formula 1 although I tried not to buy into the idea that her reputation on snow and her looks engaged the sponsors. Yet even the staid old Guardian took any opportunity to carry her picture. She certainly had the right stuff and really was only a few fractions of a second off the pace.

Susie Stoddart, now Susie Wolff will drive a Williams.

Divina Galica, the former Olympic skier, is to try and qualify for the John Player British Grand Prix on July 18. She could be the first British girl to drive in a world championship Grand Prix should she lap the Brands Hatch Grand Prix track in around lmin.23sec in the Surtees TS 16, with which she broke five British speed records last week.
John Surtees is trying to complete a new TS 19 car for her to take part in the biggest test of her two-year-old career at the wheel, but she will probably still use the car in which she lies fourth in the Shellsports 5000 European Championships,
The chances of Divina reaching the starting grid in the Grand Prix are slim. There are 30 entries, 26 places on the grid, and it will only be if some cars fail to turn up, or have trouble during practice, that she is likely to take part in the Grand Prix - round nine in the 1976 World Championships.
Two years ago Lella Lombardi, the Italian girl driver who subsequently took part in a full season’s Formula One, was entered for the same race and managed a lap at 1min. 23.3sec. Although there were five cars slower, she failed to qualify for the race by a full second. Recent alterations to the track have slowed it slightly, and James Hunt’s pole position for the Race of Champions in March was 1min. 20.4sec., so Divina will need to aim for something between 1min. 23sec. and 1min. 23.sec., to reach even the back row of the grid.
Yesterday I asked what her best time in private practice had been round the undulating 2.61miles, but she confessed she had not yet driven the full course. Her longest race so far has been only three quarters of an hour, to the two gruelling hours a Grand Prix would take.
Imperial Tobacco Ltd will take their cigarette brand insignia off the cars they have entered in the Grand Prix, which means the John Player Lotuses will appear in plain black and gold, without the J.P.S. logo. This follows an undertaking given to Dr David Owen, Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Security last November.
Throughout their two cigarette manufacturing units, John Player and Sons and W. D. & H. O. Wills, Imperial Tobacco are one of the largest sponsors of motor racing in the country. No similar undertaking has so far been given by Phillip Morris, the American company who sponsor the Marlboro World Championship team.

Davina crashes
Divina Galica had a narrow escape from injury when she crashed her Hesketh on the first day of unofficial practice for Sunday’s Argentina Grand Prix. She went off on one of the fastest parts of the course, a 150 m.p.h. bend, and wrecked one side of her car against the safety barrier.
“I was trying out some suspension modifications,” she said later. “The car just turned round on me. It was very quick, and there’s really no explanation. We are getting the spare car ready for practice tomorrow.” Miss Galica had been having trouble getting down to a competitive practice time, and her accident might make it difficult for her. She needs to improve by seven or eight seconds - a big margin - to reach a qualifying speed.
She has been in Buenos Aires for several days, and so far has not posted a lap speed that would qualify her for the race. Mario Andretti (John Player Lotus), James Hunt (McLaren), and Niki Lauda (Brabham Alfa Romeo) were among the fastest drivers yesterday in good conditions, with a light breeze taking a little of the heat out of the strong sun.
Miss Galica was not the only driver who went off the road. Didier Pironi, the new member of the Tyrrell team, collected some catch fences on the right hand corner at the end of the pits, but damage was superficial.
Practice proper starts today with 24 starting places at stake for the 28 cars entered. It is already apparent that the winners will be those who pace themselves best on Sunday. Driving on the limit in this heat would, mean cars would be unlikely to survive two hours’ racing, even if the drivers did.
Tyres have gone soggy within a few laps, not so much from the influence of the hot asphalt, as the absence of the usual stream of cool air to keep their working temperature correct
Lap times until now must be treated with caution, because yesterday’s tests were more in the nature of a shake-down. Brake pads must be bedded-in, the gloss abraded off new tyres water and oil run through engines to make sure things are done up, but already there are signs to show who will be fast and which teams have tpo worry about starting places.
The military remains the biggest worry to the Grand Prix Circus. Like many other things in Argentina. The track officials take second place to the masses of heavily armed soldiery who stand about, taking on roles usually the preserve of police at European tracks, or as in Britain, volunteer marshals.

Good piece by Beverley Turner in The Telegraph today

Pipe down

Smoking in cars is one thing, smoking on a motorcycle quite another. Ninety years ago Motor Sport, or the Brooklands Gazette as it was known, was advertising the OHV (for overhead valve) pipe featuring a device on top of the bowl to prevent the tobacco being fanned red-hot by the slipstream. I gave up smoking my pipe in my MGA not only because the wind raised sparks that caught in my hair, which I had then, but when it dawned on me that if I had an accident my pipe would probably be stuffed down my throat.

Motorcyclists, it seems, had no such worries. I guess they hoped that in an accident rider and pipe would expect, as they said then, to be “thrown clear”.
The Only Pipe for Motor-Cyclists – Gives a cool even smoke at high speeds – in high wind, and in rain. No sparks to fly out. Revolving and removeable top of aluminium, easily adjustable to direction of wind. Owing to the Briar being matured by special process, and also to the scientific adjustment of bore, this pipe can be smoked when new without harshness. Free draught. Exceptionally light. No clogging. Best finish throughout. English made. Hallmarked silver band. Equal in every respect to many pipes sold at 21/-. Refuse imitations. Money back if not satisfied. At 5/6 (27.5p) I hope J Singleton of Suffolk St, Birmingham sold lots.

Banning smoking in cars sounds like one of those laws you shouldn’t need. Common sense says it’s not good. Bad enough imposing smoke on children or passengers but it’s also bad for car control. Fag ash, red hot or not, flying about a car is distracting and so is holding a cigarette at the wheel. Some things, alas, are beyond the scope of a law.

Saab 92 aerodynamics

Talking, as I have been, about manufacturers’ publicity pictures, I always liked cutaways. It’s the engineer in me. Nothing ever conveyed a car’s structure like a good graphic. The Motor road tests used to do it well, showing how the mechanical bits of a car fitted in with rather stiff-looking occupants. The Saab 92 (left), produced from 1950-1955, makes the point. You can see where the tiny engine leans forward ahead of the front wheels, which it drives, and where the radiator is mounted to catch the air-flow. The upholstery looks a bit thin and rear people have to tuck their feet below the front seat.

In 1950 they made 1246 Saab 92s, every one the same shade of green. It was more important to get production started, and eliminate bottlenecks in the paintshop, than offer buyers a range of colours. It’s said the aircraft factory had over-stocked on green paint for its aeroplanes. Modest power propelled the little car at barely 100kph (60mph). There were only three gears and reaching 50mph occupied the best part of half-a-minute. It scarcely mattered; there was no shortage of customers in 1950.

Although slow, the Saab had clear-cut qualities. Encouraged by the success 2-stroke DKWs had in Sweden before the war it went for an engine cheap to make and simple. A parallel twin-cylinder 3-port 2-stroke of 764cc (80 x 76mm) with Schnürle scavenging, producing 24bhp at 3,800rpm, it was narrow enough to be set across the front with an aluminium head and flat-topped pistons. It had three main roller bearings, a built-up crankshaft with a pair of 180-degree-spaced crankpins, and three main bearing journals pressed into disc crankwebs. Only the small-end bearings were plain, not ball or roller. An extension from the crankshaft carried the cam for the dual-coil ignition, and lubrication was by 4 per cent oil added to the petrol.

A single-plate clutch and 3-speed gearbox, with synchromesh on third and top and a steering column gearshift, formed a unit with the engine. Engine mountings were unusual, a single transverse leaf spring supporting the forward part on rubber torque-resisting buffers, and a rubber cushion at the rear. The result was virtually vibrationless, especially at low revs.

Laurence Pomeroy, who had conducted experiments on aerodynamic cars at Brooklands in 1939, tested a 92 in 1950: “… a most interesting example of the type of car which emanates from an aircraft factory, and shows the benefits of clean lines by giving nearly 65mph (105kph) on less than 25bhp. Excellent roadholding and direct steering were also characteristic of this model, but, as is often the case with 2-strokes, the fuel consumption was not the best feature, failing to reach 40mpg (7.06l/100kms).”

Pomeroy’s advocacy of the slippery shape was only partly justified, for far from being worthy of an aircraft manufacturer, the Saab fell short of ideals laid down by German aerodynamics pioneer, Paul Jaray. Despite the classic teardrop shape, it had a thoroughly average air drag coefficient of 0.35. The bulbous front wings gave an unnecessarily large frontal area so the puny power had a lot of air to displace at 60mph (97kph). Had it been slimmer below the waistline, fuel consumption might have been better.

On the steering, however, Pomeroy was characteristically correct. The Saab’s rack and pinion took only 1.75 turns from lock to lock so it was high-geared, light, accurate and by comparison with nearly all its contemporaries (with worm and nut, cam and roller, recirculating balls, and other nightmares) sheer delight. Tactile, direct, strongly self-centring, drivers could feel road shocks but they could also feel what the wheels were doing, adding amply to the control that compensated for the car’s relative sloth.

In 1950 The Motor commented: “The Saab's layout is ingenious both in conception and in detail. Its unorthodoxy sets a reviewer a task which is difficult yet exceptionally interesting: difficult because of lack of standards for comparison, and interesting for revealing the gains and losses resulting from new layouts and construction methods.” The Motor wanted to be convinced. Its authors liked the principles Saab employed, but they were not finding the results entirely bore out their expectations.

It says something for the speed expected of a 1940s small car that they observed: “The surprise comes in experiencing the power. The car is fast, but what distinguishes it is acceleration in top gear in the vital 15-45mph speed range, which would not disgrace a car of twice the engine size.” There were doubts about refinement: “The Saab lacks the smoothness and silence which the average baby car has acquired between 1940 and 1950.”

The problem of stiffness around a boot lid aperture was solved by not having one on the 92. Access to luggage was through the rear seat. The smooth underside had stiffening ribs and box-section sills, its flat profile a great boon on loose, gritty Swedish roads while the designers concentrated the strength of the body in the middle. The burden of suspension loads were fed into the strong central structure by mounting the front torsion bars in the forward scuttle with tubular bolsters. Torsion bars for the trailing arm independent rear suspension were well forward of the rear hubs, so that the length of the frame subject to suspension-induced loads was less than 85 per cent of the wheelbase.

It was a strategy adopted more than a decade later by cars as diverse as the D-Type Jaguar and the Rover 2000, both of which had stiff centre sections carrying the strain of the suspension, so that the outermost extremities of the car could be thin-skinned and light weight. Above: prototype Saab 92s. Below, later Saab 96 with in-line engine.

800,000 Scots

I agree with Alistair Darling. He wants the 800,000 Scots living elsewhere in the UK to make themselves heard. I was Scottish Nationalist for about a fortnight when I was 15 but I got over it. It was a teenage symptom. Alex Salmon thought he would harness the yoof vote for the referendum, only for a recent poll to show that teenagers know the real world better than he does. Mr Darling was launching a London branch of the Better Together campaign and drew a comparison with the separatists’ Yes Scotland campaign, which asserted that people living south of the Border should not be able to donate more than £500 towards it. Sir Alex Ferguson handed over a symbolic £501 by way of contradiction. It says something if I can agree with Alistair Darling and Sir Alex Ferguson in the same paragraph.

The Better Together launch at Westminster was backed by Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Lord Strathclyde, former Leader of the House of Lords. Addressing the 800,000 exiles, which include 100,000 in London, Mr Darling said: “You may not have a vote in the referendum, but you do have a voice. You have a right to have your opinion heard and you have a right to play your part in keeping Scotland in the UK. The nationalists don't want to hear from you. They believe that, because you have chosen to live and work in another part of the country, somehow you shouldn't be allowed to be involved.” Le Mans 1956. The first of Ecurie Ecosse’s astonishing wins with Flockhart and Sanderson in D-type Jaguar XKD501.

Scarcely any of Salmond’s campaign is not now completely shredded. It is summed up by the editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson: “Only now is (Alex Salmond) facing proper scrutiny, and he seems strikingly unprepared. He has been flummoxed by George Osborne’s declaration that an independent Scotland may have trouble using the pound. For years, the SNP has hinted that it has legal advice claiming an independent Scotland could stay in the European Union. It has now been forced to admit that no such advice exists. The latest can of worms to burst open is the notion that an independent Scotland should have a properly funded pension scheme: dull matters, certainly, but important ones that expose the mess that separation involves.”

Jim McColl, one of Salmond’s greatest business backers, said recently that he would settle for “an independent Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom”. Some hope. A few weeks ago he was exposed as a Monaco-based tax exile. As with actors such as Sean Connery and Alan Cumming, the SNP finds nationalists who will do anything for Scotland except live there. Billy Connolly got it about right, describing Holyrood as a pretendy parliament. Remember Tony Blair reassuring somebody 20 years ago that it would be no more than a sort of parish council.

Agree with Tony Blair? Maybe that would be a step too far.

Scots in motor racing: (top) Jim Clark’s Rookie of the Year 1963 Indianapolis jacket. (above) When drivers wielded a wheel spanner. Jackie Stewart unbolts a wheel on his BRM in a Tasman race while Jim Clark drives up the pit lane during practice. (below) Dove Publishing ebook. Buy from Amazon £7.21.

Middle Lane Muse

What do they mean, hogging the middle lane? I set the cruise control to an indicated 80mph, that is 70mph plus the 10 per cent or so the law allows. At this speed the middle lane of the motorway is perfectly agreeable. Flyers fly by on the outside, trucks trundle along on the inside; everybody, you would think, would be happy.

But no. Self-appointed Guardians Of The Highway Code, which says in effect you should always pull to the left, come up behind at 85 or 90mph and make a great display of swerving out as they overtake. They flash indicators and point leftwards in rebuke. I am too old and dignified for road rage and let them get on their high-blood-pressure way.

Smooth consistent and predictable behaviour is far better than dashing from lane to lane. The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) manual says: "Return to the left when you can, but do not do this over-zealously so that you end up constantly skipping from one lane to another. Far too often on motorways you see strings of cars bunched needlessly in the right hand lane queuing up to pass a few people drifting along in the centre lane."

Drifting along in the centre lane seems to exclude those, like me, going about their lawful affairs at around the statutory speed limit. Driving experts disapprove of Slow Lane, Middle Lane, and Fast Lane; the outside one is the Overtaking Lane but in theory if the Middle Lane is occupied by 70mph traffic nobody should be overtaking anyway.

The safest roads are those on which all the traffic is doing the same speed. If everybody is bowling along at 60 or 70 nobody is going to be taken by surprise. Consistency, changing lane as seldom as possible, and constant monitoring of what is behind are best. Yes of course I look in the mirror and pull over if there’s nothing in the leftist lane, but now I fear those Guardianistas will think the traffic plods are on their side and hector even more.

(top) Bugatti Type 57S Atalante. (below) Bentley blower by Amherst Villiers.

Jargon

A “Growth Partnership Company (which) works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants,” makes me suspicious. It “supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating two key elements driving visionary innovation: The Integrated Value Proposition and The Partnership Infrastructure. (This) provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation. (It) is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible. This includes our 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices as well as our global footprint of more than 40 offices. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies?”

How do they expect to be taken seriously with such cliché-ridden verbiage? It almost goes without saying that it’s an agency engaged on selling us electric car stuff. It claims “the European Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Market is Becoming Increasingly Self Sustaining. Market to be bolstered by improved strategic access to charging stations and development of robust business models. The electric vehicle (EV) charging industry in Europe is in the midst of transformation, with the focus on ramping up EV charging infrastructure for the rapidly expanding EV market. Significant growth is on the cards as participants from various verticals such as industrial automation, utilities, parking operators and infrastructure operators enter the fray. This development is also set to help the EV market wean itself off government subsidies and incentives, while becoming increasingly self-sustaining.”

“I have seen the future, and it works,” trilled American journalist and social activist Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936). He had been to Russia in 1919 and the Revolution was still new. Many dotty luminaries followed, persuaded by Soviet minders that collectivism was a success, fulfilling their Fabian visions.

Well, Russia was not the future. It didn’t work.

Idealists only want their prejudices approved and electric car enthusiasts who only think that after a bit of research the battery “problem” will be solved are as deluded as the promoters of the electric car vehicle charging infrastructure. I’ve lost count of the Great Electric Car initiatives that have come and gone. Some have failed expensively and publicly once their glib opportunistic entrepreneurs have soaked up subsidies and investments by stupid governments and Greenie authorities.

“New analysis, Strategic Technology and Market Analysis of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure in Europe, finds that the market for EV charging stations is expected to grow rapidly from 7,250 charging stations in 2012 to over 3.1 million by 2019 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 113.3 per cent over the period 2012-2019. France, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom are expected to lead the market due to the high adoption rates of EVs in these countries. The availability of charging infrastructure plays a vital role in ensuring that EVs maintain their growth momentum. This, in turn, means easy access to charging stations to eliminate range anxiety and ensure that EV users have the freedom to drive for longer periods of time.”

I won’t bother you with the identity of the growth partnership purveyor. It wasn’t Elektromotive, whose charging stations are featured in the pictures. Search 360 degree, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices, global footprint.

I see the “annual” London to Brighton electric car challenge has been cancelled.

Blaming speed.

Blaming speed for car accidents is a bit like blaming altitude for aircraft crashes. A stationary car, like an aeroplane that never leaves the ground, is perfectly safe. Speed of some sort is inseparable from both, cars can do a lot of damage at 10mph, and lowering speed limits (like lowering altitude) does not always remove danger. It would be nice to think that 30mph is safe, and the slower you go the safer you are, but road behaviour is subtler than that.

Enforcing current limits is difficult enough, experience shows drivers generally go along with those they believe fair and necessary, but trying to decrease them may be counter-productive. I once talked to a traffic policeman, who patrolled a notorious A-class highway on which nine fatal accidents occurred in seven years. Progressively lessening speed limits made no difference. Limits were enforced vigorously yet a tenth death only served to emphasise authorities’ bafflement. All the available expertise seemed to offer no solution.

He agreed that the trouble probably lay in the piecemeal nature of the road, which had open, well-engineered stretches alternating with narrow twisting, heavily trafficked ones. The change of pace and interruptions to drivers’ and riders’ concentration were closer to the root of the problem than further speed limits. They already encompassed 60mph, 50mph. and 40mph. Of course drivers ought not to lose concentration, but in such matters of life and death we have to deal with the real world, not the world as we would like it to be.

Anti-speed lobbyists have become so shrill that their perfectly worthy aim of improved safety is lost in a speeding driver scapegoat-search, with the unfortunate (and wholly acceptable to a parsimonious government) side-effect, of diverting attention from road improvements to re-engineer that policeman’s beat, giving him fewer grisly and unhappy messes to clear up.

Full marks to Honda for its support, with a CR-V, for the Scottish helicopter ambulance service.

Which? complaints

Which? claims nine drivers in ten think cars should have spare wheels. That means nine drivers out of ten are either living in the Dark Ages of the motor car, or drive something old with worn-out wheels. They think they may need to get the Stepney out and affix it by the roadside. Don’t they realise life’s not like that now?

They don’t trust tyres. They trust engines and transmissions. They don’t carry a spare gearbox or camshaft belt, yet these are as likely to fail as a modern properly inflated tyre. Dear me yes father always had a spare wheel in the boot or, in our first Wolseley, in a metal casing on the outside of what would have been the boot lid. There it got wet, rusty, and was usually flat when you needed it. Come to think of it the cleverly named Jackall (jack-all, geddit) hydraulic jacking system you worked by pumping a handle through a hole in the floor didn’t always lift the wheels off the ground. Punctures left a Bad Taste.

Which? readers are cross because rascally car manufacturers provide a repair kit which is, “more expensive if you get a puncture because you’ll have to replace the sealant and the tyre each time you get a flat.” Each time. Scandalous. Furthermore, “Tyres can’t be repaired due to the chemicals in sealants. Water-based sealants, such as Honda’s, can be flushed out to allow a repair but only a franchised dealer can do this.” Disgrace. A Vauxhall Astra canister can cost £50 and a new tyre £148. “Conversely, fixing a simple puncture costs roughly £15.”

Which planet is Which? living on? The only people who seriously repair punctures nowadays must be driving very slowly on spindly tyres. Back in the Dark Ages we did drive until the canvas showed through. (I heard a TV Formula 1 commentator say that not long ago – he must have been a Dark Ages survivor too). But it was different with skinny tyres and slow speeds. “Give me a full-sized spare wheel anytime. I’ll put up with the weight and the slightly smaller boot space,” complain Which? readers. “I recently had a puncture and found my car has no spare wheel. Having to spend £200 on a new tyre was a bit much. A total rip-off especially if the tyre has thousands of miles left in it.” How do you suddenly discover your car has no spare wheel? Do people not look? Drivers like that should be condemned to drive on skinny Dark Ages tyres that last 50,000 miles so they will skid on the wet cobbles and get killed.

Nine Which? drivers out of ten have no idea how far we have come in tyre technology.

Pictures: TOP Continental Tyres 140th anniversary BELOW Wolseley 14 MIDDLE Dark Ages. Even record breakers carried spares. In 1924 Malcolm Campbell’s Bluebird (a 350hp Sunbeam, here with stub exhausts) changed wheels between runs at Pendine. Boards prevent narrow tyres sinking into wet sands. Which? tyre test class winner. ContiSportContact3. BOTTOM Continental Tyres Cord: Moscow Fashion Designer creates a new trend. Pictures from splendid Newspress.

Louis Renault

He may not have been everybody’s tasse de thė but the fate of Louis Renault seems to have been a little severe even by the standards of 1944. After founding the great automotive empire that bears his name, he was unfortunate enough to end his days in Fresnes prison and nobody is quite sure whether the death certificate was being completely frank in claiming it was just old age. He was exhumed 12 years later and they said it was probably pneumonia, but that wasn’t counting the broken neck.

The Affaire Renault was re-examined several times, and was the subject of a book in French by Jean-Paul Thevenet, which suggests that he was not so much a collaborator as merely imprudent, suffering the fate of many Frenchmen at the end of the war meeting his end at the hands of political enemies paying off old scores. The result, so far as France was concerned, was the creation of the Regie Renault with annual losses that reached £lbn in the 1960s.

Renault got into business with his brothers Marcel and Fernand in 1898, when he took the 1.75bhp engine off his De Dion Bouton tricycle and put it to better use in a four wheel car of his own (above). They set up in Billancourt, and between 1899 and 1901 won lots of town-to-town races. Louis was rather better than Marcel, not only winning more often, but managing to keep out of trouble on the 1903 Paris-Madrid in which Marcel got no further than Couhé-Vérac before being killed. (Marcel on the Paris-Madrid)

Fernand died in 1908 so Renault Frères became SA des Usines Renault with Louis in sole and somewhat autocratic charge. One of his engineers Maurice Herbster said he spoke little, made no jokes, didn’t smoke or drink indeed his only passion, apart from the factory was women, of which he seemed to enjoy a lot.

He hated administration, reduced offices to the minimum, and practically forbade tables and chairs, which he regarded only as an incitement to laziness and idle chat. Supervisors were allowed only a small desk on the factory floor with no chair. Where it was noisy they were allowed a box round the desk, but not big enough for two to stand and talk. Even the toilets were made small to discourage reading the paper.

Louis Renault was arrogant and obstinate. He disliked officialdom, and often quarrelled with it, for example when discussing with the army whether it should have 23 tonne or 13.5 tonne tanks. The army wanted the heavier, Renault favoured the lighter. “Je m’en fous, j’en fais un.” - I’ll make them anyway. And he did.

He was also imprudent. At the 1935 Berlin Motor Show he made no secret of his fascination with Hitler and the power he wielded. He had a two hour interview with The Führer which led to comment in France Soir. As late as 1938 he was talking to Hitler about entente between France and Germany, and was enthusing over the concept of the VW, which he wanted to adopt for France.
(Renault tank assembly - the Wehrmacht used thousands) (Reinastella of 1929, when Renault was up-market)
His reputation as a hard- liner with labour followed an ill-judged attempt to beat a strike in 1936. He tried to persuade the workers that he was going to plough the profits back into new plant and it was not in anyone’s interests to have pay rises or shorter hours. L’Humanité denounced him as an exploiter and he had to concede paid holidays, wage rises, and shorter hours.

Renault’s quarrel with the army was remembered in 1939 when Daladier, then Minister of Defence, bought trucks from the United States and Italy. His factories were requisitioned and in view of his suspected Nazi sympathies, he was dispatched to America. The image of Renault as pro-German was taking hold.

Following the occupation he was able to return and set up a tank repair service for the Germans. He was reinstated at Billancourt and the factory was geared for war production. Thevenet claims it was no more than his obsession with keeping things going that made him do it, but the left-wing movement in France, which made up the core of Resistance fighters, thought otherwise.
(Billancourt head office)
He made the mortal mistake of turning down the idea of a discreet Resistance cell within Billancourt. Told that De Gaulle, then leading the Free French from London, would like one, he remarked unforgivably, “De Gaulle, connais pas,” or roughly translated to modern English, “De Gaulle — Who he?”

Well into his 60s, Renault was now exhausted by the war. The Germans wanted more lorries, he didn’t want to be bombed again and suggested Renault trucks be made with Ford cabs to disguise them. He even tried to organise a strike, but the workforce refused, “Le Patron déraille” — the boss is unhinged.
(Bomb damage, Billancourt)
Following the Liberation, L’Humanité was after Renault again. It recalled the 1936 strike, and claimed that while France had been unable to make any weapons for itself, Renault had been producing them for the enemy since 1940. Under a new decree, L’Ordonnance sur Ia repression des faits de collaboration, L ‘Humanité demanded justice against traitors and profiteers of treason. An anonymous letter in the paper called for his arrest and the removal of his Grand Croix de la Legion d’Honneur.

The Berliet family had also been arrested and their truck factory taken over, De Gaulle managing to overcome his distaste for nationalisation by simply looking the other way. Louis Renault was taken to Fresnes prison “for his protection”, where he was guarded by the FTP resistance fighters, his traditional adversaries, not by the regular authorities. It was a brutal regime in Fresnes and his wife found him on several occasions suffering from beatings. By October 1944 he was seriously ill and two psychiatrists diagnosed senile dementia, yet there were inexplicable delays in getting him to hospital.

The official account of what happened to him is vague; the pages in the prison records dealing with Louis Renault are missing.

He died on October 24th.
(Post-war Quatre Cheveaux - the French were so keen on it they kidnapped the imprisoned Dr Porsche to help with the design)
Louis' family remained dissatisfied over the cause of death, and in 1956 his body was exhumed. Forensic evidence suggested pneumonia; there were no skull fractures even though his wife testified he had suffered severe head injuries. It was confirmed however, that there was a fracture of the cervical vertebra, consistent with a rabbit-punch to the back of the neck.

In 1949 an official enquiry found little evidence against Renault himself conceding that he had had little choice but to work for the Germans, and probably his worst fault was his obsession with his factory. A former colleague Fernand Picard observed wryly after Renault’s death, “He was hard, almost inhuman, he was so determined and his lifelong passion was the Usine Renault. Nothing else mattered to him.” Forty years later, he confided, “To have accused him of loving the Germans is absurd. Louis Renault never loved anyone.”
(Racing Renault. Later version of the 1906 grand prix car)