Encounters

The pleasure of motoring is closely bound up with the roads you traverse, and the cars you encounter, as well as with the vehicles you drive. Running into London along A 30 in a Renault 750 recently we had a spirited duel with a left-hand-drive Opel Kapitan on Continental number plates, to the unconcealed delight of its driver and charming blonde passenger.

Later that day we retrieved our normal transport from its sojourn at Acton, after returning the road-test Renault — the Plus Four greeted its lord and master by promptly discarding a steering damper — and on the run home encountered a very nice vintage 10.8-h.p. Clyno tourer, the V.S.C.C. badge on its radiator, which in the next few miles out of Bagshot displayed those excellent cornering and braking qualities which proved so enjoyable in a car of this sort which we owned some years ago. Incidentally, we noticed that his example had the soon-to-be-compulsory red rear reflectors in place, looking not too conspicuous, one on each mudguard.

It is brief encounters such as these which enliven the drabness of the English summer and the working day. — W.B.