Letters from readers, February 1943

Sir,

My deepest “salaams,” congratulations and admiration for continuing to provide enthusiasts the world over with a whiff of Castrol R, happy memories, and many hours of welcome discussion on subjects dear to their hearts. A marvellous effort!

One cannot but envy you lucky folk at home, who, even if restrictions prevent the use of your cars, can at least tinker with them and plan for them, when long days at Donington, Shelsley, or Brooklands at last come again!

I, however, must not grumble, for in front of me stands an excellent enlarged photograph of my 328 B.M.W. You can understand my relief when Phil Fowke, now in the R.A.F., replied to my frantic cables. “. . . Car safe and unharmed stop Forward keys can run her occasionally. . . .” This after the Jap blitz on Ceylon some time ago. An added relief is that her safety goes for Davies’s ex-Dobbs Riley, too, the latter being stored alongside the B.M.W.

Other items of interest relating to Ceylon enthusiasts’ machines show that the majority of them are O.K., thank goodness, so that the first C.M.S.C. Hill Climb after the war should once again provide some grand dicing.

The June issue of Motor Sport has some splendid articles, though Denis S. Jenkinson’s letter left me rather depressed when I counted up the relatively few remaining “stark, sporting-looking” machines built in England, let alone on the Continent, just before the war. May I add my voice to the many, many others who earnestly plead with Aston-Martin’s, Alta’s, H.R.G.’s, Allard’s, and the others to continue their “pukka” sports models after the Axis has been blitzed out of existence?

I am, Yours etc.,

B. Gordon Graham (Lieut.) – R.I.N.V.R., Bombay.