My Marendaz

Sir,

A belated reply to Captain Marendaz’s letter — it takes a long time for the magazine to arrive here in Kenya.

How pleasing it is to see DMK still defending his product of nearly 60 years ago. In the Sixties I owned the only then known 17/90, a car I enjoyed enormously and which led to my love of large vintage tourers, culminating in a 3-litre Sunbeam. A super car and much underrated. The fact that I now have a tiny 8/18 Talbot DHC is another story. Suffice to say that it’s quite capable of carrying the children in the back and with its solid rear axle is rather good at VSCC driving tests.

I would take issue with DMK on one matter. To state that the car’s brakes were never “vacuum, mechanically or electrically aided” is simply not true. To the best of my knowledge all Marendaz Specials were fitted with a mechanical 2:1 reduction box beneath the brake pedal.

Regrettably, my car never stopped as well as those supplied for contemporary road tests, but I think that was my fault. It went jolly well though, for as long as the head-gasket lasted.

After I had sold it, I discovered that the compression ratio was around 11:1, after numerous people had skimmed both head and block. The head studs didn’t cope very well with this.

Still, a motor car with fond memories.

Stuart Bennett

Nairobi, Kenya