"First Thursday" at "The Phoenix" (May 3rd)

Anyone passing the Phoenix Hotel at Hartley Wintney in Hampshire on the evening of the first Thursday last month should have realised that the V.S.C.C. was in possession, because there were two 30/90 Vauxhalls, a Frazer-Nash propelled by chains, a lovely “unshut” Lancia Lambda tourer and a perpendicular Austin Heavy Twelve saloon, amongst others, outside. There was an 18/80 M.G. Six with a tow-bracket and a vast silencer on the end of its external exhaust system, a badge-laden 12/50 Alvis, a just-vintage Jowett saloon, a Brooklands Riley Nine, and there was a group of “Chain Gangsters ” discovering that the Anzani engine in the only aluminium pointed-tail sports A.C. still in circulation differs in respect of manifolding, breather, oil pump and other aspects from the Anzani engine usually found in a Frazer-Nash of the same period. In fact, a typically V.S.C.C. “First Thursday” was in progress!