Trailing and roundels

Sir,

Referring to your write-up on the December Driving Tests at Silverstone, I would like to point out that the car driven by Mrs. Hogg, the Aston Martin International, having competed in at least 200 races since 1950 and having won over 70 awards, I feel is fully entitled to carry white racing roundels although I hope we shall never be accused of driving to or from circuits with numbers attached.

I also take exception to your remarks re the Aston Ulster “feeling rather frail” because it arrived on a trailer. It is not the car which is frail but if anything the driver. I can see no point in driving a car that was manufactured without any weather protection whatever, in the pouring rain 50 or 60 miles, and then standing about in sodden clothes on a wet and cold airfield for five or six hours and then driving 50 or 60 miles back home, when the obvious thing to do is to trail the car to the meeting in comfort with the added satisfaction of knowing that should anything go wrong with the car during the competition it can be safely transported back to London with the minimum of effort and, what is even more important, with the minimum of expense.

I see no honour in wearing a hair shirt and as far as I am concerned this only proves to me that the wearer is perhaps a little soft in the head.

As a matter of interest, I own five Aston Martins, two of which are racing cars and cannot be used on the road, and I also encourage two of my mechanics to use these cars in competitions and as I have to use the trailer to transport the racing cars in any case, I think it only sensible to make the fullest possible use of my facilities at all times and if you care to check back on my racing record for 1963/64 you cannot possibly accuse me of mollycoddling any of my motor cars.

Derrick Edwards – Hampstead, N.W.3.