Ideal pairs II

Sir,

My own suggestions, from financial necessity, are rather less ambitious than the examples in your article.

With a ceiling of £1,000, the discriminating buyer must shop around primarily for good value. This rules out anything vintage or even post-vintage examples deemed by motor traders to be of “collector’s value” and therefore worthy of inflated prices. £1,000 could buy an excellent example of a Daimler Majestic Major plus a Farina coupé Lancia Pavia 1800, surely an ideal combination of performance, refinement, elegance, and in the case of the Lancia, economy.

Alternatively, for the bargain seekers, £500 would be sufficient to provide a very good P4 Rover “110” with a Triumph TR 2/3 (or MG-A if preferred) to keep senility at bay.

My own pair of cars cost collectively considerably less than £200! They are an Armstrong-Siddeley and an Auto-Union DKW 1000 estate car. Both cars are highly unfashionable (and therefore cheap) but are well constructed (the A-U rather better than the Siddeley in this respect), and respond to careful maintenance to give interesting and trouble-free motoring.

Sheffield.
A. Peter Fawcett.