Veteran car club's important move
The Veteran C.C. has issued its Journal again, after a three years’ break, to announce a most important development. In order to save pre-1905 veterans from destruction it has formed an Acquisition Committee to purchase such vehicles as soon as they appear on the market. This decision is both opportune and apt. Problems of transport and storage are against the acquisition of such cars by private individuals at the present time, and, even under normal conditions, the possession of one such car is as much as many veteran enthusiasts can encompass. The plot is to start a guarantee fund amongst members to secure the necessary finance to buy the cars and to store them, for possible re-sale to members on a strictly non-profit-making basis. The undertaking, as we see it, will be no easy one, for such cars fetch anything from £70 to £100, and more these days, and even examples in less good order will, collectively, absorb considerable sums of money, while transport, storage and restoration present individual problems of a severe nature. However, we wish the undertaking the greatest success and would wish that some public or national support would be forthcoming. The Veteran Car Club already has 180 pre-1905 cars registered with it and knows of many more “probables” awaiting confirmation. Our “Register of the Unique,” published last March, was responsible, we are pleased to record, for a Paris-Vienna Replica de Dietrich, an Alldays and Onions, and a single-cylinder Wolseley, and possibly an Aster, all of “Brighton Run” age, being found and saved by enthusiasts, not to mention other later veterans of the sort fostered by the Vintage S.C.C. But there must be no relaxation of this endeavour to preserve the antique, and if anyone wishes to become the owner of an early car, we know of many excellent examples still at the mercy of unsympathetic garagists or scrap-metal vandals.