WORLD SALES

FORD AND THE SAFARI

Sir,

Having only just received my July copy of your excellent paper, two things catch my eye immediately. One is the ” affaire Ford” regarding the Safari. This is not the first time that various firms have been caught out using rather unscrupulous advertising material relating to the Safari, and usually if it happens here there is vigorous protest in the local papers, which surely nullifies the effects gained by the attempted deception. Actually in one case some rather doubtful material was put into a local paper that was adverse to Ford and they took prompt action. Another local point is your complete omission of the name of the co-driver of the Ladies’ Class winning Zephyr driven by Anne Hall. Miss Lucille Cardwell who drove with Mrs. Hall was last year the East African track driving Champion (Porsche Spyder) and in view of the poor showing of European rally ” experts ” in our local event when not accompanied by a local driver one tends to wonder whether your omission is at all just to the ability of Mrs. Hall. I am sure that if you ask Mrs. Hall or, in fact, any of the drivers who came out for this year’s Safari, they would agree that there is a certain difference of technique between a European event and the Safari which the ” experts ” !rom home find difficult to assimilate quickly and which causes them to break up the car unless they have 2 local driver of repute

with them. A 50-m.p.h. average might not seem on the face of it to be a lot but if you had seen some of the route—we invited you out in 1957 if I remember aright—you would appreciate this point. While we are of course full of admiration for the experts. from Europe who drive in the Safari at considerable risk to their reputations, please do not forget the local drivers who go with them, sometimes at considerable risk to their necks.

I notice you are starting another crusade for the improvement of British cars. I was recently talking to the Sales Manager of one of the larger British makes out here and he was telling me that his local organisation were longing for the Common Market to arrive in order that their home organisation could see what it was like to try to sell an A40 against a Fiat s too or a Minx against a 403 Peugeot. There is no doubt, however, that your crusade is not as vital as before, the cars are better basically and the service is improving.

Nairobi. W. D. CLEMESHA.