A glimpse into the past

I don’t have much of an automobilia collection. True I have 5 cars, some models and a book case full of car books, but that’s not a lot, is it?

My book collection has grown by visiting charity shops, car boot sales and auto jumbles. I like auto biographies and books from or about 1960’s cars but I will divert to other areas if it appeals to me.

I recently picked up three books from Huddersfield Autojumble that represented very different areas of the automotive scene. Racing cars today, published in 1962 is full of facts and figures from this era as well brief histories of the major racing companies including the embryonic Lotus company.

What is interesting about books written in period, as opposed to looking back on the period, is that they reveal more about the circumstances and attitudes of the time. The second book The Way to Win by Stuart Turner is a good example of this. Littered with comments about the little women at home who could help with the paperwork it almost certainly wouldn’t get published today. But the attitudes displayed were common at the time and it is important not to whitewash history by removing things which in retrospect we now consider to be unacceptable.

My star purchase of the day was Gatsonides – Rallies and Races. This book by William Leonard tells the tale of Maurice Gatsonides a Dutch Race and Rally driver competing before and after the second world war and published in 1950.

Today the Monte Carlo Rally is one of rallying’s most famous and prestigious events. Manufacturers teams spend millions of pounds on cars to win events in the world rally championship and the Monte Carlo rally is perhaps the most glamorous of them all.

But it wasn’t always so. This books charts Gatso’s various attempts at winning the Monte Carlo, the first being in 1936. A team of three set off in a lightly modified Hillman Minx and starting in Amsterdam they would cover 950 miles to the finish. A crash put them out of the event, though they did reach the finishing point, too late to qualify.

Undeterred they entered for 1936 with the no longer new Hillman Minx which had now covered 50 000 miles. He took time to comment on the hardened Britons who went off in open sports cars. Especially a red moustached Scott and his driver who wrapped their heads and elbows so thickly in furs that from a distance that they looked like bears in a car.

The french drivers in contrast were immaculately dressed and acted as mannekins for a French fashion house. They were awarded second place in the concours de confort losing to Sammy Davis whose Wolseley was equipped with its own toilet. I don’t think this award is given anymore.

For 1939 they were back again, this time in an American Tudor Saloon (Ford). This year the rally included Yugoslavia and Hungary and the drivers clearly felt the need for accessories not used today. Having secured a hotel room above a nightclub they tell us they blockaded the door and slept with their guns under their pillows.

During the Second World War, Gatsonides built up a profitable business making charcoal gas generators which kept cars and commercial vehicles running in occupied Holland where there was no petrol. This was a useful cover for his work in the Dutch resistance, helping escaped prisoners of war.

The book covers many exploits in both racing and rallying and clearly shows the genius of the man who went to build his own sports cars. He also mentions many of the top drivers of the time including Yorkshireman Colin Appleyard. A great deal of the book concentrates on the challenges faced by teams with intransigent customs officers, mechanical breakdowns, diabolical roads and very heavy snow. He did win the Monte Carlo in 1953 driving a Ford Zephyr.

The events that took place in pre and post war Europe were not fast, but they were incredibly challenging and teams were largely without support, except for other competitors. It has given me a new insight into rallying history and I have a far greater respect for these drivers who, sadly are now fading into history.

But Gatsonides did ensure his own immortality. As an engineer and inventor he devised a tool to measure his speed on corners so that he could develop his race cars. This simple two cable system was developed into the Gatso speed camera which can be seen on almost every road in this country and abroad.