Richard M. Langworth

A remem­brance first pub­lished in The Auto­mo­bile, Decem­ber 2019. This ver­sion con­tains two addi­tion­al illus­tra­tions and a glos­sary of Vor­der­man bon mots on auto­mo­biles.

“His­to­ry with its flick­er­ing lamp stum­bles along the trail of the past, try­ing to recon­struct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kin­dle with pale gleams the pas­sion of for­mer days.” —Win­ston S. Churchill, 12 Novem­ber 1940

“Writ­ers rarely talk about writ­ing among each oth­er. It’s a very per­son­al thing, and it’s almost always hard to do well, none of which is too con­ducive to cheery cock­tail chitchat. Most of us would rather vis­it a den­tist than face up to the task of begin­ning the next piece, though it’s not quite so awful once the com­mit­ment is made and the thing is under way.”

My dear friend Don Vor­der­man wrote that about the Eng­lish motor­ing writer Den­nis May, but he was also describ­ing him­self.…

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