Tag: Wolseley

Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (2) Daimlers…

Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (2) Daimlers…

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Hav­ing writ­ten about cars and Win­ston Churchill for fifty years, I final­ly pro­duced a piece on them both. From exot­i­ca like Daim­ler, Napi­er and Rolls-Royce to more pro­sa­ic makes like Austin, Hum­ber and Wolse­ley, the sto­ry was three decades in com­ing. I am sat­is­fied that it is now com­plete.

Part 2, con­tin­ued from Part 1: Excerpt only. For foot­notes,  all illus­tra­tions and a ros­ter of Churchill’s cars, see The Auto­mo­bile, August 2016. 

Wolseley to Austin

In the ear­ly 1930s Churchill switched from Wolse­ley to Austin cars: small fours and big six­es. One of the for­mer, a 1938 Austin 10 Cam­bridge, was the Chartwell work­horse.…

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Cars
Churchill at the wheel of his Wolseley 10, 1925; the bulb horn was used frequently in assorted mad rushes. (Author’s collection)
Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (1) Mors the Pity

Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (1) Mors the Pity

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Hav­ing writ­ten about cars and Win­ston Churchill for fifty years, I final­ly pro­duced a piece on them both. From exot­i­ca like Mors, Napi­er and Rolls-Royce to more pro­sa­ic makes like Austin, Hum­ber and Wolse­ley, the sto­ry was three decades in com­ing. But I am sat­is­fied that it is now com­plete.

Part 1:

Excerpt only. For foot­notes,  illus­tra­tions and a ros­ter of cars, see The Auto­mo­bile, August 2016. 

Mors the Pity

Always fas­ci­nat­ed by new tech­nol­o­gy, Win­ston Churchill wel­comed the motor­car, buy­ing his first in 1901 at the age of twen­ty-six. It was French Mors—one of only two non-British cars Churchill would ever own—and a dis­ap­point­ment.…

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Driving Ms. Nancy

Driving Ms. Nancy

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"You can come up now, we've parked." Win­ston Churchill behind the wheel of his Wolse­ley, Lon­don, 1925.

MODBURY, DEVON, JANUARY 1ST— The Dai­ly Mail reports restora­tion of a 1923 Rolls-Royce Sil­ver Ghost “once used by Sir Win­ston Churchill” by Devon restor­er Char­lie Tope: “The vin­tage motor is said to have served the for­mer British Prime Min­is­ter when he used it to give dri­ving lessons to the first female Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Lady Astor, on a Kent estate.” Real­ly.

Churchill, a noto­ri­ous­ly impa­tient and scary dri­ver, main­ly stopped dri­ving him­self in the 1920s, when he was last seen nav­i­gat­ing Lon­don streets in a low­ly Wolse­ley.…

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