Sunday, August 05, 2012

My garage


Faithful readers will know that I have never held a driving license. It is also known that for about seven years now I have earned my living from involvement in automotive-themed media.

Thus it is that I have inevitably developed an interest in cars... a vicarious and even voyeuristic interest, I guess.

A couple of days ago I indulged in some 'what if' musing. What if I had started to drive when I reached adulthood fifty years ago? What if (even more far-fetched) I had the means to park in my garage automobiles which I found inspired passion and affection?

The fiftieth anniversary Ford Thunderbird (above) would, I think, be my way of reflecting on the cars I admired as a teenager in America. It is not a Lincoln Continental Mark II... for me and many others one of the most elegant cars ever built... but this T-Bird has something of the élan and insouciance of that era. Here in Munich I see one or two examples of this model cruising the neighbourhood and even where Astons, Lambos and Ferraris are daily sightings this Ford never fails to delight me.

But my garage would also need to have room with something four-wheeled and quintessentially British. I think the Riley (below) fits the bill perfectly.


There is in the Riley a reminder of pre-war Bentley, Mercedes and Jaguar models. And the drop-head coupé built in 1950 also marked the final chapter of British car manufacture.


Nostalgia, pure!


Only two cars in my imagined garage? Sufficient, I think. I'd also tuck into a corner a brightly coloured Vespa, reminder both of summers in France in the seventies and of my student years in Dallas.


And if none of these vehicles suited my motoring needs at any given moment... well, then I would probably rent something German!


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