Old Motoring Books

Pre-XK
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One of my side hobbies is collecting old motoring books.
Motoring stories were very popular in the first decade of motoring, about 1900-1914.
I found a great one last weekend.

The title is Champion, written by John Colin Dane and published in 1907.

Champion book
Champion book363Ă—646 37.2 KB

Yes, the ladies really dressed like that with a veil when they motored in town.
In the country they wore a hood with a talc window that they called a mushroom.
Some of them actually took the tiller or wheel.

We often say that we wish our cars could talk, to tell us their story, where they’ve been and who owned them and did what to them.
Well, this is a book where the car itself is the narrator and tells the whole story.

The car is called Champion and it tells of the day it was born, when the engine was installed in the chassis. It is pleased when clothed with it’s new light weight body and shod with new white tires.
It is a special racing car with a secret radical new device, which the poor gentleman builder keeps secret, but his assistant has been corrupted by a rival motor tycoon.
The car overhears all the conversation and learns the dastardly plot, but is sad that it can’t warn it’s master.
On the way to the great race the hero rescues a damsel in distress and teaches her to drive the car, which is delighted at the feel of a lady’s hands on his wheel.
Then when the car and master are leading the race the corrupt riding mechanic causes a crash, the master is taken away unconscious, and the car is stolen by the rival tycoon, then stolen again by confidence swindlers. It is rebodied as a limosine, gets acquainted with other cars in a hotel garage, and is used in the swindle, then abandoned when the jig is up.
The next driver is a snooty novice who grinds the gears and hits a wall, breaking the steering. He dumps it on his maiden aunts, who have the gardener push it into the barn, where it sits sad and unloved until the damsel from chapter 5 comes along and rescues it, a “barn find”. She remembers something about driving it, and that poor young gentleman who was taken to hospital, and was ever so nice. The three are united and motor happily ever after.

I searched the author and found Dane was a pen name for Alice Muriel Williamson, whose husband was an early motoring pioneer, first car on the island of Capri, first car into Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, and she liked to ride along and write motoring stories.

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As did Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

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You know, it occurred to me that Ian Fleming might have read this story before he wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Some of the ideas of a car that can think and make noises at will are the same.

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That sounds just like a MKV!:sunglasses:

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I read the story again and noticed some interesting side comments the authoress makes about motoring in 1906.
The driver was called the conductor, and the riding mechanic who did the repairs and changed flat tires was called the chauffeur.
The controls in cars were not standardized or even labeled, as they were 3 decades later, so one could not expect to hop into any car and expect to know where each control lever and pedal was and what it did.
Starter motors were unknown, all had crank handles, but there was a technique where you could set the crank so that when you switched on the ignition the engine would start without cranking.
Synchromesh was not yet invented, so gear shifting was uncommon and tricky unless you stopped, and broken gear teeth was a common problem with impatient conductors unfamiliar with the controls.
Nuts and bolts often loosened up and had to be retightened, which was part of the chauffeur’s job, to go around and check them all every few days.
Air and oil filters were unknown, roads were mostly unpaved and dusty, and some cheap oils were not as free of contaminants as others of higher quality, so oil changes were very frequent, and grit in the carburetor was a common cause of failure on the road.
Head lamps were kerosene (UK = paraffin) or acetylene. No mention was made of tail lamps.
The great race was a timed/distance event on country roads south of Paris, 3 laps on a circuit of 30 or 40 miles, and the racers were started off at 5 minute intervals. There were no guard rails, so French soldiers in red trousers were detailed to keep the spectators off the course. King Edward VII was a motoring enthusiast so the authoress put HM into the story as a spectator.
There were no mirrors, so the riding mechanic kept a watch for overtaking cars. When one racer wanted to pass another, they sounded the siren.
Seat belts were unknown, so any kind of accident involving the car in a ditch would find the conductor and chauffeur thrown out. Safety glass also was unknown, so going through the windshield would result in serious injuries.
1906 was the era of new motoring inventions, and in the story the car called Champion had air cooling and a shaft-driven propeller to help it overcome the wind resistance, and springs built into the wheels to smooth out some of the bumps in the road and help it go faster. It was these wheels that the young lady recognized when she found Champion all dusty and forgotten in the barn and waiting to be rescued.

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Quite similar to “Wonderful Life,” the S. J. Gould book about the explosion of odd and varied lifeforms in the Cambrian: most went extinct, but along the way, some truly interesting designs!

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Well, Champion didn’t build himself, he had an intelligent designer, whom he loved and called his Master.

The creation of the car is an example of irreducible complexity. Karl Benz couldn’t have done much useful with a piston but no crankshaft or connecting rod. All the parts had to be created together for the motorwagen to work.

Stevie is perhaps eternally regretting that he wouldn’t accept the Intelligent Designer’s plan of spontaneous creation, evidence in fact being the Cambrian and irreducible complexity. Even Charlie knew it, that his foolish theory couldn’t account for it.

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Hehe… Rob, yer predictable!

I suspected you’d push back on the mention of Gould and the Cambrian!

And…happy holidays!

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Fear of breaking forum rules caused me to delete my posting.

Peter :innocent:

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To return to old motoring books… stay tuned!

I’m thinning the herd, and will post some in the classifieds, after the first.

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Not even a monocle windscreen to protest her pretty coiffure!