Here's one for nostalgia

[rayofleamington]

How times have changed!!

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=20914

[Blaketon]

I haven't been to a motor show in over 25 years!! My father used to attend Earls Court in the 1950s and recalls that at one of the shows, the dearest car on display was a Bentley Continental at £6928. Of course everything else was cheaper then but it s sobering thought.

Another sobering thought is that most of the cars at the show were British and that in those days British cars were exported all over the world. Indeed after the war, my grandfather ordered a new Austin 10. He sold his Morris Eight (Which had spent most of the war up on blocks on his garage), believing the Austin was only months away. It was in fact three years away, such was the extent of the export drive and by the time it arrived, it had become an A40 Devon.

One amusing anecdote is the Frazer Nash Continental, which was the last car to bear that name (By the 1950s AFN were distributors for Porsche in the UK – my father worked there for a time). The same car was put in three shows, once painted red, once painted white and then it turned a shade of pink!!