Who the hell had a car like that?

[nineveh_uk]

Asked Dian de Momerie, in one of her more alert moments. To be specific, like this:

(Picture on LJ because the picture process for DW is a faff.)

I saw some linked photos of this recently, which spurred me to actually looking up properly what Lord Peter Wimsey’s car looks like. To which the answer is “the car of a man who is over-compensating”. Massively over-compensating. According to this swooning article*, the bonnet of a 1931 Daimler Double Six is ten feet long**. It knocks the socks off a red Ferrari in the mid-life crisis stakes. For more photographs of this deeply Freudian vehicle, see here.

I have to admit that I attempted a small vignette on the subject of what on earth Harriet thought when she first saw it, but failed.

*Over the car, not Wimsey.

**That is so enormous I am prepared for it to be an error. Still, even 6 – 8 feet would be a bloody big bonnet.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

Goodness. That is a heck of a midlife crisis.

(I think your link to the picture may be broken - though the crosspost link works.)

[nineveh_uk]

It's a beautiful car, but it's not half suggestive of a man with things on his mind. (And very, very rich.)

(Oops, thanks. I failed to make it in the first place. Evidently distracted.)

[tree_and_leaf]

What things could you possibly mean? *whistles innocently*

[nineveh_uk]

The throb of umpteen horsepower and a smooth ride...

Wikipedia tells me that Pistons were of light alloy and split-skirted "like the modern girl".

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

It must be a nightmare to park. Imagine Peter in a multi-storey carpark. (How do you see over the bonnet?)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Peter trying and failing to reverse park in a tight spot would be hilarious.

Notwithstanding that, I suspect that you park a car like that much like the gorilla in the cinema sits - where you like. And the view over the bonnet cannot be worse than the rear view when parking my Ford Fiesta.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I can believe ten feet, from the windshield to the bumper. That would make the cat around sixteen feet, which seems about right

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I hadn't been thinking of all the way to the bumper, but yes, that's easily another 18". It is still a ludicrously big car.

[lopezuna-writes.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is a lot of car. No wonder Mrs Ruddle thought they were no better than they ought to be.

Can I encourage you to rethink the vignette? Pretty please ;)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

She's got a point - you could get a long way in the backseat of that.

I am considering whether the vignette might yet have a future.

Please Please rethink the vignette!

[(Anonymous)]

Please rethink the vignette! Want SO badly!
-M

RE: Please Please rethink the vignette!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am seeing if there might be an alternative ;-)

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

As a bit of a speed freak when it comes to driving, I've got to say I love a car that has five times as much space for the engine as it does for luggage.

While the practical rump of my mind goes "how the hell would you park it?", the gearhead part goes "that's the chauffeur's problem, grandma!".

Want. Big, big want.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

five times as much space for the engine as it does for luggage

No wonder that in Busman's Honeymoon most of their stuff has to come on by courier. Especially given that they seem to fill the boot with port.

I must say that I'd like a go in one.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

No wonder there were so many road accidents in those days - by the time you actually saw a pedestrian, you'd already have hit them.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

plus Lord Peter always driving 'more mellowly on a pint of beer'.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Yes, and Harriet having half a bottle of wine with lunch on her way to Oxford. It's one of the things I love about Sayers - so many unquestioned assumptions that reveal how much things have changed (like the woman in Nine Tailors who was in her 40s but "like most countrywomen" was missing most of her front teeth).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Then there's the pub in "Nine Tailors" where Wimsey orders a bottle of claret with his roast lamb, followed by port. At least he instructs Bunter to finish the latter lest he be "shall be too sleepy to drive.” (Even so, I hope it was a half-bottle.)

[azdak.livejournal.com]

"Sleepy" clearly ranks with "tired and emotional" in the euphemism stakes!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

A gentleman couldn't admit to being pissed as a newt, after all.

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

Thanks to modern preconceptions about car safety, the part that really made me cringe was the close-up photo of the steering wheel and dashboard. That looks like a really unwelcoming surface to slam into if an 80 mph triumph song happens to go off course for a moment and seatbelts haven't been invented yet. At least the engine block will be big enough to absorb the impact, right?

(Seriously, though, wasn't he driving that car in the woods in Murder Must Advertise? On what sounds like an average of three hours of sleep per night? Forget the fountain dive, that's the really crazy stunt right there).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It would be a bit ironic if, just as Harriet has agreed to let Peter give her a present, he duly drove into a ditch and impaled himself on the steering wheel. We can only hope that the bonnet somehow has crumple zones.

I think that the only plausible explanation for the sub-plot of MMA is that everybody involved is high, all of the time. Even if in Peter's case it is simply adrenaline, alcohol, and lack of sleep.

[helenajust.livejournal.com]

I suspect most of the space was needed for that wonderful engine! It's beautiful. The difficulty would be in driving up hills and trying to guess which way the bend in the road went, I suspect. I'd love to read what Harriet thought of it!

I've been trying to remember the name of the car which the Saint used to drive -- in the early books, not the TV version. It was multi-syllabic, and something like "Hispaniola". I remember he covered a lot of ground very quickly, generally only encountering helpful AA men.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Hispano-Suiza? I'm sure there's a reference to one in Sayers somewhere (in relation to Jerry?) but I can't think where. I only remember it because I wasn't sure whether it was a car or not.

I agree on the bends in the road. How the hell would you get it round corners? Though I suppose the poor person coming the other way would get crushed by the bonnet before you did.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Hispano-Suiza is a real car; it comes up in Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy where a flashy and somewhat opportunistic Count refers to it as a "Hizzer-Swizzer".

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Googling, I discover it is also driven by Iris Storm, the heroine of Michael Arlen's The Green Hat, but I'm not sure whether this is before or after her husband throws himself out of a window on their wedding night. Possibly I should read The Green Hat and find out.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That sounds like quite a novel!

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

If it's anything like The London Venture (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40375/40375-h/40375-h.htm) (Gutenberg), which has been entertaining me half the day, I may have to buy it.

[helenajust.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's the one. It sounded extra-romantic because the name echoed exotic islands, for me.

The Saint's car

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

It's a Hirondel, which is, I believe, a fake marque.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I also remember a character mentioning in one of the early Saint books that the speed limit was 25mph, so quite how fast he was actually driving compared with modern speedsters is unclear.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

This (http://www.ukmotorists.com/speed_history.asp) implies that from 1903 to 1930 the speed limit was 20mph. Presumably everyone ignored it and the police simply gave out speeding tickets when people were perceived to be being more than usually ridiculous. From 1931 to 1935 there were no limits at all!

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Leslie Charteris in a foreword to one of the later reprints actually mentions this problem as being one for thriller writers having longevity; "What do we consider a fast car? The speedster which in our youth we proudly pushed to eighty...."

Given the state of the roads, seventy or eighty would have been horrifically fast.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It's not being able to see where the road goes (sideways) that does for him at the start of "Nine Tailors". The narrative blames speed and a humpbacked bridge, but I think the 10ft of metal needs to take a share.

[lopezuna-writes.livejournal.com]

The humpbacked bridge certainly should have caused problems given the long wheelbase and the fact that it is so low-slung.

[helenajust.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!!

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Reminds me of an exchange with a friend at a boatshow over a motorboat something like this http://www.sunseeker.com/en/range/predator/predator-60

Friend: What kind of man buys a boat with a foredeck like that?
Me: One who hasn't read Freud.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Agile and full of pace, the Predator 60 lives up to its reputation. Prowling coastlines and stalking horizons, this dynamic performance yacht delivers much more than its sensual beauty initially suggests. From the outset, you’ll immediately become immersed in the refined and aspirational styling.

I do wonder why they don't paint some of these things pink and call it a day.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I did hear a rather wonderful story about the first gay officer given a sea-command in the Royal Netherlands Navy. Apparently his new crew carefully painted the prow of his new vessel pink, to welcome him on board and as a sort of "up yours" to other crews who might have been inclined to make remarks.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That is excellent. And feels very Dutch.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

How do you stalk a horizon? Unsuccessfully, I suppose.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

More easily in fog?

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Can you unspam the last comment, please? Link to phallic speedboat caught in spam filter, alas.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty car, but nothing can compete with the Kelham Island Sheffield Simplex.

As for deeply over-compensating cars of the era, have you ever seen one of the aero-engined Bugattis?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That is a splendid car! Strikingly modern (in relative terms) for the date.

have you ever seen one of the aero-engined Bugattis

I have now, and refer again to my "just paint it pink" comment above :-)

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

If we're talking pink cars, how about this one that was parked across from Dad's Humber, and also the Simplex, the last time all the cars were out together:

(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/stevie_carroll/11638350/1163773/1163773_original.jpg) (http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/stevie_carroll/11638350/1163296/1163296_original.jpg)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

A trifle on the small side for the true midlife crisis solution, perhaps :-)