MOTORING HISTORY - A CENTURY OF ACHIEVEMENT

Few families nowadays have no access to a car. Many own two or more - we'd be lost without our wheels. That's why we've every cause to give thanks for the motor industry, now over a century old.

At the end of the nineteenth century, however, there were but a few major names trying to establish themselves. Ironically, the first manufacturer to produce cars for sale in the UK was not Daimler, whose first products reached the marketplace in 1897, but Wolseley of Birmingham, whose first cars were sold in 1896.

Since then, many famous names have earned their place in the history books, names like Rolls and Royce, which even to those of us who can never aspire to own one, mean something near perfection.



In fact, it was the Honourable Charles Rolls' guiding principle that “nothing short of perfection was satisfactory.” He realised that for some customers this mattered far more than price. Sadly, he was to die in a flying accident in 1910, but his name lives on, twinned with that remarkable engineer Sir Henry Royce.



Another great survivor is Jaguar, although it is Sir William Lyons - Bill to his friends - whose gift for styling gave the marque the cachet it enjoys still today. Herbert Austin, William Morris, Cecil Kimber who created the MG and Spencer Wilks who saved Rover from oblivion in the early 30s, all feature in the hall of fame.



And what of the cars? Everyone's heard of the Model T Ford which rolled grandly onto the roads in 1914. But what of the Austin 7 Chummy (1922), the 1936 MG TC or the Morgan Plus 4 (a climb up to four wheels from three for the Morgan Motor Company) which joined the fray that same year?

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