Debt to DERV

Diesel should be cheaper than petrol. It would be good national housekeeping. There is more mileage in a barrel of Brent Crude cracked into diesel than there is in a barrel refined into petrol. The AA is quite right in its September fuel report to question the premium of 4.4p a litre, revealing that three times this year the wholesale price of petrol has been the same as diesel. For nearly four weeks in the spring, DERV cost the same at the refinery, sometimes it was 2p a litre cheaper. The variation is smaller this month, but diesel still costs more on the forecourts and tax makes things worse. Diesel drivers, the AA tells us, spend £2.5 million a day extra, which pretty well cancels out the advantages of buying an economical diesel car.

That is not how it should be. The Office of Fair Trading is looking into oil and fuel prices, but won’t report until next year. Talk of publishing a wholesale price indicator stopped with a reshuffle of transport ministers.

Edmund King, the sometimes over-chatty president of the AA rightly says, “Putting Justine Greening’s initiative on hold has given fuel retailers and suppliers the cover to perpetuate the petrol-diesel price gap for the next four months. The AA welcomes the OFT investigation but not at the expense of immediate and easily-achieved price transparency.” During a backbench debate, two Conservative MPs supported the initiative, while a shadow energy minister pressed the Government to get on with it.

“If the EU can publish a weekly track of petrol and diesel wholesale prices in euros per tonne, why can’t the UK publish an equivalent in pounds per tonne or pence per litre? It doesn’t need an investigation, or permission of the fuel retailers or suppliers, just a form that can be understood, to ensure a fair price.”

DERV: Army nomenclature. Diesel Engined Road Vehicle, fuel for the use of.
BMW 120d convertible, tested Isle of Bute, August 2008.

Riley reliquary

Readers of R. Memoranda, devotees to the preservation of 1945-1957 RM Rileys probably know all about the Koeng car shown at Windsor last weekend. I had never seen or heard of it before. I am not surprised it remained a one-off. Production RM Rileys were slimmer and well proportioned; maybe this one gave Donald Healey ideas. Walter Köng (1935-1999) a former Packard designer, may have designed this one for a Bentley Mark VI chassis, as several contemporaries did, in which case it might have been fine. It would look nbetter with bigger wheels. It certainly demands attention however, and the aluminium body looks in splendid condition. The RM Riley was a post-war thoroughbred with torsion bar ifs and a really gutsy twin-high-cam engine that could - just – provide 100mph on a good day. It was certainly the first quick car I drove, aged 19 or so, when such heavy steering didn’t seem to matter as much as it would now. Slotting a 2½ Riley into a parking space, even with relatively skinny tyres, demands strength that would astonish a power-assisted generation.

Poster on the window reads:

This is a unique and very special Riley. Walter Koeng was a Swiss coachbuilder who had bodied such illustrious cars as Bentleys, Mercedes, Cadillac and Delahey (sic) amongst others.

In 1948 he purchased from the Riley works in Coventry a 2.5 Litre running chassis. He then proceeded to create his dream car. The overall shape is very much Art Deco influenced and Aerodynamic with its sweeping lines and sensual curves that result in a totally individual creation of timeless beauty.

Walter was nothing if not an ultimate perfectionist, he must have spent long hours the design with all of its extraordinary detail (sic). The body is aluminium using aircraft technology, there are removable roof panels that give it its name of Transformable, but just to ensure unruffled coiffeur there are the original silk panels carefully stored in their own compartment that can be installed in place of the glass panels!

The scooped side panels were the first on a car, and later adopted by the designers of the Chevrolet Corvet (sic), there are so many other fascinating details, the boot for example opens by means of a button in the rear door jamb of the driver’s door!

Walter had planned the car to be the first of a series, he exhibited it at the 1949 Geneva Motor Show and although it attracted much interest the price was too high, hardly surprising considering the amazing attention to detail, everything had been hand made to exacting standards. So the car remained with Walter. Perhaps he was secretly pleased the car did not sell however because he drove and enjoyed it until in 1976 it passed to its second owner who was a lifelong friend in Zurich. This person, who continued to care for and cherish Walter’s creation, recently he felt that it was regrettably time to pass the car on due to his advancing years and the car now resides with a new owner in the UK.

So in a way it is a Riley that has come home, but in reality if cars have a heart then its spiritual home is in the clear air of Switzerland, because driving it, or even as a passenger it is impossible not to think of the single minded perfectionist who set out to create what he regarded as the most perfect automobile!

This is the first time the car has been shown in Great Britain. It is still resplendent in its original paintwork, everything on the car is original and in working order, the Riley engine still gives sparking performance, it has never been a museum piece, it was created to be used and enjoyed, and it is a credit to its creator that it still creates so much interest and pleasure 63 years from its inception.

News to Newspress in 50 years

"Foot pedal,” Richard Bensted-Smith’s memo was succinct, “is one word too many.” He was editor of The Motor, economical with words, and his advice to a new member of the road test staff was a masterpiece. It is 50 years since Gordon Hailey wrote this letter appointing me. I had been freelancing. My mother was deeply suspicious; it wasn’t a proper job until, in 1962, my dream was fulfilled. I knew life would never be the same again. I was surely heading for fame and, if not fortune at £1250 a year, a regular income at last. I had been working towards gold medals for years and like any Olympian cried tears of relief and joy

Testing cars for a living gave me the time of my life. Driving every week on MIRA’s banked track was sheer delight. Talking cars with fellow-testers, having my copy put right by the gifted Bunny Tubbs, meeting, if not quite on equal terms the great Laurence Pomeroy, pure joy. It was even a privilege to have Charles Bulmer gently put right my mathematics. Technical editor Joe Lowrey did it more brusquely, although just as humanely. Dear Joe, a role model for any motoring writer.

Temple Press did provide me with a car - this Mini Cooper S after I had turned down a VW

Some of the colleagues, alas, are gone. Dick Bensted-Smith was an influence for ever. His accounts of driving with John Sprinzel on European rallies still make me laugh and his legacy survives. RBB-S identified a novel means of communication that flourished. Newspress remains a priceless asset to the motoring press and the car industry and I have been happily in its debt ever since. I took advantage of its distribution service for everything from The Motherwell Times to The Sunday Times.

Happy days: Barry Watkyn (left) and Roger Bell. We covered racing at Goodwood. This is what people wore then.

Mother never did come to terms with freelancing. “Eric has gone freelance for the moment, but I’m sure something will turn up.”

The Complete Bentley

WO Bentley’s first car appeared at the London Motor Show in 1919 – an imposing 3 Litre sports, the prototype in a style evocative of the 1920s. Rolls-Royce created Bentley Motors (1931) Ltd, eventually to be transformed in 1997 by VW, which kept the louche glamour, returned Bentley to racing and won Le Mans. The combination of German engineering and British tradition produced a European car with a dazzling international reputation.

First released as a luxury hardback to coincide with the 90th anniversary of Bentley Motors, and now available in digital format,

The Complete Bentley

contains details, specifications and pictures of every Bentley model. It features around 100 distinctive Bentleys, from the notable rotary aero engine of World War I to the limited edition Brooklands, and special individual cars like the Blue Train Bentley, the Queen’s Bentley, as well as concepts like the Azure, Java, and Hunaudières of 1999. Also includes a fully-illustrated chronology of the company and its racing since 1919.

Kindle edition including pictures available from

Amazon.co.uk

and

Amazon.com

. Ebook (Adobe Digital) edition with colour pictures throughout available from

Waterstones

and for iPads and other iOS devices from

Apple iTunes store

.

"A brilliant production, The Complete Bentley deserves to be recognised as one of the great works of motoring history and merits a place on any keen motorist’s bookshelf, eminently worth its price of £55"

- Stuart Bladon, The Jewish Chronicle

"Buying a book by Eric Dymock is a bit like eating a meal prepared by Gordon Ramsay, watching a film starring John Travolta or visiting The Dorchester Hotel in London; you expect something special. This does give us the whole panoply of Bentley lore"

- Malcolm Tucker, Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Bulletin.

Eric Dymock has won the Guild of Motoring Writers' Montagu of Beaulieu Trophy for his book

The Complete Bentley

. Awarded annually since 1972 it is the author's second Montagu Award. In 1997 the Guild presented the Award to Eric Dymock for

Saab, Half a Century of Achievement

, also produced by Dove Publishing Ltd.

Kindle edition ISBN 978-0-9554909-9-6

Ebook (Adobe Digital) edition ISBN 978-0-9554909-6-5

Jim Clark: Tribute to a Champion

Dove Publishing has released Jim Clark: Tribute to a Champion by Eric Dymock in digital format. Widely acclaimed as the best account of the double world champion’s life, it was first published as a hardback in 1997 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the first win for a Ford-Cosworth DFV.



Eric Dymock knew Jim Clark before he had ever stepped in a racing car, and his biography has been endorsed by the driver's family. It looks beyond Clark's motorsport career, and offers information about his farming background, his Scottish heritage, and the man behind the clean-cut boyish image. It celebrates his 1967 Dutch victory in a Ford Cosworth-powered Lotus which was the first time a new, untried engine won its maiden race, and his position as 1963 and 1965 Formula 1 World Champion and how in 1965 he became the first non-American to win the Indianapolis 500. The text is enhanced by colour photographs, Ford archive material, and pictures from the Clark family's own collection - and interviews with Clark's family and friends, his long-term girlfriend Sally Swart, Ian Scott Watson, Jackie Stewart and Rob Walker.

Available for Kindles from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. Also available in ePub format from Waterstone's and for iPads and other iOS devices from the iTunes store.

Jim Clark: Tribute to a Champion has been universally commended, with reviewers praising its insight and scope.

Classic Cars magazine awarded five stars, nominating it Book of the Month: "Eric Dymock has produced a book rich with anecdotal reminiscences from those who raced with Jim Clark. Dymock has clearly done his research and brings riveting details of the life, background, psychology and raw talent of the man alive."

Andrew Frankel wrote in Motor Sport: "Great though (Jim Clark) was I thought I'd reached the stage when I'd read as many words about him as my lifetime would stand. Not so. Dymock's book is compelling, not least because its story is told with clear affection that stops short of the fawning adulation with which so many seem obliged to equip themselves before penning a word about dead racing drivers. An engrossing read."

The Automobile said: "...compulsive reading and thoroughly recommended".

Classic and Sportscar nominated Jim Clark Best Book of the Year: "Eric Dymock's celebration of Jim Clark was a totally inspired publication. The combination of the handsome layout, Dymock's elegant prose and the personal insight into the life of this great Scottish racing legend was great value at £24.99."

Clark's close friend who launched him on his great career, Ian Scott Watson, wrote in Scottish Field: "Jim Clark: Tribute to a Champion is the sort of book you will not lay down until you have read it cover to cover; it is the definitive book on Jim Clark; it is a must for the bookshelves of anyone with an interest in motor sport. It is a book which stands as a remarkable tribute not only to Jim but to its author."

Amazon reviewers have awarded the book five stars, calling it an "outstanding book about the greatest ever Formula One driver", "an incisive, all-encompassing biography" and "simply an excellent book".

Judges for the Guild of Motoring Writers Montagu Award agreed. They nominated the Jim Clark book runner-up in the 1997 distinction to the same author's work on Saab.

Eric Dymock on Cars: 1990

Eric Dymock on Cars 1990: The 100 Best Cars and motoring columns, available now.

Buy now from Amazon
Private buyers importing from Belgium, politicians calling for electric cars, Toyota introducing a luxury brand to rival BMW and Mercedes-Benz; all feature in the second of a series of brand new compilations of columns, features and road tests by award-winning motoring writer Eric Dymock.

Now published, the 1990 selection recalls the Consumers' Association Action Pack, "Importing a car - how to save up to 30 per cent on the list price by buying within the EC." British buyers had been stumping up more for cars than anywhere else in what was still called the Common Market. Now they were searching Europe for bargains.

Politicians with en eye for the green vote in 1990, demanded electrics must be made, even if none were sold. Exhaust emission controls and safety legislation came in. Mercedes-Benz cars racing in the German national championship were running on lead-free fuel and being fitted with catalytic converters.

Toyota created Lexus to break into the luxury market. Refined, quiet and large, trimmed with wood and leather and of exemplary quality, Lexus was already making inroads into the United States after a year-long media campaign.

These stories from Eric’s extensive archives are now available to download as an e-book, titled ‘Eric Dymock on Cars 1990’. It highlights the 100 Best Cars, motoring columns, features on automotive developments, road tests and topical reports from the first year of the decade, providing a unique insight into motoring history with modern comments on what happened afterwards. Highlights include:

• Accounts from motor shows, including Geneva.
• Buyers throttling back on classic cars. High interest rates and too many vehicles triggered a downturn. Prices tumbled at auctions. “Within 36 hours the acceleration in classic car prices was at an end.”
• One new car in 20 sold in Britain had a diesel engine. In 2010 diesels overtook petrol cars.
• Folklore on Fangio. Driving for Ferrari in 1956, the Argentinian world champion accused the team of skulduggery.
• Eric Dymock became the first motoring correspondent to test-drive the Triumph Lynx, intended successor to the Triumph Stag.

Buy now from Amazon
This full-length anthology is available to download to Kindles from Amazon for an introductory £1.31, or on to ipads and androids as well as other reading tablets from itunes or online bookstores. Eric Dymock on Cars 1990 can also be viewed on PCs, Macs, ipods or iphones by downloading the free Kindles app from Amazon.