by Bert Meinders

Created on: March 01, 2009

About ten years ago I went with a friend to an estate auction, not with the intention of buying anything ( I worked for an extremely parsimonious university at that time) but with the hope of preventing the friend buying more problems. With two dozen dead and moribund Morris Minors in his collection, a stable of mostly inactive British motorcycles and some semi-active Wolseleys of the sort described as "a waste of Pininfarina's talent", he didn't need any more projects to divert money from his mortgage. The collection being sold comprised mostly motorcycles, including an exquisite 250cc slightly scaled down Manx Norton likeness (I was tempted to call it a replica, but I have friends who deal in art and are pedantic about such words), but there were two cars on offer.

One was a 1935 or 36 Morris Eight, a nice little car bearing more than a passing resemblance to the 1932-4 Ford Eight. They were the typical student car just 25 or 30 years earlier and I remember them well, although I had a Triumph Herald myself. As I recall, the box-section chassis was drilled for lightness, and the holes provided the perfect starting-point for rust. Students of my time were careful, when they took their Morris 8 cars to be inspected, never to let both doors be open simultaneously because they'd never close again. The other car was a different matter. It was a tidy, but faded, 1939 Packard, its blue paint a bit chalky, but it was complete and alleged to be a runner. It had a bullet hole in the driver's side of the windscreen, inflicted from the outside and directly in line with the driver's head...surely a notorious car? Or maybe it was the driver who was notorious. Does the owner's or driver's fame or notoriety confer those characteristics on the car?

At the Southward Museum in Otaihanga, there is a 1950 Cadillac once owned by Micky Cohen. An entirely forgettable car in itself (the armour protection is concealed, apart from the heavy glass), its owner is remembered as a notorious criminal. Whether that makes the car equally notorious I can't say. Like all Cadillacs of the fifties it is very vulgar, and mechanically very ordinary.

The Southward collection includes a large number of cars, both famous and notorious. There is a 1936 Tatra 77, its body designed in a wind tunnel because fuel was expensive in Czechoslovakia, its rear-mounted 3-litre V8 engine air-cooled because Mitropa has severe Winters. Rear engine and swing axle suspension? Definitely notorious, and German officers

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