EDITORS NOTES :-  Further down this page we have a very interesting debate brewing. One that raged for many, many years and is raising its head again; from what I read from the viewers that have taken the trouble to write in to us and 'post' their thoughts and comments...........The Debate I speak of is the so-called origin of the first motorised vechicle or horseless-carriage. - Much speculation, many false or inacurate claims have followed over the years.........some contradict, some ring true, dates seem to differ.....to be sure, we will never really know exactly who was first and really, what does it matter.........................This is a global topic with nothing to do with nationalism or patriotism. Or at least, it should'nt be......What I will offer up here are the many sides of this debate, play Devils Advocate so to speak, and allow the viewer to make up his own conclusions.........I have much information writen by many sources and will attempt to offer them up for interest sake as we go forward, and what interesting 'stuff' it all is .....To indicate how far back I intend going, ponder on this : Some pundits claim our whole 'origins' debate goes back as far as 200 BC with Hero of Alexanderia, who you will read in S.C.H. DAVIS's "Beginings" futher below, writes of how Hero 'spun' an orb around an axel with jets of steam and another author writes; "......encountered the studies of Hero of Alexanderia, who descibes a machine of his own invention which moved under its own power by means of a device - a hollow sphere out of which was expelled a strong jet of steam - which seems in some ways to anticipate the modern jet engine. - The first truly self-propelled vehicles however, probably date from the time of Alexander the Great, when fearsome chariots were introduced bristling with scythes and lances. Depending on gravity, these were hurled down steep slopes against the enemy ranks. Such weapons were to be re-invented in the Middle Ages, and used with great effect by the Swiss in their battles against the Austrian overlords. - The dream of the motor car, of the "horseless-carriage", self-propelled and capable of extraordinary speeds, is perhaps as old as man himself. Some people have even identified the first hints of the history of the car in Homer's Iliad - To be precise in the section in which are described the fantastic creations built by Vulcan in preparation for the Council of the Gods, among which was a magic wheel of solid gold which obeyed the God's commmands. Others have found indications of what was in future to become the motor car in the prophecies of Nahum and Ezekeil in the Old Testament, in which are described marvellous carriages capable of self-propulsion along roads, and even able to fly. Traces of legends probably originating from these prophecies are also found in Greek and Roman bas-reliefs, showing mythical chariots drawn by invisable horsemen. - It has been held by some people that the motor car was foreseen by Roger Bacon. Even if untrue, the unique gifts of prophecy of this great 13th century scientist and philosopher must be recognised. Bacon, in fact, wrote the following;  "One day we shall construct machines capable of propelling large ships at a speed far superior to that of an entire crew of oarsmen and needing only a pilot to steer them. One day we shall endow chariots with incredible speed without the aid of any animal. One day we shall construct winged machines able to lift themselves into the air like birds."  -  Such farsighted forecasts could only arouse suspicion in those times, and Bacon spent ten years of his life in prison, accused of magic and of pacts with devil. The treatise containing the above passage was not published until three hundred years after his death". - Well, well, well....... Obviously we know there was a lot of 'cross-pollenation' going on anyhow, with folk watching each other from afar, if not direct espionage.... Which, in the French miltarary application of Nicholas Joseph Cugnot's in the early mid 1700's, there certainly was.........I can just see the various reprsentatives of the govenments of the 'world' as we knew it then, - having come from all over, or at least Europe and the UK, - hiding behind copious amounts of foliage and trees in the French park Vincennes, where the tragedy-struck, briliant engineer / scientist Cugnot showed his crude but break-through, motorized, three-wheeled, steam-driven artillery tractor.....And what a reception he got there in the Park, compared to what was to happen to him afterward.....and for the majority of historians the vital starting point, the basis of the modern car, was Cugnot's fantastic three-wheeled, steam-driven gun tractor, completed in 1765 and certainly it was steam that made the motor car possible ( in the same way as it had made the whole industrial revolution possible ), but although France may claim Nicholas Joseph Cugnot as the inventor of the motorized vehicle, he in fact based his work on the priciples of locomotion discovered by the brilliant Scotsmen,  Watt and Murdock, and the Englishmen, Savery and Newcomen.  However, it is ironic that in the two ensuing decades it was Britain that effectively pioneered steam public service vehicles, while  Cugnot's clumsy invention led to his ruin.............( more about this later ) But that's what the section "THE BEGININGS," - so aptly named and welll writen by S.C.H. DAVIS, is all about and deals with.  - Like other great prophets, many driven to ruin, poverty and sometimes imprisonment because of their far-reaching and important creations or vision(s) - Inevitably, the history of the motor car and of motoring through the ages is deeply influenced by contemporary political and economic events, and their importance is not overlooked. This vital aspect is well illustrated by the unfortunate Locomotives On Highways Act of 1865, which has been misnamed the "Red Flag Act". Thus, while other countries were rapidly developing bigger and better motor cars, it was still illegal to drive in Britain without a man walking in front of the car. - Consequently, Britain lost years of leeway in automobilism, which were not made up until the "Emancipation" Act of 1896 was passed, and that is why Dailmler and Benz had a significant advantage over Simms, Lanchester and Austin.-

But first some lighter, more modern 'Car-Greats.'  

Talking about 'GREATS,'..... what about; CLAUDE LeLOUCH, - A 'Film-Great' certainly, I hear you say, but not a real 'Car-Great!' or real 'Petrol-Head'........ this is so, ...But here's what I think;.....Le Louch was a car-nut for sure, after all the sentimental / romantic garbage of the storyline, the movie was about cars! ... "What!"!  interupts my secretary;..." It was a beautiful, tale of love and romance, and.........." -  "Oh shut up !" ...came the retort. -  Well Mr LeLouch went on, from the begining as a cinematographer, and  then on to directing TV commercials where he honed his craft, and then on to the fabulously successful feature film; "A Man and a Woman," which rocketed him to fame world-wide.......The French had struck again.... He of course went on to ...............but that's another story, another time!....................." What about Luc Besson and Gerard Pires of TAXI-1 & TAXI-2 ? or Andre Parrot? " - "Yes of course, they were great, but LeLouch did it first, long ago, in 1976 and got into serious hot water because of it."................."Noooo....he got off scot free, or maybe just paid a fine ,....... I heard, but what a movie and how about the fact that the law could never force LeLouch  to reveal the name of the driver of his Ferrari 250 GTO, so the legend goes " ..........   "Really!"   "..Yes,...... he said in court that it had been a Formula 1 driver he had hired, but the judge said that it wasn't mitigating circumtances at all, and in fact he wanted to make a ............"   " Was'nt that just the best,...just like LeLouch does in most of his movies, -  he starts off with a long, single take on the camera,.....just lets it roll and roll, the camera sweeping along with him and the actors." ...... "Yes, remember what the ................................." 

But 'film-chat' aside, what is being refered to here is the quite remarkable bit of 'petrol-head' film- making by the film director of "Man and a Woman", LeLouch, that has not been seen much and not at all commercially apparently, called; "RENDEVOUS." produced by Spirit Level Films - This excellent, breathtaking, adventurous bit of film-making is posted in the VIDEO CLIPS section. It is only +- 7.5 mins. long, and the images are terrific with an awesome sound-track of the howling Ferrari GTO singing thru the close ratio gearbox and competition exhaust. Count the number of red lights the Ferrari flies thru, most of them un-sighted intersections, narrowly missing a Mini and at one point he crosses over into the oncoming traffic lane to squirt around a obstacle. Looks like he nailed quite a few pidgeons along the way thoo.............. And soon, we will start posting the best action exerpts out of the two fantastic car/ bike stunt movies;TAXI-1 and TAXI-2, lots of automotive fun, produced by Luc Besson and directed by Gerard Pires, and then there's that flim about........ah.................. .........the .............about the one that...........Lots more  to come. ( Ed..)   

( To see this remarkable bit of automotive filmaking, click on  "Rendezvous",  top of Home Page, first item in LATEST NEWS section. Ed.)                                                                          

(Ed.).. Wait, this discussion should serve well to introduce a new section to our site :- 'CAR - GREATS' ... starting with :- Peter Fonda, a well known car fanatic, - apart from all his other atributes, known and relatively unknown, whom my wife and I met in Rome years ago.  

                                     THE CAR-GREATS:- PETER FONDA.

It was a wet, winter afternoon one sunday in our flat in Rome when my wife got a call from an american actor friend of ours; John Philip Law, who called to know if we wanted to go to a private screening of a 'Biker-Movie' a friend of his was showing. His friend was in Italy trying desparately to find distribution for the film he and a mate had just made in the states. So far, he had been unsuccessful elsewhere in Europe and he later told me that he was'nt to worried, - since the movie had only cost him $350.000 and he was sure he would make his money back when they showed it in California among  the Biker crowds there. - ( Little did he know that he and his friend would be multi-millionaires soon, - within six months in actual fact ) - John Philip Law, also a total car-freak, had already made a name for himself in the excellent  "The Russians Are Coming  the Russians Are Coming" with Alan Arkin and later as the Arch Angel in the tasty "Barbarella'  Sc-Fi movie with his sister Jane Fonda, directed by her then husband; Roger Vadim. - So there we were, sitting in one of the preview theatres at FonoRoma, when in walks two very tall, striking looking people. John Law was 6ft 6ins and these two were both almost as tall. - It was Peter Fonda and his then girlfriend, the  fashion model; Verushka. -  Well, as you guessed, the movie was "Easy Rider."....and his friend he had spoken off was the director; Denis Hopper. Certainly it was the best 'Biker', -  'On the Road'  movie I had ever seen, and much later Fonda told us the story of him and his brother-in-law, Roger Vadim's Ferrari 250 GTO........I had been raving about all the Italian sports cars here in Italy, telling him about my pretty little de Tomaso Vallelunga in which I had just returned to Rome, from London, in an epic four-day, across Europe, road horror-trip, when I heard about his latest French, automobile masterpiece he had just bought; ... a Facel Vega. -  It was the first one I had ever seen and I was blown away. It looked huge in photographs I had seen before,  but in real life it was perfect. The French take, on the American Way......         

It was a few years later in Johannesburg while John Philip Law was filming "Tigers Don't Cry",  that we heard about the insane trip Fonda and Vadim had undertaken in the Ferrari with Vadim bouncing the GTO off the walls of the underground tunnels on the way to the Paris Orly Airport to pick up Jane and how they tried in vain to cram all the luggage plus them into the sports car, with Peter's twelve-string guitar being a major problem.................Talking about craming things into a small car, - while John Law was here my wife and I picked him up from the film-set one day in my tiny Porsche 356 and we could not stop laughing watching all 6ft 6 of John trying to 'fold' himself into the back of the little Porsche. - Getting out was even funnier with him finally emerging, the seat harness catching and entangling his feet and tripping him up........but that's another story........ 

To follow:- A Couple of Car-Stories from Peter Fonda's excellent book; published by Simon & Schuster :-  "Dont Tell Dad,"................CHAPTER ONE :- Talking about his sister; Jane Fonda :- "Right now, I can clearly see her standing at Vadim's Ferrari GTO with its crumpled rear end that early Saint-Tropez morning in '66, when we were packing all the gear to go to the Venice Film Festival. - Jane did all the talking. She organized as best she could - and she is the best - the impossibility of stuffing me into the car with all our things. And I can see so clearly those wonderous days of decadence that swept me away, for a moment, with Dado, Nancy, Tahlita, and Paul Getty.......... "Okay, Peter, put that bag in first, then..... ...no, put your guitar in and then....okay, first put the hanging bag in, then you get in on top of it, then we'll put the other bags on each side of you,...and you hold on to the guitar so that the long end sticks out front. Okay?" ...........Once inside, with me tangled up in guitar and luggage in a space meant for a briefcase, we sped off to the airport. When we got on the Autoroute, Vadim pushed the needles up, and soon we were whipping along at 132 miles per hour. I could see the speedometer between my guitar and Vadim's arm. But I was not about to say anything. I didn't want him to start trick-driving at that speed. Nothing had been said after the packing instructions. For that matter, it was pretty intense in the cab of the car. It was almost as if none of us were breathing...... Critical mass. - And then, out of the confinement, "Peter?"....."Hmmmmm?"..........."Don't tell Dad."

(Ed.) Henry Fonda in all his wisdom figured that if he did'nt want Peter to stick out at school he should'nt buy him a flashy car, so he bought Peter a VW Beatle. Well Peter did stick out, most of the other kids had Mustangs and Corvettes which Peter really loved.......CHAPTER FOUR :- "Jane and I had the same rooms as in 1951, and I think Dad and Mom #2 took a large, balconied corner suite, with master bedroom and a twin bedroom for Amy. The Sand and Sea Club was still there, thriving. Ward Bond came by in his 1954 Corvette. He'd visited before in his new Studebaker, the first car to blow my mind; the Corvette was the second. Cars generally seemed more interesting in California than they had in Connectitcut. The clubs swiming instructor had a MG TC and took me for rides up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. One day we drove to the Barton School for Boys........."... CHAPTER FIVE:- Paris:- " One morning, Dad announced to me that we were going shopping. Just the fact that WE were going shopping was amazing." ( early on in the book Peter talks about how his famous father, Heny Fonda, was not around much at all, and they didn't seem to have much of a relationship at all....Ed. ) " We took a taxi and drove up the Champs-Elysees, around the Arc de Triomphe and down the other side. On the way up we passed brasseries and boutiques, while the other side featured auto dealers, mechanics and electrical shops. We stopped in front of a Porsche dealer and got out of the taxi. I could'nt believe my luck, but when we paraded into the showroom we marched right past the Porsches. The next batch of cars were Karmann Ghias. I'd heard of them, but never seen one before. I thought the coupes were kind of neat, but we marched right past them, too, and only stopped at the very back of the showroom in front of a little grey car that looked like a bug. It had no chrome, radio, or gas gauge and the owners manual was writen in French and German, but it was going to be MY car. - My father seemed slightly annoyed by the look on my face. "I know you want me to let you have the T-Bird, but I dont want you to look like a spoiled child. I want you to be just a regular young man." ( In less than five seconds, I had gone from being a "child" to a "regular young man.") - The little car was a Volkswagen. - Once I was back in Omaha, where no one had ever seen a VW, I went to a movie, and when I came out the car had put up on the sidewalk by frat rats. For a "regular young man" I stuck out like a very sore thumb. Everyone at O.U. had expected me to be driving a Ferrari or some other fancy car. I would - I thought - have been just perfect in the T-Bird, but instead I got a lot of jeering and jokes. Where's the engine in that thing? Does it come with pedals? In the long run, it was the best car for me. On a twenty-dollar-a-week allowance, I could go ten miles on a dime's worth of gas. But I could'nt drive it in the summer. Aunt Harriet and her daughter, Jayne, who were also on vacation in Europe, borrowed it and drove all over Europe in my new car. I did'nt get to drive it until I flew back to the States with Harriet and my cousin, and we all declared the VW on our customs list. In those days one could bring in five hundred dollars of mechandise without paying any duty. The bug had cost eleven hundred and fifty dollars, so we split it three ways and still had a quota surplus for other buys. Though I never mentioned the five italian switchblades I hauled through customs....." CHAPTER SIX:- When my freind Jimmy Gibson joined our travelling circus several weeks later, he, Carl, and I made up a predictable triumvirate, young men in pursuit of happiness, set loose in a holding tank of young, lusting Swedes. Shortly after Jimmy joined us at the villa, we all took off for Spain to see the running of the bulls in Pamplona, a ritual and place made famous by Ernest Hemmingway in 'Death In the Afternoon'.  Dad rented a Nash Ambassador, a peculiar-looking car, for the drive. None of the european cars - were in the price range Dad was prepared to pay --or were big enough to carry five people in comfort, so off we rolled in the Nash Ambassador, Dad and Afdera in the front, Jane, Jimmy, and myself in the back. There was a jump-seat that folded out from the back of the front seat, so the three of us were'nt crampted side by side. ( the Nash was broad in the front and narrow in the back). Each of the three of us took turns catnapping on the jump-seat when we were'nt singing songs or playing road games. -  We stopped in Antibes for a rest, and as we walked down a boulevard with a center of old shade trees we saw Jean Cocteau sitting at a table outside a cafe. He recognised Dad of course, and the two men greeted each other with Afdera translating.  Both Jane I knew some French from school, but I was too awestruck to say anything but, "Bonjour, monsier." -  I'd studied about him, his writings, his films and seen some of his art, and would later put his maxims to use in films myself, but here he was in the flesh, part of a very special coterie that included Picasso, Spanish film-maker Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali.............Something went very wrong with the Nash in Arles the home for many years of Vincent van Gogh. It was evening by the time we found a mechanic who would work on the car, and it was precisely the darkness that revealed the problem, a cracked block and cylinder. In the squalid, dark cubicle that was the mechanics garage, Jimmy and I saw the flash of the ignited cylinder through the crack in the block. A Nash Ambassador block was'nt an easy find even in the United States in 1957. - Heavy anger from Dad, who did'nt want to hear from Jimmy or me about how to fix the cracik temporarily. But we got the mechanic to weld up the crack as well as possible, and spent the night in Arles. - The next afternoon, we left for the Pyrenees and the Spainish border in the midst of a darkening storm. My father, refusing to explain his reasoning, crossed the mountains by the most obscure roads, narrow ones without guardrails and long drops off the outside lane, our lane. In the rain and fog, little white painted boulders with kilometer markings were our only indication of the edge of the road. As we neared the border, Afdera became agitated, jabbering something about her passport. I think she was having a new passport made with a younger birth date ( a 'passport-lift', in EuroTrash parlance ) and was without papers. This it turned out, was why we had to take the road seldom travelled. Dad grew even angrier and we were in agreement with him....................." - -  - When it was time to head back to school, Dad, in a move that was quite out of character, asked me to drive the T-Bird back to New York. Johnny Strasberg volunteered to be my co-driver and of we went. He had a bag full pills that his sister, Susan Strasberg had given him to help keep us awake. They were called "Dexies", but we never needed one. We drove old Route 66 back to Saint Louis, and stopped at all the goofy roadside attractions. It was hysterical. I especially remember a sign that began to appear when we were  just inside the Arizona border, and read;  WINSLOW, FOR MEN ONLY. Johnny and I were certain that it was a billboard for a brothel, and stepped on it.  It turned out to be a clothing store for men. We were not given much money for the drive. But we did get to drive Route 66, the worlds most famous highway, and made the drive to New York in record time:- seventy-three hours, with an E.T. of just under four days. We ate some of the Dexies for the last leg, and though they made us stay awake, the drive turned into a total grind. I had just enough time to see Mom2 and go for a drive in the country before I headed back to Omaha. Earlier in the year, I had sold my VW and bought an MG TF1500, but now I saw that the MG was a liability in the winter and traded it in for the 1957 Ford Custom Tudor. - "Custom Tudor" meant no frills, no chrome, two doors, with three on the column. But the Ford had a radio, and though I hated the look of the car, it did have a nice large bench seat in front. In those days, one's car was one's world. While we were in our cars, we were in our very own living rooms without parental control. One of the particularly good things about my living room, the Tudor, was its capacity. Eight of us could cram ourselves into its big American body, and as not everyone had a car, mine became a limousine. It was a perfect double dater, though I preferred to be alone with the ladies most of the time. The Beatniks loved it. Everyone would kick in a buck for gas and oil, and we'd drive to coffehouses and listen to poetry read to jazz or into North Omaha, the black district and listen to all kinds of new music. Some of my friends were not so sure about going to the black district for any reason, but their attitude was a mystery to me. -  I had a favourite passenger that fall. The spring before, just after I'd bought the MG, I'd been fixed up with a blind date for a dance at Peony Park. When I picked up my date, I was speechless. She was absolutely gorgeous. Tall, strawberry blond, with a figure that shut down any other woman I had been with. She was intelligent, she loved the car, she thanked me when I opened the door for her. She asked me about my dreams about the future and told me about hers. We danced to Stan Kenton's Big Band orchestra. I was in ecstasy, feeling her body move with mine, seeing a smile that stopped my heart. She whispered in  my ear that I was the best dancer she had ever been with. She was considered a farm girl by the townie dorks, from a small town called Bennington where her family lived in a simple but large one-story farmhouse. I thought she was my own peerless Rita Hayworth. Her name was Jackie Grau. She was what I had fantasized about and I fell madly in love. We took walks on her family farm, talking about the world. When I would bring her home after a date, we rolled around on the hardwood floors, kissing and caressing as if we were on a down-filled mattress. She let me explore her beauty and explored me in return.  I was in the very heaven I thought I would never find. Her grace and beauty allowed me to forget my anger and confusion about the life I saw ahead, whenever we were together. That summer, while I frolicked in Malibu, Jackie of course had other dates. One night that fall, as I drove her home to her farm, feeling close and protected, headlights from another car exploded in my eyes when I turned into her driveway. Jackie yelped - it was some frat boy with whom she had cancelled a date to be with me. He took it personally, and the duel was on. I backed out of her drive with the wanna-be boyfriend right on my bumper. I drove in reverse for the next fifteen miles, sliding from one side of the country dirt-road to the other - evasive tactics to keep him behind me, so to speak. Then, at an advantageous moment, I was able to spin around and drive forward, still keeping him behind. He thought Jackie was his property. Jackie was never anyone's property.  And thus we duelled back to the city. My Ford was straining on its engine mounts, and we could hear the fan blades cutting into the radiator. Jackie's friend was driving an Olds Rocket 88, a much faster car than my V8 salesman special; Custom Tudor Ford.  Were it not for my practicing with the VW Bug, he could have easily forced us off the road and god knows into what. Overheating was just a kiss away. I was standing on the horn, hoping to rouse a cop. No chance. He fell back when we reached the lighted roads of the city, and it took some fairly daring maneuvers to lose him. We made the safety of Harriet and Jacks's house and ran inside, where we fell together on the couch in the living room, holding on to one another in passion and fright. Unfortunately, our arrival roused the household and the Colonel, my cousin Douw and Harriet all walked into the living room. I suggested that Jackie stay the night - she could have my room and I would sleep on the couch until I could drive her home in the friendship of the daylight. I plotted, immediately, the move to my bedroom, when everyone had returned to sleep.  Fat chance. The Colonel and Douw decided  to drive her home in a proper, moral manner. The only gift was the relative privacy of the backseat. Douw and Jack kept their sleepy concentration on the road ahead, giving the two of us the moments of privacy we needed. - Things faded away eventually. Jackie now lives in Arizona and has two children of her own. The last time I saw her we passed each other in cars and spoke briefly. She told me she was joining the Peace Corps and the idea that she had volunteered made me feel great. All along I had felt she was a special person, an intelligent woman with grace and beauty. I told her I would always love her, wished her luck with her life and watched her drive away." -

CHAPTER EIGHT:- About Stormy, a close friend of Peters; "Stormy was concerned about my past interfering with my present, and was remarkably good - at least then - at avoiding  this problem himself. He wanted me to learn to laugh more. We often went to the drive-in movies in the 'Vette, just the two of us. I'm sure that many people imagined that we were homosexuals from the amount of time we spent together, but I never gave it a thought. I knew I was'nt and I was sure that Stormy was'nt. Other nights we spent at a local Texaco station with the Corvette up on the lift and I learned a great deal about engines, camshafts, the whole works, all the car stuff I'd dreamed of as a younger boy. We had a friend who worked the late shift at the station, so we had free access to the lifts and the tools. We tuned exhausts, changed rear ends, tuned the feul injection. We'd drag race all comers and never lost. We cruised the local haunts with the 'Vette loping along in first gear. It was our calling card. Anyone into cars knew we were running a radical camshaft and were looking for a race. And everyone wanted to beat Stormy. He taught me how to drag, how to heat up the tires without moving the car and without letting the rearend dance too much. I became good at it. We felt that we were untouchable. We never took any money for our wins, even though the races all started out with a wager.                                                                       

TO BE CONTINUED.

                                                                                                .                                               
                                       THE CAR-GREATS :- S.C.H. DAVIS.

“Better known as ‘Sammy.’ The extraordinary Mr. Davis was very, very good at a lot of things and has followed and been intimately involved with the development and progress of the motor-car. A veteran himself, he was born when the motor industry was in its infancy. He was one of the original members of the Bentley Team, driving many times at  Le Mans and for many years was Sporting Editor of the famous British; “Autocar”. His is a personal narrative, full of interesting anecdotes and facts about motor cars and their makers”.

This is a homage to the great man and his most excellent and fascinating book; “Cars, Cars, Cars. Cars.” - Published by Paul Hamlyn–London. -  What is very interesting about the 'Great'  Mr. Davis and his fine book, is that it tells the 'real' story about how the 'motor-car- industry' actually came about.. and how its very different from what is the general perception out there..........and..............   .......no......... it was'nt Benz & Daimler who really started it all, it was much earlier on,  - in fact it was almost 200 years earlier that the frenchman Cugnot tried to demonstrate to Napoleon a motorised artillery piece that was'nt drawn by horses but propeled by its own engine and that Hero of Alexander, in 200 BC for goodness sake, had spun an orb around an axel with the help of small jets of steam !! - (Ed.)     

S.C.H. DAVIS :-  “Over a hundred years or so ago motoring was the province of the rich or eccentric few. Providing the machinery kept going they enjoyed the freedom of the empty roads, marred only by punctures, and dust. Today, many years after Benz built his first car-from a bicycle frame - millions of cars are produced annually. This book presents the colorful  development of the family motor car through the ages – from the heavy, primitive, noisy  to the silent, comfortable, fluid and streamlined models of today…”      

BEGINNINGS
   
“The beginnings of the motor car are shrouded in mystery, since exact data is extremely hard to come by, and legend arising after the event is inevitable. Moreover, scores of men throughout the world each contributed a little knowledge from which further development logically created the machines we know today.
Engines, as engines, began with curious experiments, details of which are naturally lost in the mists of antiquity for no one thought them important at the time. Two centuries before Christ, Hero of Alexander, for example, is said to have made a sphere turn on an axel by using jets of steam – but it came to nothing. In 1678 Father Verbiest, missionary in China, thought out a little steam – driven ‘chariot’  to amuse his protector; Nan-Ho-Ay-Gin. Five years earlier, Christian Huygens had made steam operate a piston in a cylinder. But these are only three of countless men who, throughout the centuries, made innumerable experiments- many of them totally useless, many adding only a little to the slow process of evolution of the modern machine, but the few making great and significant discoveries.  
Nowadays news of any of these exciting experiments would be circulated all over the world by the daily papers. But way back then in the early days of engines news circulated only by chance meetings between people. Or perhaps by a letter if the subject was thought interesting enough to set down on paper. Consequently, engine development took place in Europe and America, even in France and Britain, individually, and independently, and no one engineer knew what was happening in any other country.
In Britain James Watt, who was trained in the making of precision instruments, and greatly encouraged by Glasgow University, began to think about steam engines. We are all taught the legend that Watt’s idea for using steam originated from watching the lid of his grandmother’s kettle moving up and down under steam pressure. Whether this was true or not, Watt, who was in poor health as a boy and so religious that he would not continue even the most interesting experiment on a Sunday, was asked to repair a model of a very crude engine designed by Thomas Newcomen around 1705. Briefly this engine operated by admitting steam at low pressure into a cylinder below a very light piston.  Steam then drove the piston up. When the piston reached the top of the cylinder, a jet of water was squirted into the steam to condense it and form a vacuum. As the top of the cylinder was open, atmospheric pressure drove the piston down again. Watt decided to use steam pressure only to drive the engine and the advantage was immediately apparent.”

"But he was unable to continue his experiments owing to financial trouble. In 1768 he met Matthew Boulton, who was not only very intelligent but rich, with whom a year later he formed the Birmingham firm of Boulton and Watt. However, this company produced only practical, stationary steam engines, but progress towards a road vechicle at last became realistic. It became a reality when Joseph Cugnot developed a steam vehicle.  Born in Lorraine in 1725, Cugnot worked at the French Military school at Mezieres. It happened that his immediate superior, de Gribeauval, was in the service of the Duke de Choiseul. These two encouraged and financed Cugnot in his endevour to make a steam tractor for towing artillery. Progress was beset by obstacles, both political and financial, but Cugnot persited. About that time, the revolution in France had disposed of the monarchy and the whole country was in chaos. But by 1800 Cugnot's strange steam-driven, three-wheeled tractor was in the main French arsenal under the control of Roland. Roland had become Commissaire General of the artillery under Napoleon and had used all his influence to forward the advantages of the tractor. So, on 24th January, 1800, the tractor was officially tested. It ran well, though briefly, in Vincennes Park; or at least so it was reported at the time. Napoleon, in point of fact, was far too busy leading France's armies to take a real interest in this new mechanical carriage, and thus missed being connected with the birth of mechanically propelled road vehicles.

In America progress continued without European liaison and proceeded so well that in 1805 a starnge contraption was actually seen running slowly along a road in Philadelphia, a vechicle with a steam engine driving not only the wheels but a paddle astern, for its crude body was watertight enough for it to swim as well as run on the road. All this was due to Oliver Evans, but his unhappy reward was to be considered not quite right in the head. - Back in Britain steam had made further advances. One of Watt's men, Murdock, made a model, steam-driven three-wheeler in 1786 which could actually run, though it achieved no further progress. But in 1827 a monstrous affair, made as much like a four horse coach as possible, was actually driven down the road from London to Bath at an average speed of six mph. This formidable vehicle was designed by a Cornishman, Goldsworthy Gurney, who by profession was a surgeon but who had become violently enthusiastic about mechanical transport on the road. Behind the coach body was the boiler and engine; most of the passengers sat on the roof while the unfortunate driver was seated right in front, and attempted to steer with a long handle. In 1833 cumbersome steam coaches designed by Walter Hancock were being run as a passenger service on the roads between Oxford Street, London and Edgeware, Regents Circus and Uxbridge.

But the state of the roads in Britain, the absense of pneumatic tyres, and the violent opposition from almost everyone in the country to the idea of mechanical propulsion ensured failure for all these early efforts. The true beginning of the car as we know it today was in the year 1885, in Germany. Karl Benz, a watch mechanic and son of a steam engineer, had a friend named Walter, who was a printer. Walter had trouble with his feet, and tried to ride one of the earliest bicycles but with catastrophic results. So he gave the solid tyred machine to Benz,who immediately decide that it should have an engine and, for safety another wheel. The result was the first of a few experimental cars in 1885 and 1886, followed by a full four-wheeler. All these machines ran well, if slowly. - Benz's knowledge of engines stemmed from experience with the oil or gas engines of that time, which ran at about 130 revolutions a minute. Reciprocating engines were being used a good deal at the time for pumping, driving line-shafting for workshops and other various jobs, most of them having large single-cylinder engines run on parafin oil or coal gas. For the Benz engine a mixture of air and petrol was formed in a tank, called a carburetter, and sucked through a valve into a cylinder when the piston in the latter was going down. Immediately the piston began to return on the upstroke, the inlet valve closed and the gas was compressed. At full compression an electric spark fired the gas which drove the piston down. When the piston returned once more another valve was opened , so the burned gas escaped to the open air. As soon as the gas had had time to escape the exhaust valve closed, the inlet valve opened, and the engine receieved a fresh charge of gas. This cycle of operations was quite different from that of the steam engine. For the latter, steam under pressure was admitted through one valve to the cylinder and drove the piston down, another valve opened to let the steam out when the piston returned. Sometimes steam was admitted first one side of the piston then the other, thus obtaining more power without increased weight. The steam engine developed power with every revolution of the crankshaft,  the petrol engine only did so once in two revolutions of the crankshaft. For the petrol engine the compressed gas could be exploded either by an electric spark from a plug timed to occur on the compression stroke, or by the compressed gas being forced into a white hot platinum tube. To heat the tube a species of blow lamp using petrol was installed.

Benz favoured electric ignition from the start. Since the engine had to be cooled, jackets were cast round the cylinder and filled with water which circulated to a cooling tank or radiator, placed well above the engine, because hot water rises while cold water sinks. Since the machine originated from the concept of a mechanized bicycle it had big wire wheels, solid rubber tyres, rather sketchy brakes, and a tiller by which to steer. - A steam engine develops power without respect to its crankshaft speed, but a petrol engine does not. If the petrol engine has to pull too great a load it slows, and therfore power is reduced. Benz overcame this difficulty by fitting a gear change mechanism, consisting of belts and pulleys which drove the rear axel through a chain, thus providing a low gear to climb hills and a high gear for speed on the flat. Another German, Gottlieb Daimler, was also busy experimenting with the petrol engine at this time. The second son of a baker, Daimler was a good mechanic with wide experience of the internal combustion engine. His engine differed from that of Benz in having two cylinders rather than one, tube ignition rather than electric, and in a very short time, a 'jet carburetter,' i.e. a carburetter with a little jet squirting petrol into a stream of air. It was with this engine that the first Daimler car ran on the road in 1889, and it was obvious at once that it was a carriage in its own right rather than a development of the bycycle.  -  These cars had very little power, possibly because there was still a tendency to regard mechanical horse power as representing the power of live horses, and therefore three h.p. should suffice. And speed, as speed, was not yet considered, all that was hoped for was the pace usually associated with horse vechicles. But the effect of the Benz and Daimler was immense. Meantime much was happening in the United states. George B. Selden, having come over to Europe in 1870 and seen what was being developed there, turned his attention to the power-driven road vechicle, eventually obtaining a patent for a 'motor-car', Selden seems to have been a man with more enthusiasm than engineering knowledge, but with a strong sense of future financial gain. He claimed that he had designed a car with a petrol engine in 1877. but there seems to be no independant authority or witness for this claim. What we do know is that he asked for a patent in 1879 and that was not granted until November, 1895,  presumably because he was unable to produce evidence that such a car had been built. But, and this was where the trouble arose, the patent covered any vechicle with an engine using petrol. For years afterwards this was a thorn in the side of of the infant car industry in America, as well as a hinderance to those who wanted to import a car from Europe. It seemed as though Selden 'cornered'  the car industry in the United States. In 1903 Selden even attacked that genius Henry Ford, claiming royalties, but in the subsequent vitriolic lawsuit - lasting until 1911 - he met his match, for the case was resolved in Henry Ford's favour. Incidentally Ford claimed in after years that he had made a car which ran in 1891, though all the evidence suggests that it really appeared in 1895 !  -  The real start of the huge American industry was due more certainly to Charles and Frank Duryea. They created a very spidery affair in 1895, having already had  vast trouble with an engine built in 1892. It is interesting to note that one of these Duryea cars, looking rather like Queen Victoria's pony cart without its pony or shafts, did take part in the run from London to Brighton organized in Britain on the 14th November, 1896, to celebrate the passing of a new law freeing the car from many previous restrictions. This event was the reason for the subsequent annual London to Brighton Run now organized by the Royal Automobile Club. - But from 1895 onwards progress in Europe was speedy and practical, the day of the wild but untrained enthusiast had gone. A French wood-working firm called Panhard had been persuaded to build cars and were using the Daimler engine. Daimler himself now had the assistance of a very able engineer, Maybach, a partnership which produced the famous V two-cylinder engine called a Daimler-Phenix, that could develop as much as six h.p. and was probably the finest engine of that period. However, the first Panhard of 1890 was a much cruder affair than the cars which made history, though nevertheless a machine of promise, as none could deny. Panhard were followed in 1892 by Peugeot, for whose car also the Daimler engine was used. The original firm of Peugeot grew from a firm called Les Fils de Peugeot Freres de Valentigny, run by the Peugeot family, with factories then engaged in making coffee machines. These factories had then come under the control of Armand Peugeot and his cousin Eugene Peugeot. Initially these two were interested in the new vechicles by the wood-working factory of Perin-Panhard from which the famous firm of Panhard & Levassor was to spring. Furthermore a Daimler motor company had been started in Britain and in 1897 produced their first version of the German car. The first four-cylinder German Daimler appeared in !898; it was improved by magneto ignition in 1899 and also provided with pneumatic tyres - a great step forward. Magnetto ignition was a small, compact device which consisted of large horseshoe - shaped magnets between which revolved an armature driven from the engine. On the armature were two wire windings one of which developed low tension current similar to that suppied from a battery. When a contact breaker cut off this current suddenly, the result was to create very hign tension current in the second winding. This high tension current created a spark between the points of a sparking plug, and the spark ignited the compressed gas in the engine cylinder. If the engine had more than one cylinder a revolving arm, fed with this high tension curernt, switched the current  to one of the plugs concerned. The high tension current distributor and the contact breaker were in one assembly, driven by gears from the armature shaft. This in fact was not only simpler than the hot tube ignition previously used by Daimler but more reliable than the battery-fed ignition of the Benz.

TO BE CONTINUED......                                    

NEW BOOK: - Exerpts out of the new book on the legendary David Piper; "PIPES," writen by Dr Greg Mills, Andrew Read & Robert Young to follow. - ( The authors proceeds from this book will go to the Motor Racing Legend's Fund.) This book can be acquired from ECURIE ZOO Tel: +27 (0) 11 646-1808, -  E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Sir Sterling Moss: "David does an enormous amount for the perpetuation of the old cars that we love so much".

Sir Jackie Stewart: "One of the great enthusiasts."

Phil Hill: "The perennial sportsman and trier".

Peter Brock: "As a young man I revered him".

Murray Walker: "We need a few more like him".

Jochem Mass; "A wonderful sportsman".

Alan Jones; "Been around since Big Ben was a wristwatch."

DAVID PIPER is a motorsport legend. His career, which started in hillclimbs in the early 1950's and swiftly progressed through Formula One to "big-banger' sportscars, is remarkable in terms of its results, longevity and the new standard of professionalism he has set. A six-time winner of the Kyalami Nine-hour, he has kept racing through thick and thin, despite losing a leg during the filming of the classic 'Le Mans' in 1970. Born in 1930, he is still at it when others have settled for life in comfy slippers in front of the television, his tireless enthusiasim a reflection, too, of the measure of support that he receives from his wife Liz and his children Katherine an Charlotte. - David Piper is one of the great driver-entrant privateers in motorsport racing, a career which has spanned a half a century. This book focuses on his six victories in the Kyalami Nine-Hour in the 1960\s, and his domination of the Springbok Series.  David Piper personifies the Springbok Series, the era of end-of-year races in the 1960's and early 1970's, in which he won the Kyalami Nine-Hour endurance race an unequalled six times: In 1962 ( Sharing with South African Bruce Johnstone in a Ferrari GTO ), in 1963 ( also in the Ferrari 250 GTO ) and 1964 ( Ferrari 275 LM ), both times driving with South African F1 star Tony Maggs, in 1965 and 1966 sharing with Richard Attwood in Piper's Ferrari 365 P2 / 3, and again with Attwood in 1969, this time in a Porsche 917. He also received a second place at Sebring, won the Daily Express Trophy at Silverstone, and he drove for Lancia, Porsche, and Gulf JW Automotive team. Despite a 'major accident' in a Porsche 917 during the filming of Steve McQueen's "Le Mans", which cost him his leg, he has continued racing in historic series, winning the European FIA Historic Championship in 1990. - He is the smiling privateer. But underneath this exterior is sporting and commercial steel. He transformed South African motorsport - at least the sportscar and endurance racing community - from a largely home-brew, local effort, into a major event on the international calender. His participation in the 1962 Nine-Hour signalled the advent of more specialist machinery and profesionall drivers - from the Willment Team in the early 1960's to the fully-fledged works Ferrari 312 P outfit in 1972. Iincreasing competion has, as the old cliche goes, also a way of improving the breed...........With international participants came the development of a regional series, linking the hitherto somewhat ad hoc endurance races into a southern African calendar. And so was the Springbok Series created, heralding an era of motorsort that many hanker for even today, 35 years after its demise, one of sun, sport, spectators and, well, other fun of the liberated sixties. In doing so, Piper had to make his racing pay for itself, a feat unremarkable today in the media savvy age, but virtually unheard of in the 1950's and 1960's when most racing drivers only made a small fortune by starting out with a larger one. Not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, David led the way in ensuring start money for teams to make the sport viable, in a manner that afforded his virtually unprecedented continuity in motorsport for fifty years.  No wonder his peers marvel at his longevity and professionalism. Three-time World Formula One Champion Sir Jackie Stewart descibes him as 'One of the great enthusiasts.' - Sir Sterling Moss remembers 'He worked for my father, and yet did not manage to break too much. He and his machinery do an enormous amount for the perpetuation of the sport and the old cars that we love so much.' .............1980 World F1 Champion Australian Alan Jones says 'He has been around since Big Ben was a wristwatch. He just seems to pop up all the time. Motorsport needs more and more people like him.' Or as his compatriot Peter 'Peter Perfect' Brock put it only days before his untimely death in September 2006; 'As a young man I revered him. I knew Kyalami to be a tough track, and anyone who can win an endurance race consistently has to have to have the ability to glue the team together and not be to tough. These are all the qualities that summarise David Piper for me.' - IndyCar legend, Wolf F1 driver and Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal says of him. ' He participated of course in a different era to me, but he has obviously had a tremendous amount of success in a long career in motorsport. One of the best privateers ever, perhaps even the best?' -    British saloon-car exponent and champion Tony Dron describes him as the 'Eternal, indefatigable priviteer.'  1961 World Formula One Champion and three-time Le Mans 24-Hour winner Phil Hill describes David as 'a perennial trier.' - McLaren, Surtees, Arrow and March F1 driver Jochen Mass says Piper 'has always been a wonderful character in the racing world. It is difficult to pay homage to someone like him who puts everything into motor-racing: enthusiasiam, great sprit, skill and money - and are never put down, even in his case by his Le Mans mishap, after which he remains a good driver in spite of his disability, forever in good humour. He should be an inspiration to alot of moaners and drivers. A remarkable personality.' - As John Fitzpatrick, a driver who started with Mini's in the 1960's and who competed in the 1980's with Porsche 956's and 962's at Le Mans agrees, 'It's just remarkable what he has continued to achieve after his accident. Anybody else might have sat in a corner, but not David. There is incredible fight in him.' - His fight an tenacity is continuously cited by his peers. Sir John Whitmore, evergreen 1960's saloon-car ace, describes Piper as 'One of the great swashbuckling heroes. He has probably more racing miles under him than anyone, but today remains as friendly and delightful as any.'  - Formula Junior personality and single-seater stalwart Dr Tony Goodwin, who has also raced continuosly since the 1960's, asks; 'He has always made his racing pay for itself. How did he do that?' - Brian Redman, a works Porsche and Ferrari driver and F1 driver for Shadow, Cooper and McLaren, provides something of an answer. 'He is perhaps the greatest privateer of all time. Although he has the smiling cherubic face of an angel, behind that is the mind of a farmer who knows the value of every penny.' -  Or as his Le Mans and Kyalami co-driver Richard Attwood admiringly says; 'He is probably the only person ever to have made money out of the sport- and he's still at it.' -  Five times Le Mans winner and F1 driver Derek Bell also offers an insight into the world of a privateer competing against the factory teams in a sport driven by money. 'It's not about Daivid's driving so much that I admire him, although his results speak for themselfs. He is a one-off character, a great competitor, always reliable, always there, always fielding bloody good cars I would like to have driven myself.' -  As Le Mans stalwart Mike Salmon puts it: 'How on earth can you summarise the career of someone you have known for 40 years. Terrifically courageous after his terrible Le Mans accident, a person I have never known however to complain  or grumble. A great chap.' -  Rupert Keegan, ex-Hesketh, Surtees and Arrows F1 driver says that David Piper is  'Simply a legend. All the things he has done, the races he has competed in, the film Le Mans, the Porsche 917 races; he's an institution.' - John Rhodes, Mini-Cooper saloon-car legend and one-time Cooper GP driver, recalls that  'We do not come into contact that often on the track - at least, not in the right sense of the word. I drove small-engined cars and these big-engined guys ( like Piper) spent their time getting in the way on the corners!  Seriously, he is a real sportsman, a true enthusiast.' - Murray Walker, himself a legend behind the microphone, says that Piper is 'One of the great indestructibles, and a gigantic true enthusiast. You don't expect him to win nowdays, but you know that he will be there with something impressive and giving it his all. We need a few more like him.'            

TO BE CONTINUED......                                                                                                                                   

 MICHAEL BUYS HIMSELF A BIRTHDAY PRESENT:-  A 'REAL ' COBRA.'............... and boy, what a Cobra ! - For his 38th. birthday on January 3,  Michael Schumacher went out and bought one of the very rarest cars out there.  Price no problem.....  Ford had  Peter Brock design and build only  6x racers  to help Ford wrest the Le Mans24 hour Race from their dreaded Italians rivals in their Ferrari's. The Ford GT40's had taken much longer to do the job than what they thought and the open Cobra's were'nt up to it....so Brock came up with the awesome Daytona Coupe. ( The reasons why it took Ford so long to accomplish its goal and estimates of how much this effort cost, are discussed in an article in the GT40 Section else where on this site....Ed)

South Africans were fortunate enough to see one of these Daytona Coupes driven in anger by none other than our own Bobby Olthoff, alas no longer with us, - (he will be sorely missed by all), who had driven this car so successfully on home ground plus abroad and the giant Ford Gallaxy which he both piloted in the UK driving for the British Willment team and later bringing both cars to SA, where he raced them both sucessfully in our 9Hour Series. ( See report of the David Piper "Legends" Weekend Race to read and see pics of the greatest Racing Cars of the ' 60's and ' 70's plus the latest Ford Gallaxy replica driven with verve by Sarel 'SuperVan' van der Merwe. - DVD footage of the weekends racing willl be up shortly. ...(Over 50 hours of DVD to come....Ed)     

A very beautiful recreation of this priceless Daytona Coupe, a motoring icon plus their GT40's and others, are available from RETROMOBILE, through Brad Green Motors in Edenvale.

" GUILD TO HONOUR S.A. MOTOR SPORTSMEN" - Star Motoring, Feb. 15, '07.

  ( Eight nominees for award have made their mark in local and international motor sport.)

" There are eight nominations for the 2006 Bridgestone / Guild of Motoring Journalists Motor Sportsman of the Year Award, which will be announced on February 19th. Four nominees have also been named for the Colin Watling Award, which recognises significant contribution and achievement by a non-competitor in motor sport. The nominees, in alphabetical order, are:- ALFIE COX, 44, whose victory in the 2006 ABSA Off Road Championship (special vehicle category) was another historic milestone for one of South Africa's most successful and best-known motor sportsmen. He has now won a remakable 26 national off road and enduro motor sport titles and is the only motor sportsman to have won titles on a motorcycle (2003), in a production vehicle ('04 & '05 ) and in a special vehicle ('06), He also finished 15th. in his first DAKAR Rally on four wheels, after becoming a DAKAR legend on two wheels, ( 7 DAKARS, 6 top five finishes, 3 top three finishes and a best result of second). :- GINIEL de VILLIERS, 34, who finished second overall with the first diesel car in the 2006 DAKAR RALLY in a works VW Tourareg. After competing in four  DAKAR RALLIES, three times for Nissan and once for VW, he is considered one of the world's top desert racers. During 2007 Giniel also won the Portugal and Morocco rounds of the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies in a works VW Touareg. :- HANNES GROBLER, 51, four times SA off road drivers champion, spread across 20 years, from 1986 ( when he was 31 ) to 2006 and has won 10 National motor sport championships covering the different disciplines of rallying and off road racing and winning 20 of his 48 events. :- WESLEIGH ORR, 18, winner of the DD2 and Max Challenge classes of the European Rotax Max Karting Challenge in Ghenk ( Belgium) in Sept. He is the first karter to win both these championships in the same year. :- ADRIAN ZAUGG, 20, SA's runner-up in the very competative Formula Renault 2.0 Italian championship with six wins and 10 podiums. He also competed in the Euro Cup Formula Renault 2.0 and the World Series Formula Renault 3.5, scoring two seconds and dominating the AIGP World Cup of Motorsport opening round in the Netherlands in Oct. :- LEEROY POULTER, 25, who won the Bridgestone SA Production Car Championships in a Nissan 300Z, breaking the BMW domination of class A after winning four national karting titles betwen 1996 and 2002. He won class D of the Group N championship in 2000 and 2001, winning six races and finishing on the podium in 16 of the 20 races, with 10 pole positions and 10 fastest race laps and represented SA in the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals.:- ENZO KHUNN / GUY HOGSON, who won the 2006 Sasol SA Rally Championship, with Enzo, 38, breaking a 14-year hold on the drivers title by Serge Damseaux and Jannie Habig. Hodgson, 52, claimed his first co-drivers crown after 23 years.:- BRIAN  CAPPER, 27, winner of the SA SuperMoto Championship who also competed successfully three times in the American X- Games and lent three bikes to overseas riders for the Carousel International in November 2006. The COLIN WATLING AWARD, are:- DANA COOPER, dynamic CEO of A1 Team South Afirica, which is flying the SA flag in the unique A1GP World Cup of Motorsport was the first such international event held in Durban and voted the best round of the 11-event series.:- WAMMY HADDAD, Toyota SA's motor sport manager, who oversaw the breakthrough building and development of the world's first S200 rally car. The four wheel drive Run-X  RSI, which was homologated in the FIA World Rally Championship, competed in the SA Rally Championship, and a specialy built S200 Run-X was shipped to Britain for ALISTER McRAE, to contest the 2006 RAC Rally.:- GLYN HALL, leader of Nissan Motorsport who won 12 National Motorsport Championships in the past 11 years, under Hall's expert guidance Nissa Motorspot designed, built and developed 18 Hardbody  and  Navara racing pickups which won in SA, Botswana, Lesotho, Morocco and Spain, and competed with distinction in five DAKAR Rallies.:- DANNIE van JAARSVELD, the only SA motor sport photographer who covers all forms of the sport and has done immeasurable work towards promoting motor sport. He brings these images to the pages of countless publications through his website Motorpics".  - Star Motoring Staff.    

MORE COMING.....