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Straying behind the lines here, but look at this, surely the ideal car for Wartime Housewife to go to rummage sales in. I passed over £1.50 for this December 27th 1944 copy of The Motor yesterday, and I think it's worth a tenner just for the front cover. By this time England was thinking that the end of the war must be in sight, as indeed it was, and the Riley ad. says: "Through the years, Riley enthusiasts have valued increasingly those excellences which so unmistakably individualize this Car of Quality. Their approbation will be further heightened, when, as expeditiously as may be, the post-war Riley comes into service." You don't get the word 'approbation' much these days, certainly not in car advertising. Note the hint of expectancy in these advertisements for so many products unavailable in the duration, marking time before everyone could run down to the shops on V.E.Day for gravy browning. And the likes of Horlicks, which was kept back for convalescing troops. I somehow doubt that Riley ever produced this car in such a 21st century colour, but when I get mine I'll be very tempted to get it resprayed just like this.
Well, alright, just one more. This Riley was a cut-above the average, the sort of car that could only be driven with Dents driving gloves and a Dunhill pipe emphatically-packed with Player's Medium Navy Cut. It was for the man who liked a little, but not too much, sportiness in his life. Something to impress the twin-set off a secretary down at the works office, but still striking the right note after Sunday service with church elders and Miss Primrose in the choir. This stunning air-brushed image is from a 1960 brochure, at the time when the Riley One-and-a-Half litre was being superceded by the Pathfinder so beloved of Scotland Yard police (we're gaining on them sir!). I find the choice of a trio of Kent oast houses in the background interesting; this was a time when these vernacular buildings in the landscape would have typified the country life being sort after by the post war newly well-off. Particularly out in the southern countryside, within easy reach of London Bridge or Charing Cross by train. The Riley getting admiring glances from Standard or Triumph drivers parking-up at Eridge and Paddock Wood. I had one of these beautiful cars in the 70s, all black, red leather seats, and after the original valve radio had warmed-up out came Educating Archie.
Straying behind the lines here, but look at this, surely the ideal car for Wartime Housewife to go to rummage sales in. I passed over £1.50 for this December 27th 1944 copy of The Motor yesterday, and I think it's worth a tenner just for the front cover. By this time England was thinking that the end of the war must be in sight, as indeed it was, and the Riley ad. says: "Through the years, Riley enthusiasts have valued increasingly those excellences which so unmistakably individualize this Car of Quality. Their approbation will be further heightened, when, as expeditiously as may be, the post-war Riley comes into service." You don't get the word 'approbation' much these days, certainly not in car advertising. Note the hint of expectancy in these advertisements for so many products unavailable in the duration, marking time before everyone could run down to the shops on V.E.Day for gravy browning. And the likes of Horlicks, which was kept back for convalescing troops. I somehow doubt that Riley ever produced this car in such a 21st century colour, but when I get mine I'll be very tempted to get it resprayed just like this.
