Archive Issue 130

From In the Showroom : When the 1953 model year Wolseley Four Forty-Four was displayed at the London Motor Show in the autumn of 1952 it attracted enthusiastic attention. Wolseley publicity also referred to the car as the 4/44 and in this instance was exhibited without its offside doors to provide show visitors a means of easily viewing the car’s spacious and comfortable interior. Presenting a car in this fashion was a popular tactic but nevertheless criticised by some commentators as edging on vulgarity. When Rolls-Royce attempted something similar, it was reported in the motoring press that it was akin to seeing royalty in the nude. The graceful lines of the Wolseley were the efforts of Gerald Palmer who had worked for Morris prior to the Second World War before moving to Jowett where he designed the Javelin which was in production from 1947 to 1953. He was encouraged by Morris to return to Cowley near Oxford in 1949 to design the next generation Wolseleys. National Motor Museum

From Astral Equipment, Dundee : An advertising postcard from around 1960 for Astral’s A-200 portable refrigerator: by now, the firm was part of the Morphy-Richards organisation.  Mark Chalmers’s collection