Earls Court and Exports
BY GORDON WILKINS SOMEONE calls 'Action !' and the cameras whirr. Norman Wisdom, in his working clothes, looks disconsolately into the luggage trunk of an expensive limousine, feels in his empty pockets and prances off to another stand. Across the aisle, under another set of floodlights, young racing drivers and simpering girl models discuss the latest sports coupe, while TV cameras with their operators rise and fall on mechanical booms. Men are barking into tape recorders, the floor is thick with electric cables, and the press photographers of the old order nervously clutch tripods which are continually being knocked over. In the shadows, self-made motor magnates stand humbly by while the new arbiters of taste, visual and vocal, pass judgement on their latest products.
In the shadows there are foreign journalists too, struggling with what to them is always an unpopular assignment. They have been received in the foreign visitors' lounge, and have the use of an excellent press room with a helpful staff, equipped with telephones, tape machine and typewriters. There are photographs too and catalogues, but they will not be staggering home as they did from the. Frankfort Motor Show, with suit- cases full of brochures in a choice of three languages, crammed with photos, drawings, graphs, curves and technical data. With a few exceptions the photos will be uninteresting and the infor- mation incomplete. 'Can't your people see,' one asked me, 'that we have to go on filling our magazines with the features of German cars because we just can't get the material we need on British cars?' It is an old complaint and progress is slow.
The Show finds the motor industry heavily committed on a £100 million expansion programme, and suddenly confronted with serious cuts in orders from Australia and New Zealand, its best markets. The facts are familiar enough: the serious decline in our share of important European markets, where the Volkswagen alone sometimes sells more cars than the whole British industry, and the contemptuous ease with which the same car has taken top place in the American imported car market which we have laboured so hard to create. One manufacturer has for years been telling me, 'Europe doesn't matter.' He forgot that success is infectious, and the Volks- wagen now goes overseas with the added glamour of a series of easy victories to its credit. Leaders of the industry are confident they will be able to open up new markets, as they have in the past, but the chorus of criticism will not be so easily stilled. What of the products we have to sell?
The British car, and particularly the small car, is the victim of our obsolete road system. Designed for good top-gear performance in the 35 m.p.h. bonnet-to-tail processions on British main roads, its fast-revving engine has earned a reputa- tion for wearing out rapidly when day-long cruising at 60 m.p.h.
is the normal condition. We could cure it by adopting the Continental plan, making all gears synchromesh, so that first is easy to use, making third direct, for cruising on crowded roads, and gearing up the fourth speed, to give the effect of an overdrive without the expense.
Secondly, our cars are heavily criticised on appearance. Our sports models are universally admired, but our family saloons are considered ugly and old-fashioned. 'Old men's cars,' one Swiss called them. A foreign editor tells me he has just received an envoy from one of our leading manufacturers to inquire why their small car does not sell in his country. 'I told him, first it costs too much. Secondly the appearance kills it. It is not a bad car, but it looks like a bad car.' The sad fate of our custom coachbuilding industry, drifting towards extinction on sterile repetitions of obsolete themes, emphasises the lack of native talent, and we should not be too proud to borrow from abroad.
France buys ideas from Italy, and Volkswagen employed an Italian stylist to design their latest coupe. Things are moving fast in this department and there are one or two new British models which by international standards are hopelessly out of date before they can reach production. Finally, there is growing criticism on the quality of our detail finish and equipment. This is a matter much influenced by environment and affects many other industries besides the motor manufacturers. The whole trend of life in Britain since the war has been a levelling- down, and the people who might have maintained good stan- dards have lost their influence. Quality is made up of infinite attention to innumerable details. Since the Volkswagen is the chief bogey, try shutting the doors on one, and contrast the easy click-click with the tooth-jarring slam which is necessary on some of its competitors. Until recently it had only three screw' heads visible in the whole of the interior. Now there are seven, because it has been given coathangers and assist straps. This is a vast question which cannot be solved by the motor industry in isolation. The shortage of skilled labour and trained engineers is a constant handicap, and so long as order books remain full there is a strong resistance to inconvenient neW ideas on the part of suppliers. One of our most wide-awake fighting, and to begin an action that might be broken off by darkness or Villeneuve running for home would be worse than no action at all. Not until the early hours of October 21, by which time he had cut off Villeneuve's line of retreat from Cadiz, did the moment come. At 6.30 that morning Nelson signalled the fleet to form order of sailing in two columns, to steer eastward towards the enemy, and to prepare for battle.
The rest of the story is part of the national consciousness : the making of the will, the farewell prayer, the famous signal. and then, at the moment of victory, the last agonies of the cock- pit. But it is too often told out of context, as though it were something singular in itself instead of being, as it was, the ordained conclusion of a lifetime. What makes Nelson's story one of the most moving of all time is his certainty and willing acceptance of what lay ahead. This was the end, the apotheosis : his work was over, and the only glory unattained was death.
About half an hour before noon on that cool, sunny morning. the two fleets were less than a mile apart. On the poop of the Bucentaure Villeneuve was standing among his officers. Watching the approach of the two British columns, animal- like in its resolve, horrifying in its unfamiliarity, with the bands playing on deck and the Nemesis-like figureheads of the Victory and Royal Sovereign creeping purposefully to- wards him, he was quite unnerved. 'Nothing but victory,' he was heard to murmur, 'can result from such gallant conduct. At the same time, on the Victory's poop, Nelson was taking leave of Blackwood, about to return to his frigate. 'I can do no more,' he told him. 'We must trust to the Great Disposer of all events, and to the justice of our cause. I thank God for this great opportunity of doing my duty.' They shook hands. `I trust, my lord,' said Blackwood, 'that on my return to the Victory I shall find your lordship well and in the possession of twenty prizes.' Nelson's reply was to remain with him for the rest of his life : 'God bless you, Blackwood. I shall never speak to you again.'
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