By and large , the Citroen was a remarkably good car .sx Like most French machines , it always did what you expected it to do , and you never felt insecure driving it , no matter what the circumstances might be .sx Both the steering and the change mechanism were rather heavy , but one got used to this .sx There were times , too , when I longed for a fourth gear , particularly in hilly Devonshire country , I remember , when I was often caught between ratios and felt quite helpless .sx Characteristic of its country of origin , you always knew that there were only four cylinders working for you under the bonnet , and I should have liked to try the Big 6 , which must be a very pleasant handful of a motor car .sx The cornering and the road-holding on the Citroen were astonishingly good , as anyone knows who has driven one , and the manner in which it remained glued to the ground going round corners , no matter what the road surface might be , was most endearing .sx But best of all was the Citroen's gluttony for work .sx It seemed to relish being driven hard , and flat-out driving all day appeared to leave it refreshed and longing for more .sx Sometimes that pleasant Citroen used to be subject to a minor vibration period when cornering fast on lock .sx This was only a slight nuisance , and was caused by the Carden shaft overrunning the engine at certain times and not at others , creating a non-constant velocity .sx I mention this only because the same thing , in a much more extreme form , cropped up at Lagondas when we were testing the prototype 2 1/2-litre Lagonda at Staines immediately after World War =2 .sx For a long time we could not understand why , when travelling slowly in top with practically no throttle , the engine appeared to miss .sx This was all the more curious because when carrying only one passenger under identical circumstances we had no trouble with the engine at all .sx I don't know how long we all wasted on this annoying snag before the answer suddenly occurred to us .sx Of course , we at last reasoned , with the extra weight at the rear , the angle was altered between the bevel-box and the wheels and we might be subjecting the Carden shaft to a non-constant velocity .sx At last our reasoning was right , the vibration occasioned giving an almost identical impression to that caused by a missing engine .sx At that time I believe there was only one foreign firm making constant velocity joints , and as it was quite impossible to get supplies , we 'faked-up' this vibration period , quite successfully , too .sx I don't know whether Alec Issigonis and his team met this same trouble with the prototype Mini-Minor , but I was interested to see , when the specification of this car was published , that the design included a constant velocity joint .sx It would be interesting to know if any other design teams have met the same trouble , and have been as mystified as we were with the Lagonda .sx I think now that I ought really to have driven more cheap 'bread-and-butter' cars during my active years as a designer , and indeed it was not even my choice that I drove one model almost daily for several years .sx It came about in this way .sx After I had been 'bought' by Rolls-Royce and told to hand over to Jack Barclay my own 8-litre car , I found myself in the unusual position of being without personal transport .sx This was the first time since about 1910 , when cars were still comparatively rare anyway , that I had not had one .sx It was a curious feeling .sx I had to use buses and Tubes , and I didn't like this much , so I took to walking instead , which was probably better for me , but rather slow .sx At that time I could barely have afforded the down payment on the cheapest on the market , and though I hope I didn't tell anyone my dilemma , Billy Rootes must have divined the reason behind my curious and uncharacteristic new habit of tramping from point to point about London .sx Billy Rootes ( now Lord Rootes , of course ) had been an active and successful agent for Bentleys , and I knew him quite well by then ; well enough , anyway , for him to be able to ask me , without so much as a blush , whether I wouldn't mind doing him a favour .sx 'I'd be very grateful if you'd try this car,' he told me on the telephone one day .sx 'I want your honest opinion on it .sx ' The car in question was one of the new Hillman Minxes , and for that particular week-end , and for almost every weekend for months afterwards , a Minx or one of their larger cars used to be made available to me .sx This was not only a great convenience , but I could quite honestly tell him that I thought the Minx was a very nice little car .sx I have never forgotten this kindly and thoughtful gesture of Rootes at a time when things were not going so well for me .sx He has not only deserved all the success he has had , but has reached his present distinguished position by honesty and integrity as well as kindness .sx I should doubt if he has any enemies .sx Some months later I was able to purchase a Minx for myself , on the specially favourable terms Rootes offered me , and from then until the beginning of the war I was never without one , although they were really my wife's cars .sx I must say , though , that I was rather doubtful about going to the South of France in a Hillman Minx after always doing the journey previously in somewhat swifter and more robust machines .sx However , I was lucky to have a car at all , and set out with my wife , a considerable weight of luggage and some nervousness .sx But I was soon surprised at how game and robust the Minx was , and how effortlessly one could drive 350 miles in a day in it .sx It was hardly a grand tourer , but the only trouble we had was with tyres , suffering five punctures by the time we reached Le Mans , where I purchased some more suitable ones .sx A Standard 8 scarcely seemed a suitable machine for the long trek to the sun , either ; but , like the Minx , it surprised me by its willingness and ability to slog along all day at a reasonable average .sx I had one of these for a short time after the war , and did many thousands of miles in it .sx The road-holding was hardly brilliant , and of course it was never intended to suffer the liberties I took with it on one hurried return from the South of France , but it was quite a good little car .sx The only car I drive regularly now is the nice little Morris Minor , of which more later .sx 2 .sx Motor Bicycles and Brooklands .sx THE four-wheeled vehicle with its internal combustion engine that we call the motor car has given me much pleasure , as well as pain and disappointment .sx But I am not sure now whether I do not resent the manner in which it has intruded , filling far too much of my life and leaving me with insufficient time to explore so many other fields in which I am interested , like meteorology and wireless telegraphy .sx Perhaps I regret now a little that I made the motor industry my profession , if only because for so long the machines filled my life to the exclusion of almost everything else .sx I sometimes wonder if I should not have stuck to those fine , powerful and friendly things- locomotives .sx The locomotive started it all for me , and if the railways had provided me with a living to the standards I considered necessary , I should probably have stuck with them .sx But it was a sad parting , and I always missed them through the years of aero-engine and car designing .sx It was , in fact , while I was working on locomotives at Doncaster that I became a motor-bicycling enthusiast ; and I certainly got more pure fun out of the motor bicycle than I ever got from any of my cars , although I willingly accept that sport on two wheels is essentially for the young , and for me it was only a sport , with no commercial purpose behind it .sx I look back now with great affection on those days of motor-bicycle competition in Edwardian times , before I was afflicted by the car 'bug' .sx All the events run by the Auto Cycle Union and Motor Cycling Club possessed an excellent spirit of friendly , co-operative , uncommercialized competitiveness .sx I do not remember a single hill-climb , sprint , trial or Brooklands race in which this spirit was not present .sx It was not unusual to see competitors helping one another by the roadside , or making last-moment adjustments to one another's machines just before a race .sx I discovered very sharply just how tough competition work was when , without any previous experience , I entered my 3-h .sx p. Quadrant for the London-Edinburgh Trial .sx This Quadrant , with its surface carburettor , was rather like an unreliable and uncomfortable present-day motorized bicycle to drive .sx Any healthy young man today would gladly take his motorized bicycle from London to Edinburgh ; that would be no great achievement , if quite hard work pedalling up some of the steeper hills .sx But we had to do this journey to a tight schedule on roads that in places seemed not to have been touched since they broke up after the Roman occupation .sx It took a day and night to accomplish , and the only food was at the control points ; but I was always too late at these to have time to eat and did the trip on apples and chocolate as I went along .sx To my astonishment , I got a gold medal , too !sx I did a lot of these endurance trials after this , enjoying both the spirit behind them and the sense of independent competitiveness out on the open road that they inspired .sx I did them mostly on Rexs and Indians ; London to Exeter , London to Land's End and back several times , London to Plymouth and back ; and each was a really testing challenge to your endurance and your aptitude , for , of course , breakdowns were frequent .sx Some of the hill-climbs , too , were really devastating , and the competition very close , with a fifth of a second often separating the three or four fastest times .sx Events I remember particularly were those run at Kop Hill near Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire and at Sharpenhoe near Luton , and of course those great runs up Snaefell in the Isle of Man after the Tourist Trophy races .sx As these became more popular their importance became recognized by the factories , and works teams began to appear .sx Naturally these works teams soon dominated the hill-climbs , and I had great sport as an independent trying to beat them .sx With experience I began to get the hang of tuning my 5-h .sx p. Indian , lightening the pistons and putting up the compression and generally fiddling , until I began to put up faster times than the works riders , which gave me more pleasure than anything .sx In fairness I should add that I got every sort of help from the factory , who were quite happy so long as an Indian won !sx Motor-bicycle racing at Brooklands was a tame business after the T.T. and hill-climbs .sx Brooklands races were usually short sprints or one-hour events , with the results depending less on the riders than the machines .sx There was not much finesse involved in racing on Brooklands , except perhaps in avoiding the worst bits of surface .sx I have never believed that Edge's run on the Napier soon after it was opened was responsible for the poor surface from which Brooklands suffered .sx This was always worse towards the top of the bankings , and I don't think that the builders ever succeeded in satisfactorily blending this top section .sx Even in the earliest days they always seemed to be mending parts of the tracks , and this was not always as well done as it could have been , with the consequence that it never got over this roughness .sx