A DRIVER has said the best car he has driven in the past year is 120 years old.
Andrew English, The Telegraph’s Motoring Correspondent, has singled out the Mercedes Simplex as his car of the year.
The motor expert said the Simplex, made in 1904, was the one car that “stayed in my mind as a high point.”
Mercedes Simplex were built by Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) between 1902 and 1909.
Designed by chief engineer Wilhelm Maybach the Simplex name meant ‘comfort by means of simplicity’.
Andrew lauded the vintage motor despite it being “inefficient, slow and difficult.”
The car was launched in Germany ten years before The Great War, when the country’s roads were mostly mud tracks.
Andrew said that during his test drive around the track, he was struck by how much motor engineering had evolved over the last 120 years.
Although the open top Simplex had a top speed of just 40 mph, the wind chill gave the driver the sensation of going much faster.
Although the gear box was a bit clunky, Andrew praised the car’s breaks.
But he said that the driver had to have the speed and gear “sorted” before taking a corner.
Andrew took the motor out on the Brooklands track in Surrey, courtesy of Mercedes-Benz Heritage.
A lovely vintage motor once owned by world-famous fashion icon Marcel Boussac recently went under the hammer.The blue Hispano-Suiza J12 Coupé Chauffeur was made in 1934.
The 9.5-litre V12 engine car was first registered to Marcel Boussac the following July, who went on to finance Paris fashion house Christian Dior.
Boussac – who owned the car for 20 years – was driven around in it with his Belgian singer wife Fanny Heldy.
