Motoring is in my blood – my great grandfather owned the 1st car in Lancashire and one of his daughters was one of the 1st lady drivers. A cousin was the Official Timekeeper for the Le Mans winning Aston Martin team of the early 1930s. My father (M1925-30) exported the first MGTC to Africa in 1947.
I was in the right place at the right time when offered a regular quarterly motoring column in an international (read in 85 countries) glossy magazine in early 1971.
Motor manufacturers lent me all manner of cars from their Press Fleets – usually for a week, sometimes just a day if rare and expensive!
Well over 600 cars tested since then from a 1929 Austin 7 Ulster to 2024 Ferrari Purosangue, a Ford Cortina to a Gulf Mirage. And 13 electric cars so far from a Porsche Taycan Turbo S to a Fiat 500e, Renault 5e and Alpine A290.
Cars lent to me for a week would be delivered to me wherever I requested and picked up again from wherever I specified. They would be delivered full of fuel and immaculate but didn’t expect them to be handed back in the same state of fuel or condition! For approximately half the year I would have test cars.
I approached writing about each car with the mindset of “who is the likely buyer of such a car?”. I have always felt that many motoring journalists don’t do this. They don’t consider the practical (and impractical!) aspects of owning a certain car. For instance, two door cars have much wider doors thus making them more impractical to squeeze out of in tight parking places. Expensive low-profile wheels and tyres may look great but are easily curbed and in a low-slung sports car very difficult to place precisely. There are modern cars with absolutely no storage space in the cabin area. Fine if you have the car for three days but not if you use daily or go on long motoring trips!
I got quite a following for writing as I speak – something which Jeremy Clarkson later took to! Various one-off articles were requested by national motoring magazines and a few daily newspaper articles followed. Then I was approached to write the first of a series of new titles on classic cars and two books were commissioned published and sold well worldwide.
I became involved with the Porsche UK in Reading who lent me most of their press fleet over the years and I became a director of Porsche Club Great Britain and organised and ran their main event of the year, The Annual Concours. I completely overhauled it and revamped it and made it much more professional. I had previously entered the concours and won the 25th Anniversary of the Club’s premier category – the 911.
I then became a Concours Judge for two years and subsequently asked to take it over, as above.
I have owned 119 cars so far – the most of any marque being Porsche – 23 including 12 911s. The oldest car I owned was a 1929 Austin 7 Ulster replica and two other pre-war cars. Generally, I have tried to own rare and immaculate cars with superb histories. A few of my favourite cars were my 1972 Porsche 911 T lux 2.4 which I owned for 27 years and in which I did 100,000 miles and all my European and most of UK Classic car tours. My totally original 1959 Austin Healey Mk1 Frogeye Sprite I owned for 32 years and was only the 2nd owner, a new in 1968 Renault 4. Similarly new in 1967 MGBGT, the superb 2018 Alpine A110, and nearly new in 2017 Porsche Macan.
I passed my driving test in Central London 1 week after my 17th birthday, the Institute of Advanced Motorists at 18 and gained membership of the famed High Performance Club after an intensive 3 day test aged 21.
I held a Competition Licence for 20 years, hill climbing, auto testing and sprinting a 1968 Mini Cooper S then a “chipped” Daihatsu Charade GTti. I have driven in anger nearly all the Grand Prix circuits of the UK and Europe, tested cars in the EU, US, South Africa, New Zealand. I was fortunate to have dinner with Jackie Stewart in his then Formula 1 factory. I had lunch with Jackie Ickx and his wife at Le Mans, one to one meetings with Ferry Porsche and Derek Bell. And was flown by the then Vice Chairman in his private plane to the Aston Martin factory and given a conducted tour and then lent a special factory DBS V8 for the rest of the day before flying back to Shaftesbury where he owned Compton Abbas Airfield! And so on!
I have driven on every type of surface and conditions – ice, snow, deserts, narrow mountain tracks with 1000 foot drops . Covered some amazing places and situations, drove round Scotland in 2 days, covered 934 miles in one day, foot down for 270 miles in 2 hours very early one morning in Germany often at 150-175 mph.
Overall driving some 60,000 miles in 13 overseas countries ….and so on!
This was not my daytime job I was purely a very fortunate amateur!
Nigel Edwards (M1960-65)