Yahoo News Why I bought a 1960 Wolseley police car
In 2019, I wrote about Ernie Jupp’s 1960 London Metropolitan Police-specification Wolseley Traffic Car, although my first encounter with that 6/99 was at a classic police vehicle show in Hampshire. Since then, I had craved ownership of this splendid machine, although upon learning earlier this year that it was for sale, I deliberated long and hard. For about five seconds.
As with many enthusiasts, childhood memories prompted me to buy the 6/99, although I seldom encountered one in the metal. Unfortunately, the Met was already phasing big Wolseleys out of service during the year of my birth: 1969. Its four-cylinder Morris Oxford stablemate worked as a taxi cab well into the Seventies, but the 3-Litre ‘Big Farina’ models were already becoming rare by then.
It was via cinema that the Wolseley formed my taste in classic cars, or, more precisely, films screened on afternoon television. A 6/99 might play a major role, as in the Norman Wisdom vehicle On The Beat or the Stanley Baxter/Leslie Phillips/James Robertson Justice/Julie Christie comedy The Fast Lady.
Alternatively, they enforced the law in a Scales of Justice B feature, as the criminologist Edgar Lustgarten sternly moralised about crime in the suburbs.
In short, a black police Wolseley was much a part of post-war British films as the credit “Also starring David Lodge”. When the 6/99 went on sale a few months ago, I attempted to rationalise my decision to buy it in terms of my “other job” as a cinema historian. There were also vague thoughts of it being pressed into service as wedding transport for one of my stepdaughters, or used for television work.
The Wolseley would also quell memories of many a disastrous motor purchase, ones not assisted by my mechanical knowledge, which is on a par with a concrete bollard. The wise words of Alexei Sayle in this publication have a particular resonance: “Honestly, I meet the most wonderful people when I’m broken down by the side of the road in a dangerous part of Swansea at 2am waiting for the RAC to arrive.”
In addition, I had often encountered people who ranted that what I should have craved when younger was “a Jag”, “a Ferrari”, or any other vehicle from The Ladybird Book of Clichéd Motoring Pin-Ups. These same sources of wisdom also tended to cite The Ladybird Book of Predictable Films in terms of “the best ever” screen car chases. Fortunately, I had long realised that it is always a good idea to ignore the advice of anyone who sounds like Alan Partridge.
Talking delivery of the Wolseley was a surreal experience: it looked as though it had escaped from the sort of film prefixed by “Nat Cohen And Stuart Levy Present”.
There was the loudhailer, as used to warn of an unexploded bomb, the imminent invasion of alien beings or, worse still, a gang of Teddy Boys. There was the illuminated ‘Ghost Light’ badge on the radiator grille and, of course, there was the Winkworth bell to strike fear into the hearts of all miscreants. Even the sound of the six-cylinder engine evoked memories of Quatermass and The Pit or Carry On Cabby.
On the move, virtually every detail of the Wolseley reminded me that the British Motor Corporation designed it for another world. The steering is free of power assistance; the best way of demisting the screen is via opening the front quarter lights and the acceleration is, by modern standards, as stately as a galleon. Parking is somewhat challenging, and a friend who took the wheel compared the experience to driving a lorry.
And although it proved quite happy on the A-roads of Oxfordshire, the 6/99 really belonged in a realm of fogs, Woodbines and cafes with chipped Formica tables and getaways along Croydon High Street. But there could be no hiding place from the Wolseley of Justice. Then or now.
Thanks to Megan Pigott
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