Your Letters

Igreatly enjoyed reading Gillian Carmoodie’s article on driving the Standard Ten ( CCW, 17 May). I drive the very similar Standard Eight Gold Star model introduced in 1957 with an engine producing only 1bhp less than the pre-1957 Ten and agree with much of what Gillian says.

I also agree with what she says about Standards suffering an identity crisis, both the marque as a whole and the Eight and Ten ranges specifically. I have often had people say to me at shows that they owned a Ten but it was a two-door. There never was a two-door Eight or Ten and it usually transpires that what they were actually referring to was an Austin A35.

As for the marque, I was recently in a petrol station in my other Standard, a Vanguard. I was asked what make it was and said: ‘Standard.’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but what make is it?’ I had to explain that Standard was a major player in British motoring history. In the 1950s it was the fifth largest British motor manufacturer and the biggest employer in Coventry. It had taken over the bankrupt Triumph marque in 1945, not the other way round as stated in The CCW View in Gillian’s article, which refers to Triumph’s acquisition of Standard, though in 1963 the company dropped the Standard name for cars in favour of the Triumph marque. As for Gillian’s comment that the engine is agricultural, it’s no less smooth than most 1950s engines and I think she is referring to a derivative of the Vanguard engine, not the Ten, when she mentions that it powered a Massey Ferguson tractor. To be fair to Gillian, however, one of our Standard Motor Club members once found a Tenpowered dumper truck!

Peter Lockley, Chairman, Standard Motor Club