David Card

1902 DE DION-BOUTON

David Card’s interest in old machinery stretches back to the mid-’60s and Sunday afternoons at the pictures. “I vividly remember seeing Ice Cold in Alex, where they wound the starting handle of an ambulance backwards because it couldn’t get up a slope in the desert,” he says. “From then on it was a case of when, not if, I got an old car.”

By 1971 Card had attained his goal with an MG TC, bought as a box of bits and restored with the help of twin brother Peter. “After that I went to the start of the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run in 1981 and was inspired,” he enthuses. “I looked in Exchange & Mart and found the 8HP Rear Entrance Tonneau that I have today.”

The car had been dragged from a château in Switzerland just two years earlier, and proved a tricky starter until he discovered a missing airadjustment screw in the carburettor: “I found a coarse-threaded screw and put it in as far I could – it burst into life at the third turn of the handle and hasn’t caused problems since.”

“I maintain it well: everything that moves should be oiled or greased,” explains Card. “It doesn’t take long because everything is pretty exposed and you can do a good few hundred miles without having to do it again.

“I’ve never looked back. Pound for pound, it’s the best money I ever spent. It’s given me such joy and pleasure. Driving down country roads you get to experience the same sounds, smells and feelings that the original owner would have. It’s as close as you’ll get to a time machine.”