Editorial
It is with immense sadness that I have to tell you that, on February 8, 2021, Mike Worthington-Williams passed away.
For many years, Mike’s Unearthed and Feedback columns have been one of the most popular and helpful elements of Old Bike Mart (and were among the main reasons I took this job), but those pages were only a small part of Mike’s incredible career.
Mike was born in Sussex where his father was a chauffeur, and so it was perhaps inevitable that he would be interested in vehicles. But his enquiring mind soon wanted to know much more about motoring history, and that led to his first published article in 1955 in the Brighton Argus when he was just seventeen years old. A year later, he acquired his first motorcycle, a 1926 BSA 986cc combination which had started life as a police bike with the Hove police and then, with the addition of a coach-built chair, became a motorcycle taxi on Brighton seafront. He wrote the story of the combination for the new Veteran and Vintage magazine, the first of many, many historical articles.
His uncles were also keen amateur competition riders and successful grass track racers which kindled the young Worthington-Williams’ lifelong love of motorcycles. His uncle Harry rode Scott and Levis machines, while his uncle George piloted Calthorpes and New Imperials. They also bought and sold a few cars, many of them found in barns or scrapyards, and Mike would inherit that enthusiasm for finding unloved vehicles, calling scrapyards “my spiritual home”.
He became an avid collector of vehicles, delighting in the obscure, but the car with which he will be indelibly linked in many people’s mind was ‘Arthur,’ a 1927 Austin 20 saloon.
Arthur was, to be fair, not the smartest looking vehicle in the world and had already covered a million miles, but Mike kept it mechanically sound and drove it everywhere, using it as his daily vehicle for 25 years. Over those years, he would add another 250,000 miles to Arthur’s history (when he finally parted with it in 2007, he drove a Ford Sierra which he referred to as “a male menopause”!).
In his career, Mike wrote for every classic magazine in the UK as well as many overseas, not to mention editing Old Motor and founding Classic Car Mart and writing a number of books on a variety of motoring subjects. His passion for research would help thousands of people over the years, whether assisting with registrations or providing information on forgotten marques and models. His encyclopaedic knowledge came in useful in the 19 years he worked as head of Sotheby’s vintage car department, and later while working for Brooks and Bonham’s auction houses. He was elected vice-president of the Society of Automotive Historians in the USA (eventually being made a Friend of Automotive History, the society’s highest award) and helped found the Society of Automotive Historians in this country, serving as chairman, and, when he retired from that post, being made Chairman Emeritus. In 2018 he was awarded a somewhat overdue
MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his contribution to automotive history and, as the citation read, “his unstinting readiness to help, assist and advise owners of historic vehicles, sharing his knowledge and being held in great esteem among historic vehicle enthusiasts.” It is for that willingness to help that so many of you will remember him, whether through personal contact or indirectly through Feedback and Unearthed. At 83 years of age, his mind and sense of humour was as sharp as ever and his thirst for knowledge undaunted. While it might sound like a cliché to say that he had forgotten more than most of us will ever know, in this case it is absolutely true. He will be missed more than he can ever have imagined.
My first reaction was that we would, with the loss of Mike, bring an end to the Unearthed and Feedback pages. But, after a great deal of thought and with discussion with his wife, Pam, I have decided to carry them on. Pam thinks that Mike would have liked to see the pages continue and, while they will not – cannot – be the same without him, I will do my best to ensure they carry on the spirit of a fascinating and remarkable man. To Pam, their children, grandchildren and wider family, I offer my heartfelt condolences. We shall not see his like again.