Flash Gordon

COLLECTING: John of early motor travel pictures and the man who gave his name to an expletive.

INTAGE motoring enthusiasts will be familiar with the name James Gordon Bennett Junior – the stupendously wealthy newspaper heir who epitomised America’s Gilded Era and gave his moniker to the race which attracted worldwide attention in the first years of the last century.

Even those unaware of the importance of one of the first truly international playboys to the pioneering days of motor racing – and later hot-air balloon and aeroplane racing – will recognise the familiar exclamation: “Gordon Bennett!”

My favourite anecdote relating to the erratic hedonist, who used his inheritance to sponsor the Bennett Trophy from 1900 to 1905, concerns his claim to be able to whip away tablecloths without disturbing crockery, cutlery and glasses. Occasionally it worked; usually it failed, with messy and noisy consequences. Word of his party piece spread and when he strode into restaurants diners would shout the warning “Gordon Bennett”. And so it was that the super-rich eccentric became the physical embodiment of a mild expletive. Or so the story goes...

James, known as Gordon to distinguish

He once rode his pony into the dining room and flew a plane

through a barn.

him from his father of the same name, seemed more interested in fast cars, planes and women than in business. Tales about him include late-night streaking while steering his team of trotters through open city streets and urinating in the fireplace at the party to celebrate his engagement to a glamorous patrician debutante, an incident which led to him being challenged to a duel by an enraged prospective in-law. The engagement did not survive.

He once rode his polo pony into the formal dining room of an esteemed social club and flew a plane through an open barn – occasions which prompted further cries of “Gordon Bennett”.

Enough of Mr Bennett, whose adventures I was reminded of when learning of an extraordinary single-owner collection of images of early motorised travel coming up at a Christie’s Interiors sale in South