The Magazine

Anything to get some publicity (Upd. The Team!)

It started as a bet between Leonard Lord (then chairman of Austin) and Alan Hess of the Austin PR department. Lord said it wasn’t possible to drive around the world in the new Austin A40 sports. Hess truly believed in the car’s capabilities and said “I can do it in thirty days!” Together with his teammate he took off in 1951 and returned 21 days later instead of thirty! Admittedly they had had a little help from the Royal Dutch Airlines KLM to cover the sea miles, but all in all they drove some 10.000 land miles. On the photo above the team is seen on their return in London. Alan Hess is being greeted by the Lord Mayor. We have done some searching on Google, but haven’t been able to find out who Alan Hess’ teammate was. Can you help?
(photo collection Uffe Mortensen)

Sunday, 22 January 2012