Monday mystery: a prosperous tourer for the new Georgian age

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This latest mystery car has been submitted by Lawrence Bleasdale, who has been puzzling over the identity of what was reputedly one of the first cars to be registered in Herefordshire. It appears in an old family photograph, with the young boy being Lawrence's father, one of a brood of five from a Herefordshire farming family. Frustratingly for us, we can see nothing of the registration plate, so we'll take it on trust that it's a Herefordshire number, although the first car in Herefordshire probably arrived towards the end of the 19th century, and motoring would have been fairly well established by the time this impressive Edwardian was built.

Though the car might be an Edwardian according to the accepted definition of that being any car produced between 1905 and 1918, we have reason to believe that the photograph itself, and the people, are, in fact, Georgian. King Edward VII died in 1910 and was succeeded by George V, who reigned until 1936. The Britannia bonnet mascot, we are advised, was of a type issued for the coronation in 1910, but besides that the age of Lawrence's father would date the photograph to 1911 to 1913. That is not to say that the car could not be older, but the smooth enclosed bodywork exhibits a degree of refinement which, we would think, does not predate 1910.

That leads us to the question of identification, and we're relying on our readers because we haven't much of an idea ourselves. The radiator is not of a particularly distinctive shape and, while our first thought was that it might be a Wolseley, on closer inspection we are not at all certain.

As usual, we pass the baton to you; please tell us all you can.

Words: Zack Stiling; Photograph: Lawrence Bleasdale

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