We're Peter & Susie Noble & we travel around the world seeking pioneering roads and byways whilst driving our 1925 Lanchester 40hp tourer
When we were courting, and the thought of a house mortgage, a 9-5 job, do-it-yourself repairs, and the dread drudge of weeding a garden was obviously very present in my mind I promised to take Susie to Mongolia rather than a promise about a bathroom or a lovely new kitchen but of course the inevitable happened: a hefty mortgage occurred two lovely baby daughters arrived, and my do-it-myself skills, with the aid of the Readers Digest "do-it yourself" manual, were incorporated into the house we had bought!!!
I started working for the 6th largest conglomerate in the world U.S.I.inc. and Susie kept home and looked after our family which included two stray kittens, Wellington and Bismarck.
But working for a giant American corporation was working for a bureaucracy and with Susie's full backing we decided to start our own company. That company became successful but the yearning for travel and freedom was ever present.
One November evening in 1987 arriving home exhausted and fed up Susie asked "How would you like to drive our car from London to Peking to Hong Kong" and I immediately replied "Get us booked on that" and 2½ years later we would leave Marble Arch in our 1955 Bentley Continental S. It was the great escape. It made life meaningful, interesting and free.
We have since driven one of our two old cars on every continent except Australia and through almost every country on those continents.
Yet though, I am still to fulfil my promise to take Susie to Mongolia!
About
It is often asked of us why we travel like we do, in a vintage car, in some of the most inhospitable countries: we are no longer young in our years but we are still adventurous and perhaps a little foolish. We started motoring to then “far off countries”, such as Jugoslavia with our two young daughters, Tanya and Victoria in a 1947 Riley 2 1/2 Ltr.DHC: we were not the family to sit by the swimming pool.
It was April 1990 when we left our then two teenage daughters for “the drive of a lifetime” in a 1955 Bentley Continental S which had come into our possession 5 yrs previously and that journey London-Peking-Hong Kong was followed two years later: London-Lhasa-Saigon.
It is fair and correct to say that hardly has a year gone by since, when we were not motoring on a long and interesting journey somewhere in the world.
As grandparents now we have seen our 5 granddaughters develop similar interests which they have learned from accompanying us in countries such as India, Botswana, Namibia, Syria, Morocco and South Africa. They now are going on journeys of their own which will leave their parents, our daughters and respective husbands free to travel solo as we have done, and hopefully our five girls will follow in this family tradition.