Riley bros had started making cars at the end of the 19th century and these evolved into beautiful small nicely engineered sporting tourers, something like a petite W O Bentley. They sold out to the Nuffield Corp. which was acquiring more and more motoring marques most of which including Riley were to become “badge engineered” boring Austin’s with very slight trim differences.
But those Riley cars made by Nuffield directly after the war were elegant well designed and as different from the prosaic Austin as they had been under the Riley family.
Our 1951 model was a Drop Head Coupe with swooping wings, a long bonnet and a split windscreen: pure elegance.
The mechanical were, in the Riley tradition, exciting with a twin cam, twin carburettor engine and a well designed low chassis supported on torsion bar springing, telescopic shock absorbers and rack & pinion steering.
We had bought it in 1978 following a family holiday in Morocco when a German staying in our hotel arrived in a Maybach DHC: we were astonished at that cars presence and 1930s elegance: nothing could be better than such a transport for holidays!
I had owned a 1947 1.1/2 ltr saloon, bought for £14 when I was 18yrs old from a scrap yard needing a replacement engine which I found complete with a gearbox for £20 advertised in the Exchange &Mart advertiser!
I now thought the bigger 2.1/2ltr would, like that Maybach, carry our family on holidays to distant exotic lands.
But a Nuffield Riley was not a Maybach, however elegant and well designed!
It wasn’t unreliable in an irritating way where the spark refused to occur, or the wipers went on strike because it was raining but it was unreliable in a devastating way such as breaking a major component without warning: a halfshaft broke in northern France, a clutch pedal cross shaft broke in southern Italy and the water pump bearing seized solid in a hot traffic jam just entering Venice.
The nibbling of rust between the rear wings and the body had changed to munching! So it came to pass that at the body repair shop I was told of a 1935 Derby Bentley DHC needing a home: the lovely Riley’s days were then numbered!