Читать книгу Cops and Robbers - Ant Anstead - Страница 16

Ironically, the Clement Gladiator 3.5hp Voiturette could not have been a more unlikely motorised hero, and it was far from the fire-breathing performance machine that its name suggested. It featured a 402cc single-cylinder engine and had a top speed of about 20mph, which it could obviously sustain far longer than a drunk man on a horse …

Bicycle magnate Adolphe Clément first made a fortune producing pneumatic tyres, then later whole bikes, cars, motorcycles, airships and even aeroplanes! He saw the potential of the motor industry early on and invested in or promoted several marques. His Clement Gladiator was basically a Benz copy made by one of these firms, Cycles et Automobiles Gladiator of Le Pre Saint-Gervais, France, which was imported then by Goliath Co. of Long Acre, London. It’s thought they probably made a small number in the UK as well, although sources disagree on that.

Rather wonderfully, the first cars officially recorded as having been purchased by the police are two 1903 Wolseley 10hp wagonettes (remember this is RAC hp tax, not BHP), touring cars which were purchased for use by the Met’s Commissioner of Police and the Receiver (a strange title to modern ears, which makes you wonder if the police have been placed in receivership, but it is actually the title of the officer responsible for the financing of the force). They were numbered A209 and A210; these number plates were still being used until very recently – A210 was on the Home Secretary’s car in the 1970s, but I’ve not been able to find out where it is now. I’d not realised that the police loyalty to the Wolseley marque stretched back to what were really the first proper police cars in the UK. It gives me a rather warm glow to think of this.