A lesson from history
Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In The Willows was published in April 1908, seven years after this car reached its first owner, but by then the archetype of the Edwardian motorist was firmly fixed in the public’s eye and epitomised by Mr Toad. ‘Glorious stirring sight!’ he murmured on first setting eyes on a car. ‘The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here today – in next week tomorrow… Oh bliss! O poop-poop! O my!’
Was James Gresham, first owner of this car, a Mr Toad? History doesn’t recall, but his grandson, another James Gresham (it’s a family thing), a retired F1 race engineer, recalls that this half-litre De Dion Bouton Vis à Vis (‘face to face’) was reputedly purchased at the very first Paris motor show and was his fourth car!
Rest assured that Gresham was a very experienced motorist indeed. He needed to be; this 4.5hp, single-cylinder machine was highly advanced for the period. It had coil-and-points ignition (though Gresham swapped this for a trembler coil, which perhaps indicates some problems here), a poppet exhaust valve operated with a camshaft, and an atmospheric inlet valve that opened with the suction from the combustion chamber. It was water-cooled with a pump and had
