Austin Clifton

This is a photograph I took on the Exchange Station car park in Manchester at the start of the Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run in May 1992.

The information in the programme of the event had at this time become very basic and all that it said about this car was that it was a 1925 Austin Clifton Tourer entered by Lockwood & Greenwood Ltd of Audenshaw, Manchester. I had taken a photograph of the same car at the 1987 event which I featured on 16 December 2013, and the programme that year had just a bit of extra information about the car which I showed then, together with a little story about an Austin Clifton which I remembered from a children's book some years previously.

'Gumdrop'

When our children were little I remember a series of children's books by Val Biro about a 'magic' 1926 Austin Heavy 12/4 Clifton Tourer which went by the name of 'Gumdrop'. Here is a photograph of a 1925 Austin Heavy 12/4 Clifton Tourer which I took at the start of the Lancashire Automobile Club's Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run in May 1987.

The programme of the event says this about the car:

81         1925 Austin Clifton Tourer'
             Reg: KM 630 4 cylinder 12hp
             (Driver: P.M. Greenwood, Manchester)
This car is owned by Lockwood and Greenwood Ltd., of Audenshaw, Manchester. It had one owner from new until 1968, and since then has undergone comprehensive restoration by the present owners.

Lockwood and Greenwood Ltd is a firm of car dealers who used to specialise in British Leyland (later Rover Group) models, which included Austin.