Wheels

It's Sunday and after a slow start we did have an appointment with a representative of Mr Henry Ford's esteemed company of carriage manufacturers.

We turned up early and made use of the time to pour over the particular Model T that was of interest. In the showroom it seemed larger than its dimensions suggested and inside it was comfortable. The boot seemed adequate and it ticked most of the boxes on the mental checklist. A drive was next on the agenda.

At the appointed hour, the representative arrived and took us to a car that had been prepared for us. He drove us round and out of Chichester, pointing out various aspects of the car and the performance achieved from the small 3-cylinder engine. Stopping in a pub car park we swapped drivers and the Gorse Fox took over. The test drive continued. The car was very stable and felt solid. The engine was quiet and responsive, and the instrumentation was easy to read and informative. We wound through the countryside and villages near Bosham before heading back to the dealership.

Our verdict was that we had found a definite contender - but we did want to try the model with an automatic gearbox.

Back at home the spreadsheet was updated. Some contenders were promoted others dropped. The list is narrowing down, finally.