Good plan.

Personally I use a slight revision of it – I assume 95% of drivers are complete idiots and the other 5% are homicidal maniacs.

Works for me.

Try to beat the statistics and NOT have an accident in the first 6 months after you pass your test.

Took me five and a half, wrote off my Anglia. Just filled the tank too, cost two quid!

That is seriously impressive!

I wouldn’t want to risk it crashing either.

The Derby Tup’s still going, although IMHO it’s not as good as it used to be. Still got the Whitbread “Hall of Shame” family tree on the wall too.

I don’t think people knew how to look after all ali engines in those days. The Stag V8 is another that springs to mind.

Wasn’t there some ill-feeling with the resto team when Z7015 went back to OW and the PR.XI was sold?

Putnam for the following:

G-ACSP Black Magic retired from the MacRobertson race at Allahabad. Sold to Portugal as CS-AAJ Salazar

G-ACSR 4th un-named. Named Reine Astrid delivered Christmas mail to Congo. Sold to French govt on return as F-ANPY.

G-ACSS Grosvenor House Ist. To Martlesham as K5084. Sold for scrap but rescued by F.E. Tasker and rebuilt by Essex Aero as The Orphan and used for more races. Renamed again as The Burberry and used to break the out-and-back Cape record. Renamed again as Australian Anniversary and used to set a record to Australia and back. When my copy of the book was published (1978) the record still stood.

F-ANPZ Built to French govt order as a mailplane. First aeroplane with airframe, engines and propellors all D.H. built.

G-ADEF Boomerang. Set a Cairo and back record but was later abandoned by parachute over the Sudan.

As Snapper remarked on an unrelated thread, “can of worms”. I wonder how much of the “original” G-AEXF actually exists. With the mods made by Alex and the various restorations since I doubt there’s much Percival left and possibly not a great deal of Essex Aero, who I think did the mods for Alex. (Haven’t read Flight of the Mew Gull for a while).