I Never Thought I Would Hear Of One Of These Again,

when back in the mid 1960's a friend of mine sold his side valve Humber Snipe for £20! but it appears that they have quiet a following in Hull, known over the years as the poor mans Rolls Royce, less than 1% have survived or can be traced, unlike the 80% of Rolls Royce's that are known, the largest collection in Britain belongs to potato merchant Allan Marshall, 55, he keeps 27 Humbers in a 10,000 sq ft building next to his lorry depot, in what can only be described as a labour of love, Marshall and his team of enthusiasts restore all the cars in the collection themselves, often working up to two years on each vehicle, at a cost of £10,000, he comments, ‘Some of the cars might be worth £40,000 or more now but money isn’t the point, I’ve never sold a Humber and if people want to come and see my collection it’s free, the only money I make from them is by hiring them as wedding cars, I’ve never had to go looking for a restoration project either, people just phone up or bring them to me, Humbers are like a faithful Labrador, my wife Barbara says it’s like an RSPCA for old cars round here,’

the future King George VI took delivery of his first Humber in 1935, He was so impressed by the limousines that after the war he ordered 47 to be sent to British embassies around the world, every prime minister of the day arrived at Downing Street in a Humber; Winston Churchill boasted a fleet of five Humber Pullmans, the car’s robust build quality and reliability attracted the attention of the Army too, specially modified Super Snipe models were turned into field cars during World War II, the most famous, staff car No M239485, was used by Field Marshal Montgomery from the D-Day landings until the end of the war, His 4.5-litre model covered 60,000 miles around Europe in less than a year, the car is still affectionately known by the nickname he gave it, Old Faithful, the name of the owners club magazine,

another famous owner of the Humber was Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson they used it as an unofficial Royal car, but even with all of that going for them their fate was sealed, Humbers fell out of favour in the late Fifties, with thirsty, six-cylinder engines they guzzled fuel at just five miles per gallon, if you want to go to look at his cars it free admission, the web site is here, would I like one? well yes in an old fashioned sort of way, not sure I could afford the fuel though, even out here with petrol costing 45 baht a liter, (£0.92 at today's rate) 5 miles per gallon is a bit expensive to run, but then the newspaper did not bother to check their facts, the figures that are available show depending on the model anything from 13 to 35 MPG, a rough average being 20, now I wonder if it has air conditioning?