Feb 28, 2010: Swancar

[xoxoxoBruce]

Come away with me, Lucille,
In my merry 1910 Brooke swancar.

Nope, that doesn't work very well.

THE 1910 Brooke Swan Car was the brainchild of a wealthy British engineer, Robert Nicholl "Scotty" Matthewson, who lived at Swan Park, Calcutta, then the capital of British India. In 1909, Matthewson travelled to England to commission a truly eccentric motor car from the Brooke company of Lowestoft, Suffolk. Its wooden body was apparently built by Savage of Kings Lynn, Britain's most famous maker of steam-powered fairground rides. The swan's head and body, carved to create the effect of feathers, concealed the radiator and bonnet.

Image from Supercars dot net

Matthewson's car arrived in Calcutta in April 1910. It had amber eyes that glowed eerily in the dark, a multi-note Gabriel exhaust horn with a keyboard in the rear of the car so that Scotty could play chords and bugle calls, and a hot water spray in the swan's beak that enabled the chauffeur to clear a passage through Calcutta's crowded streets.

I wonder if the hot water really came from the beak, or those two nasty looking bumperettes?
The tiny picture in the Telegraph article shows slightly different trim, with big headlights and a snake for a horn.

But the Brits are always classy...

A dump valve inside the car dropped splats of whitewash on to the road from the Swan's rear end - just to make it more lifelike.

No wonder Ghandi became so popular.