In what sounds like a story out of a British Boy’s Own Wonder book, a Wolseley 18/85 was driven from England to Cape Town in South Africa in December 1938. Humphrey Symons and his companion Bertie Browning drove the big beast 10,300 miles in just under 32 days. It had been modified at the factory with larger tyres and extra fuel tanks and is thought to have had a 3.5 litre six replacing the original 2.3 litre. They crossed the Sahara Desert and in the Belgian Congo the car fell off a bridge, plunging 9 metres into the river below. It landed on its side, but the duo sustained only minor injuries. A gang of prison convicts pulled the car out which was then trucked north to Anglo-Egyptian Sudan(!). It was roughly beaten back to shape, and as there was no damage to the mechanicals, and the engine flushed out, our intrepid pair soldiered south through to Cape Town. It was a triumphant achievement for its day, but events in Europe meant there wasn’t peace in their time putting paid to any publicity. A word about the confusing Wolseley numbering system. On some models the first number indicated the amount of cylinders, such as 4/44 and 6/90. The second number was the brake horsepower. Other models such as the 16/60 and 24/80 indicated 1.6 or 2.4 litres. Pre-war cars such as the 18/85 above, the 18 referred to the RAC horsepower rating. For the Land Crab 18/85, it stood for 1.8 litres…. And on it went, a marketer’s nightmare.