Car – January 1963 (No. 1)

Best wishes to you all for 1963 and may you win the pools—but still run a small car (perhaps an ASA) and buy the magazine. New Year is an in-between limbo time for the motor industry, when nobody much is buying new cars, the sport is at a standstill (apart from that rally) and we are recovering from the inevitable post-Christmas hangover.

When you read this the world motor racing championship will have been decided; Brussels motor show will be coming up; the Rootes baby will be due in four months, and that man Issigonis will be up to something, you can bet.

Last year brought such a vintage crop of popular small cars—Morris 1100, Renault R8, Ford Cortina, Simca 1000, Opel Kadett, Ford Taunus 12M, Alfa Giulia—that Rootes look like having a benefit this year, unless Vauxhall leap in with their junior model.

There might be seismic shocks from Japan where rev counters tend to need double figures although you put the pistons in you vest-pocket. Honda of Japan have already made a successful take-over bid in the two-wheeled racing world and may cause uneasy nights in Surbiton and Chestnut too before long.

Common Market worries may well fade before the big threat of a really big Nipponese invasion when the Japanese get as quick and slick at car-making as they are in the electronic field. We may think fish-finding by Japanese-made torch-battery echo-sounder on the river Test is a poor joke, but a 360 cc Honda revving at 9000 rpm and pushing 33 hp into a five-speed gearbox might make the Midlands sit up and stop laughing. If it doesn't it ought to.