Car Racing

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Arthur Conan Doyle loved cars. In 1905, he won a car race on a ten horse power Wolseley. One month later he paid a fine of £5 for driving too fast and having failed to produce his driving license. In 1911, he did The Prince Henry Tour car racing involving British vs German teams. He also wrote some fictions about cars accidents and criminal activities.


Movies
Arthur Conan Doyle's family as car racers (1920s). Adrian Conan Doyle in a car race in Lewes (UK), and then Denis and Arthur Conan Doyle in a car with the family dog (1929-1930).


Photos


Conan Doyle about Car Racing

  • « My most remarkable motor car experience was when I drove my own sixteen horse-power Dietrich-Lorraine in the International Road Competition organized by Prince Henry of Prussia in 1911. This affair is discussed later, when I come to the preludes of war. I came away from it with sinister forebodings. The impression left on my mind by the whole incident is shown by the fact that one of the first things I did when I got to London was to recommend a firm of which I am director to remove a large sum which it had lying in Berlin. I have no doubt that it would have continued to lie there and that we might have lost it. As to the contest itself it ended in a British victory, which was owing to the staunch way in which we helped each other when in difficulties, while the Germans were more a crowd of individuals than a team. Their cars were excellent and so was their driving. My own little car did very well and only dropped marks at Sutton Bank in Yorkshire, that terrible hill, one in three at one point, with a hair-pin bend. When we finally panted out our strength I put my light-weight chauffeur to the wheel, ran round, and fairly boosted her up from behind, but we were fined so many marks for my leaving the driving wheel. Not to get up would have meant three times the forfeit, so my tactics were well justified. » (Some Recollections of Sport, 1909)


Letters


Articles


Fictions with some Car Racing




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