Even Horses Turned to Look When Birtles Motored Past

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 180, 20 October 1927, Page 15

Even Horses Turned to Look When Birtles Motored Past

CAR LIKE IRONMONGERY SHOP

By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright. Received 11.46 a.m. LONDON, Wednesday. EVERY bus-driver craned his neck in open-mouthed astonishment when Francis Birtles drove through London, and even horses turned to look at him, as he commenced his mootr trip to Ausrtalia. His car is the same as the one in which he made the Darwin-Sydney record and it resembled an ironmongery shop, with spare wheels, chains, tin-cans, and tool-boxes.

Mr. Birtles was dressed in a leather coat, fur lined, with a helmet and goggles. Quaint inscriptions were scrawled on the body ot the car, the whole outfit contsarting strangley with the luxury of the limousines and the liveried chauffeurs standing at the Olympia Motor Show. He drove with his open exhaust roaring above London's traffic. Mr. Birtles has no language except pure Australian, but he reckons he will get along all right. "I will make them understand Australian. Why shouldn’t they?” he said. He does not knowhow long tne trip will last, but he expecits it will take five months.

■ . The route will be through Syria, 1 Iraq, Persia, Burma, Siam, Malay, Sumatra, Java, thence by ship to Darwin and overland to Sydney. Parts of Siam and Malay have not ! been traversed by car. 1 Mr. Birtles said: “I may not succeed, hut it will take a lot to upset me.” L The distance is about 16.000 miles, i and if he succeeds he will be the first man to have done the journey in this - way. During the whole journey he intends to travel only 500 miles by 5 sea. He crosses from Folkestone to 1 Boulogne by steamer to-night.—A. and N.Z.