Another Igotta

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31385, 2 June 1967, Page 7

Another Igotta

lgotta Bastardi Straight Eighteen 24-litre, mentioned on this page last week, has apparently not been forgotten. It 'is not common knowledge that at least one other 1.8. was built, writes a correspondent, I. M. Kreduless.

The car, he writes, was constructed from the original drawings by a young subaltern, and apart from a few major castings which he was fortunate enough to obtain from the original foundry, was built entirely by hand. It came into the hands of the writer’s uncle as the result of a wager, the details of which he always refused to disclose. “Incidently, I may be able to throw some light on the case of the Major’s aunt, who.

readers will recall, found her Igotta standing on her lawn without number plates and in immaculate condition. Compression was required on at least three of the 18 cylinders in order to start the engine, and this meant one still had to turn over four litres, no mean task.” It seems likely that the original owner of the car unwisely allowed the engine to stop when the car was on the lawn, and was then quite unable to restart it “Perhaps the Major’s aunt had a mechanical starter fitted, in which case the car would, of course, no longer be in original condition. Failing a suitable hill, my uncle usually managed to obtain the services of a gang of natives for a nominal sum.” The straight eighteen layout meant that the engine was in perfect static and dynamic balance, apart from slight but unavoidable torsional forces, says the correspondent, but because of the long bonnet it was necessary to tack from side to side to obtain a forward view. “This may well have been the reason for the car’s eventual demise, as it was demo-, lished after running into a herd of unlit nocturnal elephants. “I have always felt that with a little more attention to detail the marque may well have been a commercial success. Alas, apart from a rumour that the engine was subsequently installed in a Pakistani gunboat, the only tangible relic, which I have before me as I write, is the classic radiator emblem, a simple shield bearing the letters ‘1.8.* separated by a black diagonal bar.”