When you live in the Netherlands the province of Groningen is not exactly the place where you expect high-end cars. Certainly back then it was a remote rural area mainly inhabited with relatively poor farmers. The attached photos were a wake up call for your editor. We never thought of the upcoming industrial culture of chaps producing carton, potato flour and more. The issue came up when a nearby living friend, architect Matthijs Neven was clearing out family archives. And came up with three interesting cars from Groningen:
- The above 1926 Auburn six cylinder, interestingly the owner of this cr first drove a 1920(?) Minerva motorbike with the same A-5028 registration. About the XL headlights on the Auburn we thought they were a later addition. But a nearly identical car is known in Kalkota, India.
- Second car is a 1928 Amilcar CGSs, registration A-807, appearing at the start in the same tour, rally, sprint (judging the skid marks in the Amilcar shot this may have been a short sprint with 'a cheval' stop...?) The photo soon will be added to the online album of Dutch Amilcars.
- Third car is an Essex, registered A-20231, presumably a 1927 Essex Roadster or? We wonder if the horizontal lines in the radiator were a one year only thing? At the end of the war a Pontiac car with the same registration was taken by the Germans.
We started with three old B&W snaps delivered to our office at the end of last week...
(family archive Matthijs Neven)