Todays perfect car for a wedding is a 1934 Vauxhall 14/6 seen here at the Atwell Willson Motor Museum in Calne.

Vauxhall Motors Ltd was founded in 1857 to manufacture pump and marine engines, in 1903 Vauxhall also began manufacturing motor cars.

In 1925 the brand was taken over by General Motors who still own it today. Since the late 1970’s all new Vauxhalls have in essence been badge engineered Opel’s designed in Germany.

The name of the 14/6 derives from the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) taxable horsepower rating which gave HMRC (Her Majesties Revenue and Customs) in the UK a method of collecting road taxes.

RAC h.p. = D²*n/2.5 where D is the diameter of the cylinder bore in inches and n is the number of cylinders.

Like all tax laws this one ended up distorting the market place, in this instance by halting the development of efficient over spare cylinders because the tax laws favoured inefficient narrow bore cylinders with long strokes until the UK taxation structure was rethought in the 1940’s.

Up until WW2 most signals from one driver to another were given by hand, trafficators to indicate when a turning maneuver was about to commence, such as these were optional extra’s and were found on new cars until the early 1960’s.

Distinctive sculpted chrome bonnet details like these were in evidence on some Vauxhall models like the Velox until 1957.

This particular car is available for hire from the Atwell Wilson Motor Museum Trust.

The museum is holding a classic festival this weekend, I hope to pop by on Sunday.

Wishing all those tying the knot today best wishes.

Thanks for joining me on the RAC taxable horsepower edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !