I know little about motor cars. For years I have been sure car salesmen recognise me as a sucker as soon as I step into their showrooms. That may be why I bought an Austin 1800 whilst I lived in Benghazi in the middle of the last century. The Austin 1800 was designed by Sir Alex Issigonis who was responsible for the popular and successful Minni, a car which is now manufactured by Germans. The Austin agent in Benghazi offered me a discount on the grounds that I would be driving it regularly to the oil ports around the Gulf of Sirte. In doing so, he reasoned, I would demonstrate what a fine automobile it was. He had no Austin 1800s in stock so made great play of ordering one especially for me from UK. Sadly, when the vehicle arrived in his premises the discount he offered me was paltry. I should have smelt a rat and left the car with him.
My work often involved helping visiting British businessmen, journalist, archaeologists and so on. Sometimes they elected to join me when I visited the oil ports around the Gulf of Sirte or the remains of ancient Greek cities in the Jebel Akdar. It was a long time ago, but I clearly recall that the English visitor I was taking with me on one of my visits to the oil terminal at Marsa Brega was on a fact-finding tour for the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.
There are a few matters I would ask you to take into account. The first is that the Austin 1800 was not a reliable vehicle. The second is that the distance between Benghazi to Marsa Brega is around 150 miles across the Red Plain and the White Plain both of which are politely called arid and, in those days, there were few wells and no fuel stops until you got to Ajdabia. The road was in bad condition. The potholes were numerous and large.
At the time the UK motor industry was experiencing industrial unrest. One well publicised industrial action was the ‘shoddy job’ protest when workers were apparently persuaded by their trade union leaders to be deliberately careless with their work on an occasional car as it passed through their hands on the assembly line. It was a ploy the unions deployed to unsettle the management. It may have been ‘fake news’ but it spread rapidly overseas. It made me angry because my life often depended on the reliability of the vehicle I drove.
We, the Chamber of Commerce man and I, had driven a good way into the Red Plain. A large lone cloud was moving across our route trailing rain. There were no other vehicles, camels, donkeys of humans in sight. I thought it would be a good time to address my guest about the difficulties we British were experiencing when trying to sell our country’s exports in Libya.
I cannot remember my exact words, but I am sure I explained that there was no water, other than the rain, or fuel available for about 50 miles. There were not likely to be many others on the road to help us if our vehicle broke down. Even if someone appeared, they may have been aggressively inclined towards us.
I remember asking him to go home to Birmingham and tell the worthies of his Chamber of Commerce what it felt like to be in an unreliable British made motor car in the middle of a desert.
Who would knowingly purchase and drive a car over the Red Plain, or any other similar terrain, which might have been one of the deliberately shoddy jobs? I think I made my point effectively and the Chamber of Commerce man kindly refrained from asking me why I had bought and Austin 1800.