The Pennington Car.

"Berang" (berang) 08/22/2015 at 07:09 • Filed to: Edward Joel Pennington, H.J. Lawson

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Edward Joel Pennington - what a guy, amirite? Years ago I created the wikipedia page for E.J. Pennington because for some reason nobody else had thought to make one yet. At the time I skimmed through various sources to see if I could find anything interesting or amusing to include. I came across a great snippet from The Horseless Age : “...the Pennington car, which is not a car, since it does not carry, but has to be carried...” and then -

some time later Jason Torchinsky wrote a neat article about the man for Jalopnik, introducing his victorian era shenanagantics to an audience wider than people who get lost on wikipedia at 4am when all they meant to find out was whether or not continental drift is a conspiracy.

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Jason included the same quote, because hey victorian era dickery is always funny. Anyway it got me to go back and check the wikipedia page which had been updated a bit since I first started it. Unfortunately somebody must have messed with the sources because I could no longer find the article from The Horseless Age the quote came from. I wanted to find the original article so I could put the quote back into context. Well today I finally found that original article which appeared in Volume 5, No. 23, from March 1900. As it turns out it was a reprint of a paper which had been read to an audience of The Automobile Club of Great Britain by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

The paper is generally about Lawson’s Motor Syndicate, which was basically a company that attempted to monopolize motor vehicle patents in England. Montagu felt the failures of this venture were responsible for bad press about the motorcar in England at the time. Pennington was part of this company and Montagu had some sharp words to say about him and his vehicles towards the conclusion of his paper:

“Thirdly, I cannot but refer to another matter that has been a great hindrance to automobile progress in this country, namely, the courses pursued by Mr. Lawson’s present business companion, Mr. Pennington.”

Oh shit. Montagu then talks a bit about how Pennington has been taking deposits for his cars but not making deliveries, and in general evading questions and ignoring those who’ve given him money. He then comes out swinging with just about the harshest, snarkiest remarks a victorian gentleman can get away with without rudely causing people’s monocoles to drop into their tea or old fashioneds.

“The common street thief may be more violent in his methods, but, at any rate, he does not pretend to be an honest automobile manufacturing concern.”

Ouch. And then:

“The Pennington Car as advertised has been a conspicuous failure. There is, as far as I can ascertain, no record of its ever having traveled any considerable distance or even 20 consecutive miles. In fact, I believe the longest journey ever made by one (I say, advisedly, “by,” for the driver for part of the journey was “by,” not “on,” the car) was 80 miles, and that journey comprised, it is said, three days of hard pushing.”

This is a burn that can only be appropriately dispensed in a thick upper-class british accent.

“...The Pennington Car, which is not a car, since it does not carry, but has to be carried - in fact, mainly exists only on paper. There was one on show at Richmond, but it refused to work even at the hands of Mr. Pennington’s most experienced mechanic.”

Montagu then gave some advice to Americans (who probably couldn’t hear him since they were on the other side of the Atlantic ocean as he was speaking):

“My advice to our American cousins is to leave anything with which either of these gentlemen is connected severely alone.”

They are of course, politely, still gentleman. Montagu then dropped his old timey megaphone and walked off stage.

DasWauto > Berang 08/22/2015 at 14:38

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How I’m imagining Montagu: