Polish for a rare motoring beauty
Mmm, what's this? An Austin Seven? An old Singer? A Ford Ten?
No, no, no. It is a car made in Scotland - an Arrol Aster - and this one pictured in Oswestry in about 1961 is today possibly the last surviving example of its type in the world.
Getting a close look at it is Ian Lucas. Ian was at the time working on the Border Counties Advertiser in Oswestry, and the Aster was in a nearby garage.
Ian remembered that it was bought by an engineer, who turns out to have been Maurice Bethell.
The late Mr Bethell was a motor engineer who lived at Willaston on the Wirral and at the time was making a living buying and selling vintage cars.
It is not clear if he paid for it, but what he did do was get it running, and then it went to the Scottish Motor Museum, which at that time was at Aberlady in Mid Lothian.
Only two Arrol Asters are known to exist, the other one being in Australia, which is a different model anyway.
The National Museums of Scotland's brown Arrol Aster is preserved at its collection centre in Edinburgh and its records point to its car being almost certainly the same one as that in our picture. The car is not on display, but the centre can be accessed by appointment.
The museums' car was first registered in Shropshire on May 5, 1928, and was bought by George Riley, a popular auctioneer in Oswestry. A letter on file from somebody who had been an apprentice mechanic at Keen's Garage in Station Road, Oswestry, in the 1950s revealed the car had been there at that time. It was not running - and the young apprentice used the car as a wardrobe to keep his overalls in, as well as his soap and towel.
An old mechanic, a Mr Pritchard, used to look after it.
The NMS has had the Arrol Aster since 1990, having bought it when a Mr Menzies, of Edinburgh, put it up for auction. It had previously been on display for a number of years at a motor museum.
And while motoring heritage may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Scotland these days, some popular models of yesteryear came from north of the border, like the Hillman Imp and Chrysler Sunbeam.
