The voice of L J K Setright

[biggbn]

AC43 said:

biggbn said:

AC43 said:

biggbn said:

I think this piece sums it up for me.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/l-j-...

I grew up reading Car in the early 80's and had forgotten about a lot of his writing,

Interesting to be reminded that "he .....detested 4x4s for their wastefulness, and ...also detested diesels (because of their noisome fuel, heavy engines and lack of refinement)".

Things have, however, come a long way since he was writing.

I don't thinks things have changed much. He always believed in lightness and efficiency where possible. Today's 4x4's are even larger, diesels are still a lot heavier than their petrol equivalents and the 4 pots still make that noise.

These are the aspects he didn't like.

Edited by AC43 on Thursday 12th March 08:15

I was more referring to the progress diesels have made than the 4x4 thing. Strangely, I think he would have been hugely impressed with the way ev technology is going, such was his combined love of speed, refinement and engineering. The pace ev development is moving at would surely have impressed him.

[rosetank]

Actually did he detest 4WD, and so what if he did? He liked the FF and the Audi.

This is what really switched me off to his style.

LJK said:

The modern third-generation Civic is a brilliant coup-de-maitre, with hatchback and CRX vying energetically for my special favour. Now that there is a GT version of the hatchback, employing the same ultra-responsive engine and other mechanicals as the CRX, the appeal of this lustrous little beauty is even more energetic than it was before.
Its beauty is cumulative, the result of a list of lovely engineering details long enough to keep me spouting praise for ages, interrupted only by some doubt about the seat, which induced too much spinal lordosis

Ah yes, that cornerstone of the car world

LJK said:

The speedometer (on which I saw 108mph in a gusty crosswind that cannot have helped) turned out to be one of the most accurate that I have checked in years. Its needle could be unshakably pinned there by the cruise control, which worked with none of the vague approximations encountered in others: when ordered to resume its function after a cancellation, it responded with as much acceleration as might be consistent with tolerable economy and ease. Nor was it fuddled, as some are, by the need to change gear to achieve its ends: at its behest, the automatic would drop to a more favourable ratio if there were a lot of speed to be recovered against an adverse gradient.

So the cruise control was functional?

LJK said:

One other Honda passenger car would be essential. I would select the four-wheel steer Prelude (below), simply because no other car is as nice to drive. Wanting nothing but the very best, one would have to import the Japanese version of the VTEC, equipped with automatic transmission and limited-slip differential. Better wheels and tyres would be desirable and, since this is the car I would use most often, more money might sensibly be lavished on custom paint and an audio system.

The Honda Prelude.

So I’ll leave his bluff for those that enjoy lots of words about nothing much in particular. A man who’d rather buy a Honda Accord than a Ferrari or 911. Bulgin, Clarkson, Catchpole are all superior in my view, which may lead to discombobulation for some?

[Titfer]

rosetank said:

The Honda Prelude.

So I’ll leave his bluff for those that enjoy lots of words about nothing much in particular. A man who’d rather buy a Honda Accord than a Ferrari or 911. Bulgin, Clarkson, Catchpole are all superior in my view, which may lead to discombobulation for some?

In reality he preferred an NSX to those cars.

That article was his idea of how to spend the 540k that the F1 cost at the time.

[AC43]

biggbn said:

AC43 said:

biggbn said:

AC43 said:

biggbn said:

I think this piece sums it up for me.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/l-j-...

I grew up reading Car in the early 80's and had forgotten about a lot of his writing,

Interesting to be reminded that "he .....detested 4x4s for their wastefulness, and ...also detested diesels (because of their noisome fuel, heavy engines and lack of refinement)".

Things have, however, come a long way since he was writing.

I don't thinks things have changed much. He always believed in lightness and efficiency where possible. Today's 4x4's are even larger, diesels are still a lot heavier than their petrol equivalents and the 4 pots still make that noise.

These are the aspects he didn't like.

I was more referring to the progress diesels have made than the 4x4 thing. Strangely, I think he would have been hugely impressed with the way ev technology is going, such was his combined love of speed, refinement and engineering. The pace ev development is moving at would surely have impressed him.

Yes, I think he'd have been hugely impressed by EV's especially with aspects like the efficiency, simplicity & near-silence.

I'm not sure what he'd make of hybrids but I suspect he'd like the i3 approach - a big battery aided by small range-extender motor.

Either that or whatever Honda was doing in that space.

[carinaman]

I was thinking of his reviews in CAR of the CBR600 and CBR1000 lastnight and wondering if LJKS was a bit of a Honda fanboy. I cannot remember if he had an opinion on the VFR750.

He was being a plainclothes marketing minion for Honda, trying to translate engineering and build quality excellence into something more tangible that we as punters could feel when using Honda products and/or he was trying to convince us we'd feel them if we bought Honda products?

Edited by carinaman on Thursday 12th March 11:21

[Maxym]

Breadvan72 said:

Those of us who were children in the 1960s may recall the Setright ticket machine, a strange looking metal contraption of cogs and wheels that hung heavily from straps slung over the shoulders of a bus conductor, who would do some mysterious whirling and clicking with the machine, and produce a detailed printed ticket for you, in return for some small pre-decimal coins that he or she would put into a leather satchel. The machine can be seen in use in films of the period.

Edited by Breadvan72 on Friday 6th March 10:44

The lower picture, with a London bus, features a Gibson ticket machine, designed by London Transport's fare collection chief of the same name and manufactured by Ticket Issuing Machines Limited. I'd say the best-known Setright machine is or was the Speed Setright which was widely used by UK bus companies.

I'd heard of the ticket machine before I'd read LJKS and had assumed Setright was a contrived name and not a surname. It was only when I read Leonard's obituary that I was able to put two and two together.

I was first a fan of Autocar and then of Motor, but when a GF bought me a copy of Car in around 1969 I just loved it. Great writing - especially Doug Blain's pieces - and I loved the way they poked fun at the staid 'Motocar'. (Ironic that Cropley is now editor-in-chief at Autocar.)

I found LJKS a bit impenetrable at first but of course his wisdom shone through in the end. Re Bulgin, I was never a great fan (but I think I would be now) though I remember with a amusement his writing about driving past an airfield with planes lined up. He wasn't quite sure what they were. "Fuctifino Whozayars, I think," he wrote. (I might have spelled 'whozayars' wrongly...)

[coppice]

Setright would love all this, perhaps allowing himself a sardonic smile before lighting up a Black Russian (he was never going to be a Lambert and Butler guy was he ?)

I wouldn't even try to convert anybody , nor to argue with much conviction about their views . Setright skated a very thin course between insight and absurdity , and he did have more than the occasional wobble .

Nothing better illustrates his style than this quote about a morning blast (as he wouldn't have termed it) in an E-Type , and forgive me for quoting it again . He talks about ' the great vortex of acoustic spume ' left by the Jag's exhaust . It's ridiculous , but also rather wonderful.

And this - on the noise of the Miura -the first one to be driven in the UK , and driven from Italy by LJKS and co-driver .

.'.... a steady mechanical mezzoforte, made up of all the mumbling , thrashing , whining, whirring , groaning and grumbling metallic obbligati that a race bred engine furnishes to fill the octaves left unoccupied by that exuberant exhaust . It is a lovely noise, an expensive noise but I suppose , when all is said and done , it is a noise ...'

Let's not fall out if you don't like such prose , but it makes me smile every time I read it .

Edited by coppice on Thursday 12th March 12:20

[Halmyre]

coppice said:

Setright would love all this, perhaps allowing himself a sardonic smile before lighting up a Black Russian (he was never going to be a Lambert and Butler guy was he ?)

I wouldn't even try to convert anybody , nor to argue with much conviction about their views . Setright skated a very thin course between insight and absurdity , and he did have more than the occasional wobble .

Nothing better illustrates his style than this quote about a morning blast (as he wouldn't have termed it) in an E-Type , and forgive me for quoting it again . He talks about ' the great vortex of acoustic spume ' left by the Jag's exhaust . It's ridiculous , but also rather wonderful.

And this - on the noise of the Miura -the first one to be driven in the UK , and driven from Italy by LJKS and co-driver .

.'.... a steady mechanical mezzoforte, made up of all the mumbling , thrashing , whining, whirring , groaning and grumbling metallic obbligati that a race bred engine furnishes to fill the octaves left unoccupied by that exuberant exhaust . It is a lovely noise, an expensive noise but I suppose , when all is said and done , it is a noise ...'

Let's not fall out if you don't like such prose , but it makes me smile every time I read it .

Edited by coppice on Thursday 12th March 12:20

Lovely engine it was, but LJKS would surely have known that it was not 'race bred'.

[AW111]

A Lamborghini engine making "an expensive noise" doesn't sound reassuring to me

[biggbn]

He was right about the oft overlooked 4ws Honda prelud. Owned a pop up light model and the subsequent versionand they are amongst the best handling most tactile cars I owned

[coppice]

Halmyre said:

Lovely engine it was, but LJKS would surely have known that it was not 'race bred'.

Yes , I raised an eyebrow , but as so many in the firm - Bizzarini , Dallara and Wallace (and Stanzani ?) had come from a racing background with the usual suspects I think I can accept it as fair comment .

[WJNB]

Mound Dawg said:

Hadn't read anything by LKJS since I stopped reading Car in the early 90s then a few years ago I picked up a copy of his book "Drive On". Excellent stuff, recommended if you can find it.

I have a copy of his LONG LANE WITH TURNINGS Last words of a Motoring Legend in front of me.
His writing was highly intellectual & nowadays would be over the head of many readers of Comic-like car magazines like Top Gear which relies of big pictures in order that their readers can understand the stories.

[wolfracesonic]

carinaman said:

I was thinking of his reviews in CAR of the CBR600 and CBR1000 lastnight and wondering if LJKS was a bit of a Honda fanboy. I cannot remember if he had an opinion on the VFR750.

He was being a plainclothes marketing minion for Honda, trying to translate engineering and build quality excellence into something more tangible that we as punters could feel when using Honda products and/or he was trying to convince us we'd feel them if we bought Honda products?

Edited by carinaman on Thursday 12th March 11:21

Yes, I remember him extolling the virtues of most things Honda; what would Setright be for ‘Vtec just kicked in, yo’?

[Dr Jekyll]

I seem to remember a column where he described getting stopped for 100+ on (I think) a Honda CBX while on his way to a Bristol owners club meeting. Somehow avoided a ban by accusing the police in an unmarked Capri 3.0 of being Agent provocateurs. Struck me at the time as the most characteristically Setright incident ever.

[Touring442]

wolfracesonic said:

Yes, I remember him extolling the virtues of most things Honda; what would Setright be for ‘Vtec just kicked in, yo’?

"With the acoustic herald of the requisite crankshaft revolutions, the Vtec arrived with the certainty of a strident opera passage - more Wagnerian than Kabuki I fear".



?

[Touring442]

Dr Jekyll said:

I seem to remember a column where he described getting stopped for 100+ on (I think) a Honda CBX while on his way to a Bristol owners club meeting. Somehow avoided a ban by accusing the police in an unmarked Capri 3.0 of being Agent provocateurs. Struck me at the time as the most characteristically Setright incident ever.

He was praiseworthy for the judge and his solicitor who got him off the charge, making the rozzers look like idiots.

[skwdenyer]

rosetank said:

LJK said:

The modern third-generation Civic is a brilliant coup-de-maitre, with hatchback and CRX vying energetically for my special favour. Now that there is a GT version of the hatchback, employing the same ultra-responsive engine and other mechanicals as the CRX, the appeal of this lustrous little beauty is even more energetic than it was before.
Its beauty is cumulative, the result of a list of lovely engineering details long enough to keep me spouting praise for ages, interrupted only by some doubt about the seat, which induced too much spinal lordosis

Ah yes, that cornerstone of the car world

Its competence as a piece of engineering may not have been matched by the ability or ambition of Honda's stylists, marketers, and so on.

rosetank said:

LJK said:

The speedometer (on which I saw 108mph in a gusty crosswind that cannot have helped) turned out to be one of the most accurate that I have checked in years. Its needle could be unshakably pinned there by the cruise control, which worked with none of the vague approximations encountered in others: when ordered to resume its function after a cancellation, it responded with as much acceleration as might be consistent with tolerable economy and ease. Nor was it fuddled, as some are, by the need to change gear to achieve its ends: at its behest, the automatic would drop to a more favourable ratio if there were a lot of speed to be recovered against an adverse gradient.

So the cruise control was functional?

I don't know how old you are, but for much of the 1970s and 1980s cruise control systems were pretty rudimentary in their operation as, for that matter, were automatic transmissions. Closed loop digital control was hardly even a pipedream at that point. The achievement - at that time - was significant. Like so much of engineering, the mountain climbed at the time is quickly forgotten in the heady fog of the new.

rosetank said:

LJK said:

One other Honda passenger car would be essential. I would select the four-wheel steer Prelude (below), simply because no other car is as nice to drive. Wanting nothing but the very best, one would have to import the Japanese version of the VTEC, equipped with automatic transmission and limited-slip differential. Better wheels and tyres would be desirable and, since this is the car I would use most often, more money might sensibly be lavished on custom paint and an audio system.

The Honda Prelude.

So I’ll leave his bluff for those that enjoy lots of words about nothing much in particular. A man who’d rather buy a Honda Accord than a Ferrari or 911. Bulgin, Clarkson, Catchpole are all superior in my view, which may lead to discombobulation for some?

It might be imagined that LJKS had surprisingly little need for really fast cars, because he tended to drive slower ones to their full potential As others have said, his quote was in context of what to spend the then price of a McLaren F1 on, so as to have a suite of vehicles covering all one's needs (or at least his). The point about the Prelude was that so much that was so good could be bought so cheaply. As a lover of engineering, that clearly appealed to him.

[wolfracesonic]

Touring442 said:

"With the acoustic herald of the requisite crankshaft revolutions, the Vtec arrived with the certainty of a strident opera passage - more Wagnerian than Kabuki I fear".



?

Very good, when can you start?

[Dr Jekyll]

coppice said:

Goodtime George was always a hoot but I'm not sure he'd thrive well in a specialist press obsessed with trick diffs , 'rotation ' , TCS (etc ) and (yaaawn ) connectivity.

My warmth towards George was chiiled somewhat by some really toxic prose about him by Peter Dron in his recent book. I wonder what the truth of it all was - was GB really so awful ?

I've just read the relevant chapters, .

[Touring442]

Mine arrived today via Amazon - very good it is too.

Peter Dron is like a really interesting Clarkson.