DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

23e Heure wrote:Good old DSJ.
I've read and re-read all of his Letters From Europe and Continental Notes columns literally hundreds of times.
There is no better way to be transported back to the heyday of open roads and European touring.

I recall that he was even the first journo to mention the DDK in print

I presume that the second to last sentence refers to the Viadotto Polcevera on the E80 that tragically collapsed last year?

I'm a late discoverer of DSJ and have been gradually making my way through his writings and books, is there a convenient source for all his 'Letters From Europe' and 'Continental Notes' columns? The Motorsport website has a search function which is awkward and clunky to say the least...

For the most authentic - and comprehensive - experience, really you want a set of original Motor Sport magazines.

I bought 3 full and complete sets of mid 50s to late 80s editions off eBay, about 20 years ago.
1 set for home, 1 set for my folks place, 1 set as spares!

I think such things still come up on there these days, although maybe not at 50 quid a set like I remember paying.

Failing that, Motor Sport did at one point offer the ability to purchase entire years/decades of back issues in pdf form.
You lack the touch and smell (!) of the 50yr old mags that way, but it’s more convenient and searchable too.
You could look see if they still offer these...

I've got most of the last 40 years' worth of Motor Sports stored in the loft, much to other half's annoyance ………
I think they might have to be relocated to the garage/man-cave whenever it is completed
Better not install a comfy chair and coffee machine, or there would be no work done at all!

JW

KS wrote:

Hi Keith, is that a Rough Rabbit or a Coarse Hare!!!

jwhillracer wrote:I've got most of the last 40 years' worth of Motor Sports stored in the loft, much to other half's annoyance ………
I think they might have to be relocated to the garage/man-cave whenever it is completed
Better not install a comfy chair and coffee machine, or there would be no work done at all!

JW

What you really need is apin ball machine in there together with a fridge and some optics !!

See you at the hillbillys bash.

Cheers

Ian

Hannibales wrote:

23e Heure wrote:Good old DSJ.

I'm a late discoverer of DSJ and have been gradually making my way through his writings and books, is there a convenient source for all his 'Letters From Europe' and 'Continental Notes' columns? The Motorsport website has a search function which is awkward and clunky to say the least...

Why not try closer to home with DDK's very own Classic 911 Roadtests. Pre 1974 Longhood ?
Page one and scroll down to the yellow 911S review

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18650

Some Mag wheels...

Hannibales wrote:

23e Heure wrote:Good old DSJ.
I've read and re-read all of his Letters From Europe and Continental Notes columns literally hundreds of times.
There is no better way to be transported back to the heyday of open roads and European touring.

I recall that he was even the first journo to mention the DDK in print

I presume that the second to last sentence refers to the Viadotto Polcevera on the E80 that tragically collapsed last year?

I'm a late discoverer of DSJ and have been gradually making my way through his writings and books, is there a convenient source for all his 'Letters From Europe' and 'Continental Notes' columns? The Motorsport website has a search function which is awkward and clunky to say the least...

I met DSJ a few times at Mallory’s Vintage Race of the Year in the seventies. He was a small bearded man with a camera and quite quiet. From memory and much as TE Lawrence did, he lived in a small hut in the New Forest with no electricity or running water. One day someone found that he’d died. I think he was over eighty.

Doug Nye went and filmed Jenk’s eccentric abode after he passed, and before the bulldozers razed it.

It’s on one of Nye’s Motorfilms DVDs from 1996:

https://www.motorfilms.com/product-page ... lume-7-dwp

Ashley James wrote: I met DSJ a few times at Mallory’s Vintage Race of the Year in the seventies. He was a small bearded man with a camera and quite quiet. From memory and much as TE Lawrence did, he lived in a small hut in the New Forest with no electricity or running water. One day someone found that he’d died. I think he was over eighty.

Er, not exactly... Denis lived in Crondall, the Hampshire village just outside Farnham where I lived until I moved to Cornwall. He lived in a very dishevelled house on the edge of the village, but definitely not a hut in the New Forest. House was largely lit by a generator driven off a Fiat engine, which meant you had to turn off one light before you could turn on another. Disassembled engine in the bath, full-sized drawing of, I think, a Norton on the wall... Garden was home to various reject cars.

When I was walking to school, he used to ride past me every day on his Norton, I'd wave, he'd nod back to me. He was part owner of Phaegre Enginering at Hartley Wintney, the workshops alongside the famous Phoenix pub where the VSCC first met. I'd go there with my cars to have them set up on the rolling road and DSJ would always stop by for a chat. My late mum used to remember him from his days at the RAE Farnborough, where he worked in the very early 1950s - she worked in the library and described him as a 'smelly little man' but he was quite the ladies' man. He'd drive to work each day in his Frazer-Nash, one day arriving with a deer slung over the bonnet which he'd hit on the way to work.

The world needs more DSJs, but I think those times have passed. I feel honoured to have known him.

His articles were a great read and seemed another world to be scooting all over the place to unknown locations to me.

LJK Setrite was equally impressive in other ways, another out of this world character.

All long gone, and I don't know of such people anymore.

KS wrote: 'smelly little man' but he was quite the ladies' man.

He obviously made quite an impression on you as you've taken his lead throughout life

Bootsy wrote:

KS wrote:

Ashley James wrote: 'smelly little man' but he was quite the ladies' man.

He obviously made quite an impression on you as you've taken his lead throughout life

I did not write that!