Looking for information on this Minerva

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The car shown in the pictures is a Minerva AK 32CV. After 40 years of ‘rest’ the car is now being put back on the road courtesy of the Bentley Wildfowl & Motor Museum in East Sussex. Julian Parker reached out to us to ask if we would help him fill in a few gaps in an already extraordinarily complete archive relating to this 1928 Minerva.

He wrote: “This magnificent car, having stayed with three generations of the same family since its original purchase, spent much of its early life in Mumbai and we know that whilst there in pre-war India photographs were taken of it being driven for activities which are now considered highly controversial: tiger hunting and big game safaris.

"Other historically powerful images of this car exist in the multitude of documents, including a photograph of the original owner on his way back to England, standing at the passenger door at a checkpoint somewhere in Germany, under a line of swastika flags, just as the Nazi party was taking control.

"The Corfu-based family, who have owned the Minerva from the very beginning, have kept every single piece of correspondence and every receipt relating to its order from Minerva as well as coachwork specifications by Elkingtons. Luckily, this file of handwritten documents was not part of the Samoily family history that was stolen from their UK house during a burglary in the 1970s, a burglary which saw the family photographs stolen and a large part of the Minerva’s pictorial history lost.

"Given the rarity of this extraordinary marque, there could just be, among the readership here, someone who has seen or may have a picture of this great car and who can help to fill in the missing parts of the story now. We know that it lived in India — definitely Mumbai, when it was a new car — and that subsequently it travelled through North Africa and Europe, spending time in Corfu, before returning to the UK just before the Second World War. We also know that it had a considerable amount of work done to it in the 1970s by Sargeants of Goudhurst before a long residency at the Bentley Motor Museum.

"As so few Minervas survive, someone may have knowledge of this particular car and could help to fill in the gaps in the visual history of this grand survivor, registered in India simply with T25 on the plate, and registered in the UK today as AXO 204.”

Can anyone help out? Please comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected]. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

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