Rupert the Riley in memory of Bowie

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Oh – there are plenty of singers who would call themselves mássive motoring fanatics. Some of them even manage to share selfies with their modern-day supercars on a daily basis. But not the man on todays picture. He preferred the more basic things of motoring and not in the last place the joys of prewar four-wheelers. Some ten years ago he wrote about trashing his MG PA through London traffic on his weblog, linking to prewarcar.com in between the lines, which caused havoc at our webserver.

Recognised him? It’s David Bowie, who passed away on Sunday. He’s seen here with his Riley Gamecock in the early 1970s. A tired saloon-turned-Special, which he’d built together with a friend. In an interview in 2003: “Not very well as it happens. It stalled outside Lewisham police station one day. I had really long hair in those days so I was standing round the front of the car, trying to pump it back into life again and all the cops were at the windows laughing at me and the bloody thing started up and I’d left it in first gear and it came at me. The crankshaft went through my leg and I was pumping blood like a fountain and I broke both my, well I cracked both my knees as the bumper had kind of got me pinned to another car that was just behind it. Sold it as soon as I got out of Lewisham Hospital.”

Bowie loved that Riley never the less, called it Rupert and even wrote a song about it as an ode to the car. Dig that Justin Bieber.

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture courtesy Bowiesattva)

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