Mr Radley Drives to Vienna: A Rolls Royce Silver Ghost Crossing the Alps - 1913 & 2013

Description

This unique book shows an album of photos taken in May & June 1913 when James Radley drove from London to Vienna via Paris, Mont Cenis Pass, Brescia, Riva del Garda, Dolomites, & Loibl Pass. His car was entered in the famous OEsterreichische Alpenfahrt, a gruelling 2650 kil ometre route with 19 mountain passes to drive across in seven days. On the journey out to Vienna, one of Radley's passengers was his friend Reginald Hope, an amateur photographer who recorded the journey. Remarkably, both the car and Hope's photo album su rvived, making it possible to recreate the journey with the same car and repeat the photographs in the identical locations exactly 100 years later, in May & June 2013. John Kennedy has been taking photographs since he could first afford to buy film for the family box camera. The digital cameras used nowadays are rather more capable, but the challenge is still much the same. Kennedy's interest in old motor cars was sparked by seeing the movie 'Genevieve' when a boy, and subsequently seeing the actual car its elf, which lived for many years in his native New Zealand. An owner of vintage cars for over 30 years, he has taken part in many tours and rallies and has also organized tours in Britain, USA, Europe & New Zealand. The book shows the unique chance to drive the very same car from London to Vienna, to repeat a photograph album taken exactly a century earlier, the challenge being to find the locations and replicate the pictures to show the changes which a century has wrought.

John Kennedy lives part of the year in Britain and part in New Zealand, but wherever he is, he's sure to be driving antique cars.