"During the summer of 1953 I spent a week hanging out at Austin Clark's Auto museum in Southampton. He had imported several UK classics one of which was a 1924 Bentley 3 litre tourer with cycle fenders. The restoration staff used it as a runabout. One of the things that caught my eye was every time it was parked they would prop the clutch open with a long stick. They said the car had a leather faced cone clutch and if left in the oil would be squeezed out resulting in poor operation."