RONALD SEARLE’S CARS

I AM DELIGHTED to see my currently favorite car magazine Classic & Sports Car featuring one of my website’s favorite artists (see “Ronald Searle,” “Magnificent Machines—And Tales Too,” “Skool is Back,” “Armchair Travel? No, Rocking Chair,” and “Escape From The Amazon!”

Here is more of Searle’s whimsy, this time from Classic & Sports Car, April 2022.

The Monte. Mick Walsh, C&SC’s International Editor, writes, “Artist, illustrator, and satirical cartoonist Ronald Searle (1920–2011) is best remembered for his characters. From St Trinian’s girls to U.S. presidents, his penwork captured every walk of life, but he also had a sharp eye for machinery. When he enlisted in the Royal Engineers in his early 20s, Searle’s sketchbook went everywhere…. his vehicles were as accurate as his people and architecture.” And, in his later style, as whimsical. 

Walsh continues, “Searle’s spiky pen-and-ink style particularly suited fragile early machines.”

Down With Skool. Searle collaborated with Geoffrey Willans in producing the Molesworth series about English prep schools.

Up With Wine, Books, and Travel. Searle’s collaboration with Alan Atkinson produced The Illustrated Winespeak, Slightly Foxed—But Still Desirable, and the By Rocking Chair series across America, Russia, and (only kidding) the Amazon. 

John O’Groats is on Scotland’s northeastern tip, one end of the longest distance between two inhabited points on the U.K. mainland. The trip’s finishing point is 876 miles away, Land’s End in the southwest tip of Cornwall.  

Searle teamed up with Heinz Huber for Haven’t We Met Before Somewhere?

“Searle loved to parody national characteristics,” Walsh observes. “The ‘contact parking’ of Parisian drivers never failed to amuse….”

I’m delighted to add these examples of Searle’s whimsy to my collection and to share them with you. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2022