Steve Speller
Elephants Graveyard
(old British cars living out their twilight years
on the Sussex coast)
Up
until about 1970 almost everybody in this country drove a British
car. Imports from Europe and the Far East were still considered novelties.
Since then however, our own car industry has shrunk to almost nothing.
With the exception
of MG Rover, which has returned to British ownership, and a few specialist
companies, practically all of our indigenous, large volume car companies
have disappeared.
When I moved from London to Worthing in West Sussex six years ago I kept noticing old British cars, in quite considerable numbers, still being driven around. Worthing and indeed
Sussex in general, has always had a reputation for being a good place to pick up older, well-cared for vehicles due to the large numbers of old people retiring here. I decided
in the summer of 2002 to start a project to document many of these old vehicles and their owners as, probably, within the next ten years the only place you will see a Humber, Riley or
Triumph will be either at a rally or in a museum.
In contrast to the tradition of photographing cars in glamorous situations,
studios or in isolation, I have photographed most of the cars and their
owners outside their homes, giving the pictures a human context. I feel
this is quite important as I believe it gives some insight into why
there are so many of these old vehicles here in the first place. It's
about old age, habit, nostalgia, obsession and sometimes fashion and
cool.
Steve Speller December 2003.
