It’s hard to comprehend these days just how new and different motorcars were when they first appeared on public roads.
By 1910, there were enough cars in Blantyre by those affluent enough to afford one, to form a small club. The Priory Motor Club set off on Sunday 26th June 1910 on their first outing of the season, with members in their cars setting off from Blantyre into Glasgow and beyond to Loch Lomond. They took time to stop at Helensburgh for dinner at the Imperial Hotel. They later motored around 35 miles beside 3 lochs on “suitable roads”.
Cars were very much a luxury product at that time costing just as much as a small house. This definitely was a pasttime for the wealthy and whilst some owners of Blantyre’s grand houses bought into having a motorcar, there were others, like Mr Wardrop Moore at Greenhall for example who believed more in the future continuing with horses, thinking cars a mere passing fad!
Can you imagine being part of a small club in Blantyre being the town’s only residents to have a car?! How different those times were. I didn’t find a start date for the Priory Motor Club, but 1910 was a ‘further season’, indicating they had formed earlier than that year.
