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TO GEORGE BROUGH

27.9.26 Cranwell

Dear Mr. Brough, 

     I'm very much in your debt for four years solid pleasure.  Would the enclosed be any use to you? I don't want to sign it Ross, since that only makes the newspapers sit up & take notice: whereas they have already made beasts of themselves over the 'Lawrence' name, & can keep it, so far as I'm concerned.

     I don't mind your showing it to people ( or sticking it up on your stand, if that is a practice at Olympia) but I'd rather you did not print it in a newspaper till after December 15, when I'll have gone abroad.  This is supposing it's of use, as a chit.  What I really meant it for is best thanks, for a hundred thousand very jolly miles.

Yours everJ. H. Ross

TO GEORGE BROUGH

27.9.26

Dear Mr. Brough, 

     Yesterday I completed 100000 miles, since 1922, on five successive Brough Superiors, and I'm going abroad very soon, so that I think I must make an end, and thank you for the road-pleasure I have got out of them.  In 1922, I found George I (your old Mark I) the best thing I'd ridden, but George V (the 1922 SS100) is incomparably better.  In 1925 and 1926 (George IV & V) I have not had an involuntary stop, & so have not been able to test your spares service, on which I drew so heavily in 1922 and 1923. Your present machines are as fast and reliable as express trains, and the greatest fun in the world to drive: - and I say this after twenty years experience of cycles and cars.
     They are very expensive to buy, but light in upkeep (50-65 m.p.g. of petrol, 4000 m.p.g. oil, 5000-6000 miles per outer cover, in my case) and in the four years I have made only one insurance claim (for less than £5) which is a testimony to the safety of your controls & designs. The S.S.100 holds the road extraordinarily. It's my great game on a really pot-holed road to open up to 70 m.p.h. or so and feel the machine gallop: and though only a touring machine it will do 90 m.p.h at full throttle.
     I'm not a speed merchant, but ride fairly far in the day (occasionally 700 miles, often 500) and at a fair average, for the machine's speed in the open lets one crawl through the towns, & still average 40-42 miles in the hour. The riding position & the slow powerful turn-over of the engine at speeds of 50 odd give one a very restful feeling.
     There, it is no good telling you all you knew before I did: they are the jolliest things on wheels. Yours very sincerelyT E LAWRENCE

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