REGARDING John Blunt's piece, (LET, July 26) featuring Jack Straw with a 1947 Alvis car, 'old clunker' indeed?

Let's be fair, please, and in proper context -- at a time when scrapyards are full of cars under 10 years old, a jibe is written about a car which when it was pictured must then, of course have been approaching its fourth decade -- and still earning its keep.

For some 40 years I have been helping to preserve Alvis of all types and particularly the Fourteen model of your photograph. While this has never been a fireball, it remains one of the nicest-handling and best-engineered cars of the post war period.

Those few woody estate versions were not, admittedly, as refined as the coachbuilt saloons and convertibles, being a 'tax-break' alternative. At least, in this case there would have been no rustings at the hustings.

This classic has already suffered the indignity of having been robbed of her original number plate 'FKW 3,' for EWA 295B -- so no more please.

I will not quarrel with the application of Blunt's pejorative to Mr Straw, but not, please, to the car.

DAVID CULSHAW, Registrar, Alvis Owner Club, Whiteside Avenue, Hall Lane, Hindley, Wigan.