MY WEEK IN CARS
Steve Cropley
Artwork was in honour of a story that inspired an obsession
MONDAY
You won’t find a more remarkable crucible of creativity than the delightfully cluttered Shrewsbury studio of master artist Rev Adam Gompertz, the designer-turned-minister who (to my eye) produces some of the most beautiful automotive art there is. Amazingly, Adam claims his car obsession started at the age of nine when he ran across a 1982 story of mine about driving the Aston V8 Vantage.
He has produced a huge, magnificently detailed drawing of that car, to be displayed next week as part of London Motor Week. Incredibly, he asked me to sign it – a piece of magic for any hack; my hand trembled horribly as I left my mark. I hadn’t the heart to tell Adam (or the readers of 1982) the car was a shocker, or the reason my story was illustrated with night shots is that we had to photograph the car in failing light while waiting for the breakdown truck.