Getaway Driving – A Lost Art?

Image Credit: wwwwoutlawlegend.at

On 14^th December 1911, Mr Normand from Boulogne reported that his green and black 1910 Delaunay – Belleville limousine, registration number 783-X-3, had been stolen. By the morning of the 21^st it was parked outside the Société Générale bank in Paris containing three male occupants, all members of the notorious ‘Bonnot Gang’.

As a messenger for the bank arrived to deliver some money, two of the men got out and tackled him, relieving him of a wallet containing over 5,000 Francs (the best part of £40,000 in today’s money). Jumping back into the limousine, they were driven away by Jules Bonnot, making him the world’s first recorded getaway driver. It’s an amazing story, summoning images of screeching tyres and the sounds of gun shots resonating through the cobbled streets and classical architecture – as long as you overlook the fact that they left the messenger on the pavement still clutching a pouch containing over 20,000 Francs (around £158,000) and that the ‘getaway car’ only had 25bhp. Still, it’s better than walking, right?

During the 1920s and 1930s the motor car became more and more popular, especially in the USA. Attributed primarily to the mass production techniques pioneered by Henry Ford, several notorious American criminals during the 1920s and 30s took to the roads for the sake of improving and expanding their ‘business ventures’…

Image Credit: http://www.wikipedia.org

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Champion Barrow were two such individuals. Pursued across the country for several offences including robbery, kidnap and murder (including the killing of at least two police officers), they were at their most active from 1932 to 1934. The couple travelled the states of Oklahoma, Michigan and Texas perpetrating a variety of crimes, although their method of escape was always the same – they always stole Fords. Much of the reason for this was due to its innovative flathead V8; an engine with which Clyde was so impressed he wrote a letter to Henry Ford himself;

April 10 1934:

Mr Ford,

While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned, and even if my business hasn’t been strictly legal it don’t hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.

Yours Truly,

Clyde Champion Barrow.

Another notorious criminal who drove Fords whenever he could get one was John Dillinger. Also active in the early thirties, Dillinger and his associates operated throughout the American Midwest, killing, robbing, looting and staging three separate jail breaks after being continually apprehended. They originally used a 1930 Ford Model A with a four cylinder engine, but this was later ditched in favour of 1934s with the legendary V8. One letter to Henry Ford which was allegedly from Dillinger was proved to be a forgery, although there was another which has now been confirmed to be genuine;

May 6 1934

Dear Mr. Ford – I want to thank you for building the Ford V8 as fast and as sturdy a car as you did, otherwise I would not have gotten away in that Wisconsin Minnesota case. Yours till I have the pleasure of seeing you,

John Dillinger

Image Credit: http://www.imcdb.org

Clearly Fords began the early decades of the 20^th century as the getaway driver’s car of choice. However by the 1950s and 1960s this was no longer the case, especially in Great Britain. During these years the number of vehicles on British roads boomed, with Ford taking up a decent percentage of the market. Due to their popularity it would be easy to assume that they were easy to find, easy to steal, easy to use and would therefore make perfect cars for a getaway. Not so. As Bruce Reynolds, the planner of the Great Train Robbery of 1963, explained in an interview; “a lot of people used Transits [for robberies]. There was a real vogue for Transits but I’d never use them. The police would pull a Transit under normal conditions. They are always suspicious. So I used to use a Jag or a Bentley. When I was operating, class was much more of an issue: the police would tuck their forelock to a man in a nice car and a decent suit.” Eventually the police caught on to the use of top end cars as getaway vehicles, even employing Jaguars themselves, but for a while the ploy of ‘hiding in plain sight’ worked very effectively for the criminal underclass. Reynolds also spoke about the necessity of choosing a car that fit the job; “[f]or the furriers, my favourite getaway car was the Hackney Cab. They have those wide back doors for quick loading of the furs, and they have a tight turning circle, it can turn in the middle of the street, which is ideal for a job in town.” Another suitable car for the quick urban getaway was the Mini, used according to Reynolds “for getting around the back streets and alleys.” However, if “you’re doing a big safe, you’d want a larger car with a big boot to carry round the Oxyacetylene torch.” You have been warned.

Recent studies have suggested that instances of cars being stolen for criminal use are now in steep decline. Much more common now are smash and grab raids of valuables from cars, or thefts of cars for resale, cloning, spare parts or insurance fraud. The increase in congestion and the introduction of traffic cameras have also contributed to making getaways an entirely different proposition to what they would have been during the twentieth century. Still, just to throw this question out there to you readers; if you had to choose a getaway car what would you take – and more importantly why?