We’ve made no secret of our love for the British Pathe archives, and their searchable, viewable collection of 90,000 or so newsreels filmed between 1896 and 1976. Here, for your amusement, is a gem from the vaults, a sub-2-minute report from 1961 on a game of “motor polo, or autoball,” played by teams from Surrey and Sussex counties. (Auto Polo will not be a new topic for devoted readers of this blog.) The game is played with a total of six cars, and six players per side: three drivers and three passengers. The narrator never identifies the cars by make and model – they’re DKW Juniors – instead, referring to them as being “of German manufacture, with two-stroke engines and a front-wheel drive.” Perhaps they didn’t want to give free advertising to a rival of Britain’s auto industry? Anyway, there are priceless Sixties shots here, such as one of a driver handling the giant inflatable ball with one hand while holding a lit cigarette in the other. (By the way, the software doesn’t allow us to embed British Pathe’s video here, so clicking on the links will open another window where you can watch it.)
