An Indian elephant to help Austin drivers

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This is a story about an animal rather than about cars. Or is it? Well, fact is that it has to be one of the more light hearthed British Pathe movie clips we’ve come across. But also one of the loveliest. We are treated to the latest helper at the East Midlands petrol station in Warmington, Northamptonshire in 1964, who comes in the shape of an elephant.

Was it really true? It seems so, as there are more images to prove it. The elephant named Baby can be seen putting petrol in the cars and pushing vehicles out when they get stuck. There are some very period cars in the movie, too. A rare Austin Metropolitan, which was only sold briefly within the UK as the majority of these Longbridge-made creatures were sold as Nash Metropolitans for export to the US. And then there’s another Austin that may be called rare today: an A70 ‘Hampshire’ pick-up. Crikey, when was the last time we saw one of those..?

But back to the subject of this movie clip. Does the (Shell) garage still exist? There seem to be plenty of forecourts in greater Warmington these days but there doesn’t seem to be any of them looking anything like the one in the film. And what’s more: what on earth happened to the elephant?

(Words editor, video British Pathe via Youtube)

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