The death of Leonard John Kensell Setright at the age of 74 has removed possibly the last of the great characters in motoring writing which were a feature of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. He was certainly one of the world's best.
We know him in Ireland for his contributions to the British magazine Car where he began contributing in the 1960s and continued for 33 years. There his unique, elegant, erudite and wordy writing style under the by-line LJK Setright fitted in with the style of a publication that at the time was unique in automotive journalism.
He was a major element in the success of Car, which influenced car magazines worldwide. He wrote almost to please himself but very quickly his articles, whether a car test, a dissertation on tyre design or steering geometry, came to be enjoyed by motoring enthusiasts and lovers of the English language alike.
Setright was the son of Henry Roy Setright, an Australian engineer who invented ticket issuing machines including those used on London buses. He began his working life as a lawyer, but grew to hate the life and in 1961 joined Britain's largest engineering magazine and quickly became its editor.
Writing about engineering led him to cars and the job at Car. The fact that he didn't train as an engineer did not hamper his ability to talk about technology with the most talented people in the car industry.
I was fortunate to be writing about cars at the same time as Setright, and met him on many international launches in the Seventies and Eighties. He was an aloof person, off-putting to most of his colleagues but not the Irish contingent, who thoroughly enjoyed his company.
A member of the Jewish faith, a bearded rabbinical scholar, and an accomplished musician, he was an imposing figure who dressed in very distinctive clothes and kept to himself unless engaged in conversation.
Then he quickly established that he was an exalted genius and you were a buffoon. Paradoxically he did this without giving the slightest offence and I enjoyed his company enormously.
Setright would arrive at the start of a test drive with an enormous crash helmet and driving gloves, He did invite anybody to join him for the drive, but those who knew him would not have done so for love nor money. He was a ferociously fast driver who wrung out a car to the very limit but relied upon his super intelligence and quick brain to save him from disaster.
He was a man of firm convictions who hated speed limits, public transport and environmentalists, and loved Bristol cars and Honda motorcycles.
I remember some of his quotes during dinner conversation about such things as the spraying of champagne at the end of motor races which he described as "a vulgarian display of disrespect for this princely drink", while speed limits were "originally a temporary measure introduced to save petrol during the fuel crisis - nothing to do with dangerous driving on the road".
He dismissed environmental worries as nonsense and maintained that there was no such thing as an energy crisis with ample supplies of methane which he described as a lovely clean fuel. Oil crises he dismissed as commercially and politically manipulated panic.
In addition to his contributions to newspapers and magazines, Setright was the author of many books; including those about the Bristol car and his last - Drive On: A Social History of the Motor Car (Granta Books) - is less a history of what the car has done to society, than what society has done to the motor car.
He was married twice and had two daughters. - Pat Comyn, Snr