Anders Clausager 1949-2025
Members will be aware from the most recent edition of News Briefs that we lost our member Anders Ditlev Clausager on 27th July, following a battle with cancer.
A journalist deeply involved in so many aspects of motoring history, Anders was a Trustee of publishing charity the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust (MSMT) since 2010 and Vice Chairman from 2022 until ill-health forced him to step down in June 2025. The Guild is grateful to the MSMT for the information that follows in this tribute.
Anders had been Secretary of The Society of Automotive Historians in Britain (SAHB) since 2009, a member of the Advisory Council of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu and organised the regular European Conference of Motoring History. For many years he was Historian and Registrar to the Wolseley Register and compiled the Register’s List of Recorded Vehicles in 1987.
Anders was born in Denmark in 1949 and the seeds of his anglophile tendencies may have been sown by the acquisition of a Wolseley 4/44 while still a student. His first degree gained from 1970 to 1974 was at the School of Architecture in Aarhus. He came to London in 1974 to study automotive design at the Royal College of Art and left with a master’s degree in 1976.
His first work was on the second-generation Volkswagen Polo but by 1978 he had returned to England and was working for British Leyland. In 1979 he became archivist to BL Heritage, which later became the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust, leaving for the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust in 2000.
At this time he completed a master’s degree in history at the University of Warwick and remained with the JDHT until he retired in 2012. He twice received the Bradley Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Automotive Historians for his work at the BMIHT and the JDHT.
Anders authored or co-authored 24 books, mainly on British cars but including titles on Porsche and Volvo, as well as many magazine articles for The Automobile, Aspects of Motoring History (published by the SAHB) and others in the UK, USA and Germany.
In addition he translated books from German to English, edited other books and compiled catalogues. In 2017 his magnum opus, Wolseley – A Very British Car won the Michael Sedgwick Award from the SAHB, the Cugnot award from the American Society of Automotive Historians and the Mercedes-Benz Montagu Award from The Guild of Motoring Writers.
Diagnosed with cancer in July 2023, Anders continued to play an active part and contribute to all of the automotive history organisations that he was involved with as well as he could. He was delighted to complete an article on the first known car produced in Denmark, the Hammel, which appeared in the June 2025 issue of The Automobile. In his final months he also completed Profile books for the Wolseley Register on the 4/44 and 15/50. A final book BMC Farina Cars In Detail will be published this autumn by Herridge & Sons which will be supported by the MSMT.
Anders’ contributions will be sorely missed in all the fields he participated in. His dry wit, personable manner and extensive knowledge made him a valuable member of any meeting or conversation. He is survived by his husband David with whom he lived in Birmingham, near to the main sites of the British motoring industry.
Several Guild members have shared their memories of Anders, vice-president Ray Hutton summing up the thoughts of many, describing him as “one of the foremost motoring historians,” while Guy Loveridge described Anders as “one of the greatest of motoring historians and a leading light of the pan global historic motoring and preservation community”.
A ‘Celebration of Life’ will be held for Anders on Thursday 21st August, from 12.00 midday in the North Chapel at Oakley Wood Crematorium, Bishop’s Tachbrook, Leamington Spa CV33 9QP and afterwards at the British Motor Museum, Banbury Road, Gaydon, Warwickshire CV35 0BJ. It is planned that the Oakley Wood ceremony will be webcast for those overseas and otherwise unable to attend.
Organisers are keen to focus on a celebration and have requested no black armbands or flowers. For those who wish to give a donation in memory of Anders, he was keen to support the Birmingham Hospice, Selly Park that cared so wonderfully for him in his final illness. There will be a collection box at Oakley Wood, or alternatively donations may be made directly to Birmingham Hospice.
