It is with deep sadness that we at the SAHB record the death on 27 July 2025 of Anders Ditlev Clausager.
Anders had been Secretary of the Society of Automotive Historians since 2009. He was also a Trustee of the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust from 2010 and was its Vice Chairman from 2022 until ill-health forced him to step down in June 2025. Anders was deeply involved in many aspects of motoring history; he was a member of the Advisory Council of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu and organised the regular European Conferences of Motoring History. For many years he was Historian and Registrar to the Wolseley Register and compiled their List of Recorded Vehicles in 1987.
The SAHB owes Anders a particular debt. As Secretary, he worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure the smooth running of every aspect of the Society, from welcoming and recording new members, through the creation and maintenance of Membership Directories (a vital aid to members seeking expertise e on a particular topic), to the meticulous administration of meetings. He was also always ready and willing to help members, and enquirers from outside the Society, with even the most challenging questions on motoring history. If Anders did not know, he knew and put people in touch with someone who did.
Anders was born in Denmark 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 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 books 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.
Anders was diagnosed with cancer in July 2023 and despite having a kidney removed this spread by way of secondary bone cancer. Despite this he 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’s 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.
So very sad to learn of Anders’passing. I have only been a member a comparatively short space of time and have only met him briefly but i can testify to his personable manner which with his vast motoring knowledge willindeed be sorely missed
Very sad news indeed. I only met him once, at a publishing seminar, where I felt out of my depth in esteemed company. Anders went out of his way to make me feel at home and left me with no doubt that he was a true gentleman