Poirot's car

PeterJKH

Just a question that always puzzled me.

Agatha Christie often mentions the cars that people are driving and she always uses existing brands and models, like Bentley, Daimler, Austin, Morris, etc.

Poirot never owned a car, he always travels by train and taxi, and sometimes he is seen in a hired Daimler with driver. Except for one story, where he actually does have a (very) expensive car: a Messaro-Gratz.

However, as far as I know, there has never ever existed a car of that brand.

Why has Agatha Christie in this single case made up a non-existing car? Why didn't she give Hercule Poirot a Rolls-Royce, or a Hispano Suiza, or another expensive and exclusive car that existed in the real world of that time?

Being a car-lover, that always puzzled me. Who knows the answer?

GKCfan

I don't claim to have a definitive answer, but a clue may come from the fact that the Messaro-Gratz appears in "The Arcadian Deer" from The Labours of Hercules.  Loosely translated from Italian, "Messaro" means "messenger."  In the Greek myths, Hercules's temporary boss, King Eurystheus, was too cowardly to speak to Hercules himself, so he hid in a giant urn and informed Hercules of his latest assigned labor through a messenger, sometimes named Copreus.  "Gratz" could translate to "thank you" from the Italian "Gratze," but "Gratz" is also a city in Austria (The "t" was dropped some time ago).  

Actually, "thank the messenger" is a phrase that is often used in a religious context.  Both Christians and Muslims use "thank the messenger" as a means of expressing joy at hearing the Word of God.  It seems to me that the car is supposed to translate to "thank the messenger," and perhaps this is also meant to represent the role that Poirot plays in uniting two characters in "The Arcadian Deer."