The record
In 1962 Cintec Ltd of Brookside Road, London N19, offered the Cineroma, a mobile cinema built into a Land Rover 109-inch station wagon and carrying the Rover Company's approval. The leaflet's own headline lists its uses in the order its customers understood them: information, education, propaganda, advertising, entertainment. It was designed, in Cintec's words, to function under the most arduous conditions of terrain and climate, as a self-contained 16 mm cinema for operation in the open air after dark, capable of accommodating audiences of many hundreds at each performance.
The projector was a Bell & Howell Model 640, optical and magnetic sound, so that a commentary in the local language could be added to any film. Power came from an alternator driven by the vehicle engine: a closely regulated 3 kVA at 230 volts, 50 cycles, held by an engine-speed governor, with oil cooling fitted to the engine to prevent overheating while it ran stationary as a generator. Two re-entrant horn speakers had alternative roof mountings for public announcements on the move. One man could operate the unit; seating was provided for three, with space for luggage and display material. It was built to tropical specification and supplied to government departments, UNICEF and business organisations for use throughout the world.
The brochure, received by the Automobile Association's technical library on 1 August 1962, shows the unit on a Series II-pattern 109 station wagon with the projector set up on a stand beside the vehicle and the screen raised above the roof. This registry's model was built to a Series I station wagon body at the game's request and carries the projector on the roof; both are departures from the brochure, recorded here as such. No production figure is known.
