The Gay Triangle by William Le Queux

From a derelict shed adjoining a lonely road which stretched for miles across the Norfolk fens, a strange shape slid silently into the night mist. It was a motor-car of an unfamiliar design. The body, of gleaming aluminium, was of unusual width, and was lifted high above the delicate chassis and spidery bicycle wheels that seemed almost too fragile to bear the weight of an engine.

Noiselessly the strange car backed out of the shed. There was no familiar _teuf-teuf_ of the motor-engine; so silent was the car that it might have been driven by electricity, save that the air was filled with the reek of petrol.