V-E-V- Miscellany, April 1975

A reader who still has the 1935 Austin 10/4 Lichfield saloon which was given to him as an 18th birthday present would like to hear of any firm in the Worcester/ Birmingham area who would restore it—he is posted overseas and getting good service from a VW 1303L Beetle. Nigel Musselwhite asks us to say that it is he who owns the MG EX120 replica and not Syd Beer, as we implied in our report of the opening of the “Magic Midget” hotel in Abingdon. Incidentally, the original “Magic Midget” engine has been found and Musselwhite and Mike Allison intend to use it in a replica car, supercharged to 20 lb./sq. in. Another reader enquires whether anyone who had experience of the Constantinesco torque-converter of the 1920s, in the two-cylinder car built to demonstrate it, can tell us what it was like. A hill-climb confined to pre-war cars is scheduled to take place at Loton Park, near Shrewsbury, over “the longest hill-climb course in England”, on August 2nd/3rd, organised by the Hagley & DLCC.
An Italian reader informs us that a 1932 Fiat Balilla saloon is in regular use in the Ferrara Provence.