Veteran Edwardian Vintage, August 1974

In “British Aviation—The Adventuring Years” by Harald Penrose, which was reviewed in the appropriate place last month, there occurs an intriguing reference to a Fiat racing car. I quote: “Some days later Openshaw told me he needed an observer to pay out the suspended static head on its long trailing tube”. [This was when Major Laurence Openshaw, MA, was test-flying the Westland Yeovil bomber in 1925.] “Would I like to act as his observer at Andover ?. . . . Even the journey to Andover had its thrills, for it was in Openshaw’s racing car. Through the dusty Wiltshire roads of a summer’s day we raced at what to me was the unbelievable speed of 70 m.p.h., gales thudding at my head and the big engine roaring. The countryside lay quiet and still, tractors unknown, slow plodding horses pulling the occasional mower or haywagon; maybe we met two cars in 60 miles.”

There can be few more evocative descriptions of motoring as it was in the 1920s than this passage which I came upon unexpectedly in this excellent aviation history. But what Fiat was this ? Before his description of that nostalgic ride from Yeovil to Andover Penrose tells us that it was driven by Openshaw “in the Grand Prix” and was painted “the official British racing green”, having been acquired by Westlands testpilot when he became a mining executive in Italy after leaving the RAF. Now this surely cannot be right, for one would remember an amateur driver of a green racing Fiat in the Grand Prix even more clearly than one does Masetti’s red Mercedes which won the 1922 Targa Florio—painted red„ some said, to minimise the chance of Sicilian bandits shooting or hurling boulders at it, but more likely because Masetti preferred to race a German car in his proud National colour. Openshaw, as a British pilot-scientist, may have painted his racing Fiat green. But if he took part in an Italian race, it must have been a minor one, or it would be mentioned in racing histories.

The car was clearly bought in the first half of the 1920s. But which Fiat was it ? Consultation of Sedgwick’s Fiat History brings no solution. It could hardly have been one of the 1922 2-litre GP cars and as the engine is described as “big” I find myself wondering whether it was, perhaps, one of those 1911 10-litre S61 Fiats, more sports than racing, one of which was driven to victory in the 1911 GP de France by Victor Herery and used after the war at Brooklands to good effect by Duff, Cobb, Warde and others. When this car’s engine eventually expired Warde encountered another of the breed in touring trim, delivering The British Gazette during the General Strike of 1926. Was this, one wonders, the ex-Openshaw car, which would certainly have been capable of 70 m.p.h. on the road ? And was Major Openshaw a relation of the Openshaw who raced those big Zenith motorcycles at the Track ?—W.B.

* * *

V-E-V Miscellany — We really thought the collectors movement had got out of hand when we received information about the Second International Meeting of Sad-Iron Collectors, which is scheduled to happen near Paris next month. It is for those who collect sad-irons or any other device used for mangling, plaiting or ironing clothes. There is to be a movie about it all, and 1,000 photographs of ironing items, and one of the last ironers of Brittany is to demonstrate how to plait collars with 300 flaxstraws. It’s not a leg-pull. They are deadly serious! After which, we feel entitled to tell you that Nelson Cricket Ground in Lancashire still uses a circa-1924 Dorman-engined roller, which it has used since it was new.

A newspaper advertisement of Tanhay Autos of Ashford showed them, again circa 1924, using their black-radiator Model-T Ford breakdown truck, with oversize back tyres, to tow in a damaged Model-T Ford or saloon. The cutting came from Mr. Farrow of S. Willesborough. The National Motor Museum 1908 GP Mercedes was used to take winners on a tour of honour at Thruxton recently but was unfortunately described in the BARC-Alcoa hand-out as a 11-litre, instead of a 12.8-litre car. A competition Type 319 Frazer-Nash-BMW has been restored for VSCC racing and the:owner would like further information about the pre-war career of this model. Recent news of old cars being disinterred, starting with the classic “Babs” excavation, has led to a reader reminding us that around 1962 a helicopter was used to lift the remains of a 1912 Cadillac out of a canyon near Mount Wilson Observatory, vide the Los Angeles Times. Raymond Mays drove his Rover 3500S all the way to Tenbury Wells recently to declare open a new garage owned by W. J. Riley, who is related to the Riley car family. Among the pre-war vehicles there awaiting completion were a 328 BMW, an M-type MG chassis with side-valve engine, and the ex-Sir Francis Samuelson Le Mans and Spa M-type MG, while the original Silverstone Healey demonstrator which MOTOR SPORT road-tested headed the post-war machinery.

The Morris Register Journal retains its interesting content, the last two issues we have seen being devoted, respectively, to Morris Taxis and Morris Commercial ‘buses. The Amilcar Register Newsletter recently contained some interesting notes on Batho’s Amilcar-Riley. W. B. Scott, who is writing what should be a hilarious autobiography, remarked “MOTOR SPORT straddles the World”, when, among letters we have forwarded to him, was one from Rollo Martin who was at a “crammers” with that pilot of aged aeroplanes, Dudley Watt. Congratulations to the active Morgan 3-Wheeler Club on holding a full-scale Night Trial. When W. J. Oldham came to England in connection with his forthcoming Rolls-Royce book (expected from Foulis in September) his 1936 Phantom III covered 1,428 miles at 11.4 m.p.g. and, although it has done a total mileage of 91,000 without an engine overhaul, it gave 90 m.p.p. of Castro! GTX. It went home to Jersey on the Falaise from Weymouth in a force-9 gale, the normal “slow waltz” of its i.f.s. on a sea-crossing becoming, in these conditions, a “sort of quick polka”. Jonty Williamson’s 10-litre V12 Delage was timed unofficially at 136 m.p.h. over a f.s. 1/2 -mile on the runway at Yelverton in June.

* * *

V-E-V Odds & Ends