More Brough stuff

Sir,

I was delighted to see the article on Brough Superiors in the June issue. Like Railton owners, as I once was, I have to suffer the sour grapes of the owners of prestige cars, it shows most as I pass them on the motorway. This, to me, shows in your article, it denounces the selling technique, which in those days was everyday practice, the 1933 Standard, with Bendix brakes claims they are “powerful and skid free” and Essex Terraplane “handles like a Speedboat, rides like a gondola” (a free pack of Quells with every car). As for the fake cam cover, Hudsons supplied a similar cover with their name engraved on the top, it helps to prevent rain dripping through the top hinge into the spark plug recesses which encourages misfiring.

Regards the hood erection, the lady in the picture would have a hard time doing it as she looks to be, the secret is to stand in the rear footwells and push the centre handle to the rear continuing upwards and over, where it snaps down onto the windscreen.

All in all, the car isn’t all that bad, except for the fact that it takes a full five seconds to put up the hood, it is smoother than some models of Rolls-Royce, as quiet, faster and economnical, I get 18-20 mpg as I do not normally go over 70-75 mph on the motorway.

On June 2nd, I went to a rally at Nottingham, and on returning home the odometer turned over to 100,000. I do not know how mans times it has done this in the life of the car, and as it is now 50 years old, I will have to watch the fragile gearbox. As I use the gears generally, as in the Railton instruction book, quote, “The lower gears — and even second — should be regarded almost as emergency speeds. The car will accelerate from 10-60 in top speed in 171/2 seconds, which scarcely any other on the road can equal using all its gears”.

As usual the article glosses over the prototypes. I am indebted to Mr Harold Hanby of Tinsley, Sheffield for the following information, as he owned the car approximately from 1945 to 1954, and described it as a large 2+2.

The car had a Meadows 12 hp 4 ED engine fitted, a Wilson pre-selector gearbox, thermo-syphon cooling, knock-on splined wire wheels with chrome rims. It is smaller than my Eight, and the difference seems to be in the distance of the length of the cutaway for the hood stowage. The car is remarkably like the later cars with its Atcherley body, but it has a fold-forward windscreen, no windscreen pillars, no quarter lights, the doors project under the screen to give easier access, the wipers are mounted at the bottom of the screen, the trumpet horns are mounted lower and the headlamps have stoneguards.

Mr Hanby swopped the Brough for an AC Petite three-wheeler, and it is believed to have been scrapped in Sheffield.

Rotherham, S Yorks PAUL BANKS