Vintage postbag, December 1985
A Siddeley-Deasy
Sir,
I thought that the enclosed picture might be of interest to you. It is of a Siddeley Deasy of about 1913 vintage (MA 5858). The chauffeur— Hulme — was killed in the 1914-18 war. I was born in 1915 and the car was laid up in the garage for the duration covered in dust sheets. I think that the headlamps were acetelyne and the side lights were electric but I am not sure. This car was replaced in about 1921 by an Armstrong Siddeley. The Siddeley Deasy ended up as a car hire vehicle in Birkenhead and the last time I saw it was about 1925 when I presume it was scrapped.
Ronaldsburn, Hardy Jackson
Agatha’s Past
Sir,
A brief postscript to your interesting article on David Harrison’s Renault. In March 1939, Anthony Mills had this advertisement in The Motor.
“1907 Renault ‘Agatha’, a beautifully behaved and tastefully dressed female, has sound constitution, admirable limbs, and is a very rapid mover; has graced (at different times) the Tango Florio, the Vanderbilt Trophy, Donington, Shelsley, Prescott and the Welsh Rally, £40.”
He was also asking £12 for a 1912 Mercedes 90, which had apparently been left with him by someone in New Zealand, and not claimed!
Guildford, John Willis
That Beardmore
Sir,
In V-E-V Odds and Ends in the October issue there is mention of a yellow Beardmore racer which a New Zealand correspondent remembers as making FTD at Dunedin hillclimb in 1925 “…until beaten by a Ford V8 ten years later…” Was this car, you ask, the one with which Cyril Paul broke the Shelsley Walsh record in 1924?
If your correspondent has got his dates right the answer is “No”, for in 1933 I bought, from a private house in South Manchester, the Cyril Paul Beardmore. I’ve a picture of the car taken in Lancashire at the time. Its colour incidentally was a dull black.
I hoped to run it at Southport but the Company for which I worked transferred we to a job a couple of hundred miles away. I could afford neither to take the Beardmore with me, nor to store it against an indefinite return. I sold it (through MOTOR SPORT of course) to a man in Torquay and never heard of it again.
Its performance in 1924 was exceptional. Paul captured the Shelsley record in 50.5 sec beating Raymond May’s Bugatti into second and Cook’s TT Vauxhall into third place.
Aston-By-Budworth, Kenneth Neve
Good Service
Sir,
I recently purchased a 1937 Buick MacLoughlan which needed a new centre section inlet and exhaust manifold, which was of course, unobtainable. However I contacted A. A. Harper, Birmingham who fabricated one within ten days.
The price was reasonable and the service excellent. Iran heartily recommend them as there are few people who do this sort of thing.
Knowle, Bob Adams
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The Vintage MCC recently recruited 200 new members, bringing the total to around 5,200, and non-riding members are catered for by the Club Journal, the September issue of which contained 72 pages. The Secretary is: Jim Hammont, Red Oaks, Mill Road, Lower Shiplake, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon, RG9 3LN. — W.B.