MORE ABOUT THE SIDE-VALVE ASTON-MARTIN

MORE ABOUT THE SIDEVALVE ASTON-MARTIN

r,, j,LOW LNG an article on a very lwautifully re-built Aston-Martin side-valve model of 1924 vintage in Ml)ToR SPORT last year, sonic interesting correspondence resulted from other Owners of these distinctly rare cars—and the owner, who bought the particular car in question from Mr. Lambert who built it, would welcome further letters from s.v. Aston enthusiasts. Another car of this type has recently come to light in Australia, Where it has been used in competition events, and it is another of the short wheel base, small radiator cars, as is the Lambert job. It suffered from a broken crankshaft not long ago but, thanks to this paper, the owner was able to acquire an almost unused one from Mr. Lambert -and there must be very few available, discounting the special stock of spares kept in up Scotland by Johnson-Purguson, who is busy rebnilding his well known s.v. car. We recently saw the Lambert car again and it really is in better condition than any other vintage car we have ever seen. Literally, it looks like a brand new car. The bodywork was hand-made by Mr. Lambert and is of truly robust construction, and the bonnet rivets alone, display craftsmanship of the highest order, the greatest ‘care being taken over the fitting of every one of them. The car now has B.H.B. pistons, although it had the original iron pistons until quite recently. It now does just over 70 m.p.h. and will beat a 3-litre Bentley On acceleration, to about 50 m.p.h. In other words, it gives a standard of performance equal to that of these cars when new, which is all the owner craves, though he would be interested to know what methods were adopted for the old 200 Mile Race Astons, to make them achieve upwards of 80 m.p.h. The car is kept in beautiful condition and we tried scrubbing our fingers along the undersides of the wings without soiling our person !—after the car had just finished a run. It is quite typical of the owner that this Aston carried no adornments other than an A.A. badge and a small name-plate ” N****r H ” and that it is seldom

driven with the screen folded because it is not fast and there is no desire to pretend that it is. A point not mentioned in the original write-up is the oil filler, which incorporates a. neat tap which indicates the oil level without use of a (lipstick. To examine a car so beautifully rebuilt and maintained hardens one’s heart against most of the moderns. USEFUL FIXTURE BOOKLETS The R .A.C. has now issued the 1939 Fixtures in the form of two convenient booklets, of which the larger One contains all the car and motor-cycle trials from April to December, while the other, which is the same size as last year’s fixture list, Contains the International fixtures, the British speed fixtures, and

the National rallies. In both cases a list of organisers names and addresses IS given at the end of each booklet. Copies are available from the R.A.C., Competition Dept., Pall Mall, London, S.W.1, and should be in the pockets of you .all.