Victor Gillow's Riley

Mike Fountain, who has owned an ex-Victor Gillow Riley Special since 1984, and races it at VSCC meetings (right), wants to fill in its history.

Gillow built the car with a Brescia Bugatti chassis modified at the rear so that it passed below the rear axle. Most of the rest was Riley, but the gearbox had an electron or magnesium casing, which Fountain still has.

Just before the war, G Moncrieff and HW Beverage bought the car from Gillow and raced it jointly — Beverage at Southport, Moncrieff at Bo’ness, in 1938-39. Moncrieff died and Beverage sold the car to John Brown of Eastern Motors in Edinburgh, who ran it until early ’50, competing at Bo’ness in ’48-49, and in sand racing at St Andrews in ’49.

It is the period when Gillow raced the car at White City dirt track and is believed to have overturned it there, that is missing. The car was bought for rebuilding by Roger Andrews, before Fountain obtained it.

Letters can be forwarded.