club news, September 1941

e4 liaa4

WE HEAR . . .

. . . G. L. Benbrough brought his 1903 6-h.p. single-cylinder Speedwell dogcart from Reading to the ” Ely ” Hotel, on the Hartford Bridge Flats, on a recent Sunday, with his wife and son as passengers. This car bears plaques of numerous rallies and its service in the last war, and it is now in regular business use, with a comparatively modern Claudel Hobson carburetter and modern Ford coil. We noticed a de Dion plug still in use, and the specification includes transmission-brake and quite modern expanding rear-brakes. The fuel consumption is 40 m.p.g. and 35 m.p.h. is Obtainable in conditions of perfect calm. Benbrough owns seven veterans, including a Bollee he has had since he was eighteen, and they recently collected £5 for a local hospital. Another veteran, in the form Of a Singer 12-h.p. four-cylinder stationwagonette with Scottish registration, has come to light in a country garage. It has ‘F-head, separate cylinders, dual ignition, tubular front axle and is complete with one unused India, tyre—otherwise the wooden wheels are bare. Crozier’s beauti ful, ex-Craig Bugatti, a straighteight twinseam job, has xmfortunately become a victim of enemy air-raids. Another veteran which the war has pushed off the road is a six-cylinder 32-h.p. 1912 Wolseley, used until recently as a garage service-car and now at a Colnbrook breaker’s—Still with its headlamp-mask in position. There is a 1,1-litre AnzaniA.C. drop-head black-and-white coupe in Lynmouth garage, minus one connecting-rod. I. Metcalfe, of High speed Motors, now has the single-seater with Buick engine built for Greenford and sprints by Arthur Baron. The little Andie V6 was in regular use until recently by a mechanic at the same firm, but has been sold. Bainbridge, of Speed Services, is going back to the Navy, and is expecting to close his garage—he used to run Salmson and ” 30/98 ” Vauxhall ears and has three old Bentleys at Blackwater, The British Salmson Six which Walter Norton used to drive has been seen in action in Yorkshire, and a streamlined Aston-Martin is running about in Oxford. A model T Ford chassis, less tyres, can be seen at Slough, bearing a notice : “For Sale-10s. “—a really early Adams was sold from the same address for 30s. There is a Gwynne Eight chassis doing farmwork in the north. Interesting cars seen about in the southern counties include blown 1,750 c.c. Alfa-Romeo ” Zagato ” 2-seater ; Type 55 Bugatti ; a Deutsches Erzeugnis ” Eifel” Ford saloon with left-hand drive, 130 k.p.h. speedometer, fabric top and concealed petrolfiller ; Type 57 Bugatti saloon in London ; a really fine Talbot ” 105 ” with eowled radiator ; another” 105 ” Talbot manned by the Navy ; a Marendaz-Special sixcylinder 4-seater ; a 6i-litre Bentley and trailer-pump on A.F,S. duties ; a” 12/50″ Alvis 2-seater ; a really beautiful, backbraked Twenty Rolls-Royce saloon in warpaint ; an M.G. Six sports four-seater, possibly a ” Tiger ” ; a black 1,500c.c. blown Alfa-Romeo 2-seater ; and the usual vintage sports cars. Lepworth travels on a solo big-twin Vincent-H.R.D. which has done 110 m.p.h. and 105 m.p.h. with pillion passenger—some wives are brave ! At the outbreak of war 500 1-litre ” Ardea ” Lancia.s were due to be shipped to this country, but the permit was issued 24 hours too late. Mr. Newman, of Lancia% does the daily journey from his home to Wembley in his Lancia ” Aprilia.” Doctor Roth is using a rather rare version of Opel saloon, and an Adler saloon has been seen in use. Gordon Woods makes beautiful model ears, including a camshaft-racing Austin Seven, ” Zagato” Alfa-Romeo, 44 sports blowerBentley and a K3 M.G. Magnette. Nigel Mann’s K3 M.G. Magnette, which he drove in high speed trials, regrettably had to be left behind in France at the outbreak of war. Motor-cyclists have something on car-owners these days—we recently • met three riders, of an o.h.c. ” International ” Norton, a. parallel push-rod o.h.v. Norton and a diverging push-rod o.h.v. spring-heel Norton, respectively, who had done a day’s ride of 363 miles and were not home then ! The second machine had a rev.-counter reading to 7,000 r.p.m. and a 120 m.p.h. speedometer and all had Brooklands silencers. We have heard that Hall’s 12-hour record Jowett, engine eventually went into a four-wheel-brake Salmson chassis, An old Clyno, an A.J.S. saloon and a, Swift ” Cadet ” saloon have been noticed in Hampshire recently, where, at a country garage, it:atid a rather-the-worse-far-wear “

10/23″ Talbot tourer and a lowered Vernon-Derby chassis. Walsham, who used to run a ” 2.3 ” Bugatti and later a Railton, is now an able-bodied seaman, aboard a 40-ft. motor-launch, and looking very fit. A reader reports seeing two Mark V Bentley saloons within 100 yards of each other in Millbank—the experimental cars are doing yeoman warservice. Capt. Woolfe Barnato is using one. The R.A.F. have in service an early Twenty Rolls-Royce and an aircraft firm a Lanehester as a tender. The MultiUnion is safely stored for the duration, but Chris Staniland, still flying for Faireys, looks forward to racing it again “in about a year’s time.” There is a ” 12/50 ” 1926 Alvis 2-seater in generally good order, looking for a kind home. It has a 1933-type Hardy-Spicer propellershaft, does 50 in third, 27-30 m.p.g. and 2,000 m.p.g. of oil and can be had for around £20. We also know of a ” 12140″ Lea-Francis 2-seater at £25. Latest recruit to the ranks of two-wheeler manipulators is Joe Lowrey, with a 600 c.c. Square Four” chain-driven o.h.e. model Arid. The 1926 996 c.c. o.h.v. McEvoy Anzani solo which we tested in 1926 or 7 is still in use, and was written-up in “Motor Cycling” last month. DavidgePitts is using a Riley saloon as a war-time mount. J. F. MacLagen, ” Morenish,” Sledgate Lane, Wickersley, Rotherham, asks for the history of a ” Brooklands ” Riley Nine with four Amal carburetters, which suggests a racing past. The registration number is WK7162, engine number 5214, chassis number 60/40, date 1929. There is an Aston-Martin for sale at a dealers near one of the roundabouts on Hendon Way. R. G. V. Venables reports having great fun handling a 28-h.p. Studebaker at high velocities over rough fields for the purpose of picking up hay in a scoop attached to the front of the car. As the hay collects, visibility becomes nil, while the fuel-consumption is 7 m.p.g. and water consumption 2 gallons per mile. At the other end of the scale, Venables’s ” Arrow ” Austin Seven, with new body following an argument with a lorry, does over 40 m.p.g., driving hard. An old Eric Campbell small car was recently broken-up in

Wales. There now seems little doubt that the racing M.G. with fabric tail, about which a reader enquired at Chessington, was the Hartwell Magnette and a very potent job. E. R. Hall drove it at Shelsley, when it had the twin carburetters on the blower, which accounts for the big dumb-iron cowling. It was last seen, since the war started, in a warehouse at a London docks ; it seems probable it had been Sold to someone in Holland and never got across. Harry Rose has acquired a 1930 8 ft. 6 in. wheelbase 41-litre 4 seater Bentley with brand-new body. Does anyone know of a type 11.61 B.M.W. ? An army officer driving one of the small Standard Ten-engined Raton coupes was encountered recently.

CAN YOU ASSIST ?

We have received two appeals of sufficiently deserving nature to merit individual inclusion. An anti-aireraft battery, describing itself as “very static,” is desirous of purchasing an interesting car that it could rebuild and run on rare days of leave. Estler, once of Squires, is amongst the enthusiasts in question, and they would like to get the Miss Paget Mercedes-Benz, a G.P. Sunbeam or something similar. Letters will be forwarded, and the car could be collected from almost anywhere. Then S. Haywood Statham, whose Austin-Salmson-Beardmme “Special,” on which seven years spare-time work had been spent, has been destroyed by an ILE. bomb; would particularly like to acquire another sprint single-seater “on which the donkey-work has been carried out.” His address is : ” Greylands,” Queen’s Road, Mumbles, Swansea.

J.C.C.

The Junior Car Club has issued another Gazette and recently held another informal council meeting, attended by the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, Major Bale, Capt. Frazer-Nash, E. C. Gordon England, Norman Freeman, Lionel Martin, H. R. Godfrey, Charles Follett, G. Roberts, A. T. Logette, ” Bunny ” Dyer, Secretary Morgan, etc.

RED ROADS HILL-CLIMB

Fastest time of the day at the recent Red Roads hill-climb was made by a solo Vincent H.R.D. “big-twin.” Unfortunately a B.M.W. ran into the crowd and five persons were hurt-but a friend who was present says it Was the crowd’s own fault. Incidentally, is Red Roads getting flattened-out or is it merely the urge of modern mounts that gives the impression ?

BARRY

E. C. Baragwanath, of B.NI.C.R.C. memory, held a rally for B.N1.C.R.C. members all of his own accord on August 17th, the meeting-place being Marble Arch. ” Barry ” was ever a sportsman and one of the few really fatuous men approachable by raw amateurs. We like this wartime gesture of enthusiasm on his part. Remember his Brough-Superior ?