Tag Archives: Brooklands

View from the Byfleet Banking

The gathering of automobilists on New Years Day at Brooklands has established itself as the opening highlight of Britain’s classical motoring calendar. It being the first day of the year helps but the event has grown in popularity as the Brooklands site has been redeveloped to reflect some of the past glories. Our Special Correspondent braved the conditions and a few rather dull exhibits to bring us this first dispatch from the 2019 Motoring Front. 

The New Year’s Day gathering at Brooklands is the biggest such event and in 2019 the majority of cars were nothing special – too many MGBs, VW Golfs, Triumph Stags etc. – but the day was saved for your correspondent by the arrival of a few “gems”:

First in the line of small sports cars that quickly gave the company its international reputation, the “M” type M.G. Midget was based on the newly introduced (in 1928) Morris Minor and shared with it the excellent Wolseley-designed overhead camshaft engine.

This car is an early Oxford-built example (before the final move to Abingdon) and has the central throttle pedal and transmission brake. It has Brooklands racing history and is equipped like the two cars that ran at Le Mans and Spa in 1930.

The pioneering Lanchester company amalgamated with Daimler in 1931 and this co-incided with Daimler casting aside their sleeve-valve engines (which they had used since 1908) and resorting to the use of poppet valves. In 1931 an interim Lanchester model, the 15/18, was introduced using the Daimler fluid flywheel and an example won the first R.A.C. Rally in 1932.

In October 1932 a completely new design was announced with a 6-cylinder ohv engine and the Lanchester cars were increasingly “Daimlerised”, this example having a 1378 c.c. 6-cylinder driving through a fluid flywheel and bodywork by Mulliners of Birmingham.

For Britain’s first post-war Motor Show in 1948 the Nuffield Group introduced a completely new range of Morris and Wolseley cars, quite unlike anything to emerge from their factories before. The Issigonis-designed Morris Minor was one of the Earls Court stars but two new Wolseleys were there as well: the 4-cylinder 4/50 and the bigger 6-cylinder 6/80. These both had, in the best Wolseley tradition, overhead camshaft engines (the 6-cylinder shared with the new Morris Six) and they were the first Wolseleys to have independent front suspension, this being an adaption of the Issigonis wishbone and torsion bar design. And steering-column gear changes, all the fashion at the time, were also new for Nuffield.

They were not sporting cars, although some private owners turned up for the Monte Carlo Rally for a few years, and the Police chose them in quantity as Patrol cars.

The car shown is a typical 6/80 saloon.

In July 1937 Lord Austin introduced to the Press at Longbridge the Big Seven. This was a supplementary model to the famous Seven and had a longer chassis and an engine of 900 c.c. It was intended to bridge the gap between the Seven and the Ten. It turned out not to be a best seller and production stopped on 1939 when it was replaced by the Leonard Lord-inspired Eight which became a real success.

The Big Seven did compete on a small scale, four works cars, for example, taking premier awards in the 1939 Exeter Trial.

David Blumlein February 2019

Straight, No Chaser

My local track is Brooklands, racing there was suspended at the outbreak of the War in September 1939 and never resumed. In recent years there have been considerable efforts to restore Brooklands to some of its former glory. Our Special Correspondent was on hand to witness the re-opening of the Finishing Straight last month. Naturally he found some of the Rare and Interesting to keep us entertained and informed……………


A superb example of a French Bédélia cyclecar which dates from 1910. The owner had just brought it over from France and it is a Type BD2 with a 990 c.c. V-2 Train air cooled motor. The driver sits at the back with the passenger in tandem in the front. One of these cars won the Cyclecar Grand Prix at Amiens in 1913.


The outstanding sports car of the late Thirties – the BMW 328. This is a Frazer Nash–marketed version and is the ex-Hugh Hunter car, albeit re-sprayed German white instead of the grey it was pre-war. It has a rich competition history including coming 4th in the Brooklands 3-Hour production Car Race on the Campbell Circuit in 1938.


Enjoy the view through the windscreen over the long bonnet with the recessed headlights; these cars from Eisenach dominated the international 2-litre class in their time.


This is the pre-war 2-litre Aston Martin that was raced in the 1948 Spa 24 Hour race by Jack Fairman and Richard Stallebrass. Fairman came in to hand over to his co-driver during the very wet early Saturday evening of the race and the inexperienced Stallebrass lost control on his out lap on the long sweeping bend to Malmédy somersaulting off into a field and sustaining fatal injuries.


This is a Frazer Nash-BMW 319 saloon.

It had a 6-cylinder engine, an ordinary pushrod version not the special head used for the 328.


It is always pleasing to see Babs back where she was born.


We do not often see a 4-seater tourer version of the Alvis front-wheel drive cars, and rarely with the hood up! This is a 1929 long chassis car with bodywork by Carbodies and was raced at Brooklands by Edward Farley.


Geoffrey Taylor made a series of advanced sports and racing Altas with advanced suspension and 4-cylinder twin-cam engines he made himself. This single-seater is the one raced by George Abecassis to good effect.


A 1914 Chater Lea. It used a Singer engine tuned by Lionel Martin who had great success with Singers before launching Aston Martin.


This beautiful Austin Seven Ulster ran in the 1931 Double Twelve race at Brooklands, driven by Phillip Marriage and HJ Searle.

This was the race where the Austin Sevens were finally outpaced by the new Montlhéry C-type M.G. Midgets and this little Austin finished 24th and last.


Here we see Lord March with Alan Winn, the Director of the Brooklands Museum, behind giving his address at the opening ceremony.

For the first time since 1940, we see the Finishing Straight.
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Where motoring began – a lovely little Léon Bollée Voiturette made in Le Mans.

David Blumlein, July 2017

Brooklands Bash

A few weeks back Brooklands was the source for subject matter in the latest chapter in our ever-popular ‘Rare and Interesting’ series. The Special Correspondent dug out a few gems for our appreciation.

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This Lotus Mark V1 M.G. gave Team Lotus their first race win when Peter Gammon won the up to 1500 c.c. Heat of the British Empire Trophy at Oulton Park on 10th April 1954.
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A 1929 Chrysler 65. This was the basic offering of the range for the 1929 season with a six-cylinder side-valve engine of 3,200 c.c. A 65 model covered 53,170 miles non-stop to set a world endurance record in Germany.
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A 1937 Chevrolet Master Sport. This car was assembled in South Africa by General Motors, hence the right-hand drive.

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Here is its 3.5-litre six-cylinder o.h.v. engine:
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A superb example of a 1935 Hillman Minx. The work of Capt. Irving (of Golden Arrow fame) and Alfred Wilde, this model did much to put the Rootes Group on the international stage.
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A lovely Rover 12 Tourer, showing the influence of the Wilks brothers who turned Rover into “One of Britain’s fine cars”.

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And here is a rear view:
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This is an exceptionally rare car – a 1946 Bristol 400 Drophead prototype. During 1946 Bristol, with plans to enter the car market, built two prototype saloons and two drophead coupés. Despite being used in publicity material and being shown on the Bristol stand at the Geneva Show in 1947, the 400 Drophead programme was cancelled.
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I have never been a motor cycle enthusiast but I could not resist the temptation to snap this machine – a Calthorpe motor cycle! Calthorpe cars, yes, popular in the first two decades of the 20th century, I know about – they even ran cars in the 1908 Tourist Trophy (Leslie Porter finished 4th) and in the 1912 Coupe de l’Auto race. Well, those motor cycles eventually outlived the cars, being produced up to 1938!

David Blumlein, August 2016

New Year, Old Cars

The Brooklands Museum celebrates the arrival of a New Year with an open house to all manner of interesting cars. Where else would our Special Correspondent be on January 1st? He found lots to see and enjoy.

 

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One of the very first Jensens. It is based on a Ford V8 chassis and mechanicals but has a Jensen body. It dates from 1935.

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A completely unrestored B.S.A. Ten from 1933. It has a 4-cylinder side-valve engine of 1172 c.c. and a 4-speed pre-selector gearbox in the then current Daimler tradition.

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B.S.A. was at the time also making front-drive three-wheelers and they used the same engine but this had to be turned round to drive the rear wheels conventionally on this car.

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One rarely has the pleasure of seeing Armstrong-Siddeley cars on the roads these days – they were fine, well-built, dignified cars which appealed to the well-to-do customers. This 1960 Star Sapphire is one of the last to be made before car production ceased. It used a 4-litre 6-cylinder engine with hemispherical combustion chambers, a design which was cloned by Humber for their final run of big saloons.

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It’s often forgotten that the Dennis Brothers made cars before switching entirely to commercial vehicles and buses – many of London’s buses today are of Dennis manufacture.

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This 1904 Dennis was, like so many cars of the time, powered by a single-cylinder De Dion engine.

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How to improve an Austin Seven! This 1929 Swallow version is an example of the work of William Lyons (later Sir William) which led him on to make the first SS cars which in turn became the SS Jaguars.

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A lovely Sunbeam Alpine with its body modified by Harringtons. Thomas Harrington was an old-established coachbuilder of Brighton, later Hove, whose main business after the Great War was building coach bodies but they also bodied a wide variety of cars.

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One of these Alpine Harringtons won the Index of Thermal Efficiency at Le Mans in 1961.

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You are not going to see another one of these!

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It is a one-off Alvis prototype dating from 1932 and consists of a Firefly running gear, a 6-cylinder three SU carburettored Eagle engine mounted on a narrowed Speed 20 chassis with a Charlesworth body!
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Surely the most desirable of all the Bristols?

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The 404 was nicknamed the ”Businessman’s Express” but this writer remembers spying prototypes running around near Filton as a teenager and feeling that I had seen the best looking car ever!

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Renault’s first post-war car, the 4 CV or the 750 when its capacity was reduced for competition purposes.

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This example was made at the Billancourt factory in Paris but these successful little cars were assembled at Renault’s factory on the Western Avenue at Acton until 1956.
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There were three completely different versions of the Hillman Husky.

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A sports tourer on the Hillman 14 chassis in the 1930’s, a little utility on a shortened Minx chassis in the mid-Fifties and this smart version based on the Imp 5cwt van
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A wonderful example of a 1950 Allard P1 saloon, complete with a steering column gear change and of course a big V8 engine from Ford. In 1952 Sydney Allard won the Monte Carlo Rally outright in one of these, the only occasion when a driver won in a car of his own construction.

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A bit grubby but the Bentley 3-litre looks lovely in blue.

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The Fiat 508 Balilla, named after a Fascist youth organisation, was a small car equipped with a 995 c.c. side-valve engine, 3-speed gearbox and either a 2-door closed or open body. It was introduced on 12th April 1932 at the Milan Motor Show although Mussolini had been given a preview in Rome on the 8th April. Inevitably sporting versions soon evolved and an open 2-seater with lowered body, sweeping front wings and a tail fin became the 508S. These cars were quickly plunged into competitions, an ohv engine and a close-ratio 4-speed gearbox being available from March 1934. Just two examples of their many successes were class wins in the 1933 Mille Miglia and in the 1936 Tourist Trophy at the Ards.

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Interestingly, the Scuderia Ferrari entered one for the 1934 24 Hour Targa Abruzzo at Pescara, to be driven by one Zoboli, the Fascist Party official from Modena. Proudly wearing the emblems of the Prancing Horse on the sides of the scuttle, the car finished in 7th place. Another such entry was in the 1937 Mille Miglia for Piero Gobbato, the son of Ugo Gobbato, the head of Alfa Romeo who was assassinated as he walked from the factory to his nearby home on 28th April 1945.
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Daimler did not just produce staid motor cars but got heavily involved in developing fighting vehicles for the armed forces. Their Scout and Armoured Car Mark 1 were produced in quantity during the Second World War and this Ferret was in production into the 1970’s when it gave service to the NATO forces.

David Blumlein, February 2016

Autumn Colours at Brooklands

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I have not been able to visit Brooklands this year as much as I would have wished, too many clashing dates but back in mid-October I found a window to go for a few hours to Weybridge for the Autumn Motorsport day.

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There was a very strong Italian element on the day, a close relationship with Auto Italia magazine who stage a day each year on site meant that there was a fine selection of automotive art to admire and appreciate.

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There was a comprehensive turnout of Abarth’s finest with the owners keen to get a run on the Test Track at the neighbouring Mercedes-Benz World.

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And who could resist this Montreal?

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Brooklands is undergoing great changes as the Bellman Hanger is to be moved and the Old Finishing Straight is being brought back to life. Evidence of this work was to be seen and by the time the Autumn Motorsport Day comes round in 2016 it will be a very different Brooklands but with the same spirit that has sustained this corner of motor sport for over a century.

John Brooks, December 2015

Brooklands Reunion 2015

The Special Correspondent attended the recent Brooklands Reunion meeting, he brings us some of what he saw.

1935 Hillman Aero Minx
Hillman made a few hundred of these more sporting versions of their successful Minx model between 1935 and 1936. They had 1185 c.c. side-valve 4-cylinder engines and eventually full synchromesh for the 4-speed gearbox, mounted in an underslung chassis.
The cars were not intended as sports cars but rather touring cars; however, some private owners used them in competitions, especially in the major trials that were so popular at the time – for example, three Golds and the Team Award were won in the 1934 MCC Welsh Rally and four Golds were scored in the 1935 London-Land’s End Trial.

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Delage Type X
Louis Delage put his cars into competitions almost as soon as his factory was manufacturing them. A second place was gained in 1906 in the Coupe des Voiturettes (a Trophy put up by the French journal L’Auto) and Delage cars with single-cylinder engines won the race outright in 1908. That year saw the last Grand Prix (until 1912) and the interlude created encouraged races for the lighter voiturette class.
In the meantime the Coupe des Voiturettes was joined by the Coupe des Voitures Légères which limited capacity to 3-litres. This came to supercede the Coupe des Voiturettes and the Coupe des Voitures Légères became the Coupe de L’Auto.

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Delage returned for the 1911 Coupe de L’Auto at Boulogne with four specially constructed Type X cars.

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These had 4-cylinder engines with horizontal valves and 5-speed gearboxes, the first to exploit the higher fifth gear.
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The cars were very successful, Bablot winning with Thomas and Guyot third and fourth (Rigal’s car seizing its transmission brake, locking his rear wheels); Delage also won the Team Prize. This car is one of the four team cars.
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Phoenix 11.9 hp
The town of Letchworth in Hertfordshire is not one that is normally associated with motoring heritage but it can boast having the very first roundabout in England’s road system (in 1909), and in Pixmore Avenue was a factory making the Phoenix cars from 1911. This building certainly did not look like a typical car plant and its outward appearance was in a Lutyens style and in keeping with the general architectural character of the world’s first Garden City.
The Phoenix company started in London and had been producing 2-cylinder cars characterised by their bonnets being in the shape of an inverted V. Being still chain-driven, they were considered out-moded by the second decade and they were replaced by this 11.9 hp model with a 1496 c.c. 4-cylinder engine mounted under a “coal-scuttle” bonnet and with a scuttle-mounted radiator à la Renault.
With the demise of the Phoenix car in 1926, the Letchworth factory became the temporary home of Reid Railton’s advanced Arab sports car.
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1926 Frazer-Nash Boulogne Vitesse
This car was sold in 1929 to Adrian Conan Doyle, son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and he raced it with a supercharged Anzani engine in that year’s BARC Six Hour race at Brooklands with Dick Nash as co-driver. After over five hours racing it retired with ignition problems but then went to the Lewes Speed Trials where it won the Crayshaw Cup.
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Squire 2-seater
One of the seven cars constructed by Adrian Squire. They had twin overhead camshaft supercharged 4-cylinder 1496 c.c. Anzani R1 engines and pre-selector 4-speed gearboxes. This car has a body by the Reading firm of Markham.
Adrian Squire was tragically killed in a day-time bombing raid on the Bristol Aeroplane factory at Filton.
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Bean 1.8-litre
A rather unconvincing attempt to take on William Morris with his Bullnose Oxfords and Cowleys. Morris undercut his rival’s prices with disastrous results for the Tipton and Dudley company!

David Blumlein, October 2015

A New Year at Brooklands

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The gathering at Brooklands on New Year’s Day grows ever bigger – over 1,100 cars turned up within its sacred borders! The weather stayed dry this year and amidst the rows of tedious MGBs, MX-5s etc., there were, as usual, some real gems for the true enthusiast to enjoy:
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A.C. cars were very active on the Brooklands track during the Twenties, scoring many successes and setting many speed records. It was, however, John Weller’s superb overhead camshaft 6-cylinder engine which forged A.C.’s reputation, this unit staying in production for some forty years. Here we see one of the final expressions of the vintage 2-litre A.C. Sixes before the Hurlocks took over the company in 1930, ushering in a new era.
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The M.G. 18/80 was introduced at the Olympia Show in 1928 but so was the first M.G. Midget. And it was the Midget line that would go on to create a future for M.G. The 18/80 was the first to use the traditional M.G. radiator and was a dignified model with many Morris mechanicals beneath the surface including a 6-cylinder overhead camshaft engine. The big M.G. came in Mark Ι and Mark ΙΙ forms and there were even five Mark ΙΙΙs, the Tigresse model. One of these, in Cecil Kimber’s favourite cream and brown colours, tackled the 1930 Brooklands Double Twelve race but it was soon clear that the heavy car was no opposition to the Aston Martin and Alfa Romeos. It mercifully faded early on, not with the advertised carburettor problems, but with run bearings. And that spelt the end of the 18/80 as a serious competition car – it was all Midgets from then on.
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One certainly does not expect to see a Borgward 2400 at Brooklands! This is thought to be the only one in the country. Carl Borgward introduced this bigger model in 1952 to compete with the Mercedes 220 and Opel Kapitan. It had a 2337 c.c. 6-cylinder engine with hemispherical combustion chambers giving 80 b.h.p. and came with either a 3-speed box or the Hansamatic transmission which was to cause serious problems. Originally the car, a full 6-seater, had a sloping back but a fully booted version was introduced in March 1953. Sales were small with only 1132 made of which 356 were the second series with a 2240 c.c. 100 b.h.p. engine. The model was withdrawn in 1958.

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One of these cars took a fine 3rd in the over 2-litre class of the 1953 Italian Sestrière Rally driven by Count Von der Mϋhle and former Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix team driver Hans Hugo Hartmann who was to take charge of Borgward’s competition department.
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And one also does not expect to find a New York taxi at Brooklands! This is one of the ubiquitous Ford Crown Victorias, for years the staple diet of the yellow cab fleets. It was an old-fashioned body-on-frame design. In 1992 it was given a 4.6-litre overhead camshaft V8 and in 2003 it had an all-new frame with re-designed front suspension and rack and pinion steering. The last one made came off the line at St Thomas, Ontario, Canada in September 2011.
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A Riley once more on the Members’ Banking! Rileys were among the most competitive cars at Brooklands in the Thirties; this one wasn’t born then but the RM series carried on in many ways the company’s fine tradition in the early post-war years. They offered either a 1.5 or 2.5-litre version of the splendid high-cam 4-cylinder engines and boasted torsion bar independent front suspension unashamedly cribbed from Citroën’s Traction Avant.
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During the Fifties Dick Jacobs was a familiar participant in British motor sport, invariably involved with M.G. cars for which his Mill Garage in Essex were dealers. He purchased this YB 1.25-litre M.G. saloon to enter for the 1952 Silverstone Production Car Race where its chief opposition came from Jowett Javelins especially that of Bert Hadley. In the race Jacobs managed to tuck in behind Stirling Moss in the big Mark VΙΙ Jaguar while being lapped and this slip-streaming brought the M.G. nearer Hadley whose Javelin then started to emit steam – thus Jacobs managed to win the class. In 1953 he did it again and in 1954 he won the class for the third time! This car is therefore special in M.G. racing history but soon was put back to family duties
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To understand the weird Trojan it is necessary to appreciate some of the ideals of its designer Leslie Hayward Hounsfield. He had strong views about the place of the car in society and believed that speed was a bad thing for all concerned. He also disliked the idea of a car indicating social status, believing that style and fashion should have no place.
No danger of his contrivance conveying status! This odd machine has an under-floor engine, a twin-cylinder (with two pistons per cylinder) two stroke which drove through an epicyclic transmission with a big flywheel. The output was 11 b.h.p. at 1,200 rpm with exceptional low-end torque. He originally planned to have no bonnet, Lanchester-wise, but was advised that no one would buy a car without a bonnet, even though it was empty!

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But they did buy them, some 25,000, and these were made for Trojan under licence by Leyland Motors from 1922-29 in their Kingston-on-Thames factory where Sopwith planes had formerly been made. And a Trojan stood alongside the big new Leyland Eight on the company’s stand at the 1922 Motor Show. Which of the two was most successful?

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The Alvis 12/50 was an ever present part of the Brooklands vintage racing scene. C.M. Harvey used a special racing version to win the JCC 200-mile race in 1923 whereas the normal production car scored notable victories at the track including best on handicap at the 1927 Essex Six Hour race and winning outright the JCC 4 Hour Sporting Car Race that same year.

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Here is a superb example with the duck-back tail treatment; the other is the beetle-back version.
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It is indeed appropriate to see a Bentley Brooklands at Brooklands! Bentley produced two distinct models: a full-size luxury saloon replacing the Mulsanne (1992-1998) as shown here, and a fixed head version of the Azure, first seen at Geneva in 2007.

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Just 550 of these were built up to 2011.
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How can anyone suggest that Jaguar’ current F-type is prettier than this XK 120 Coupé?

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David Blumlein, January 2015

May the Force be with You………….

2013 Brooklands Military Day

One of the benefits of having an outlet like DDC is that I get to decide the priorities, no deadlines to be chased or avoided.

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It is almost 12 months since I trotted along to Brooklands for their Military Day, a fact that I was reminded of when getting notice of the 2014 event.

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So I thought that I would dig out a small selection of shots from 2013 to act as an advertisement for Sunday 16th November.

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It is not just the vehicles but as is typical of such events here in the UK, there are those who enjoy re-enacting history, be they Churchill or MacArthur.

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Or just humble Volkssturm

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Even the Red Army got in on the act.

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Whatever the motivations of those participating it is an event worthy of attendance, particularly in this year of commemorating the First World War and all the other conflicts that have taken place in the last century.

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Details of the day can be found HERE

John Brooks, November 2014

Day After Day

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Two days are never the same in my business. A visit to Woking on Thursday, to McLaren GT and a look at the 650S GT3………..then a quick photoshoot with a road going version and Concorde at Brooklands………a big thank you to the great folks there.

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Then up to Silverstone yesterday for the Sir Jack Brabham Memorial Service. A proper salute to a great man and a true Champion. More on these stories in the coming weeks…………..

John Brooks, October, 2014

The First Step – Brooklands New Year 2014

The Special Correspondent wasted no time in getting his motoring year off to a flying start. While off key choruses of “Auld Lang Syne” were still ringing in the air he was up and out to Brooklands, which resembled a Naval Dockyard rather than the birthplace of British Motorsport. A little rain was not going to deter him or those like him, the British Bulldog Spirit is still much in evidence.
Brooklands on New Year’s Day is always a most welcome start to the season for car-starved enthusiasts and has become so popular that it invariably attracts a fine and wide variety of machines – it is well worth a visit. It nearly didn’t happen this year as the River Wey burst its banks for the sixth time since Brooklands was built in 1907 and, were it not for the dedicated team of volunteers supporting the museum staff working over the Christmas period protecting the exhibits and buildings, the event would have had to be cancelled. The sincere thanks of all of us car lovers go out to them. Yet, despite the wild, wet day, they were rewarded with a surprisingly good turn-out. Here are a few of the sights:
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To start with, a brace of immaculate, green 3-litre Bentleys, lined up appropriately in front of the Clubhouse, an area which was under flood water a short while before.
Bentleys started winning at Brooklands in May 1921 when Frank Clement drove EXP2 to victory and went on until the chapter was closed by Bob Gregory’s Speed Six saloon winning a heat on 8th July 1939.
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Just restored, this lovely 1934 Triumph Gloria Monte Carlo dates from the Donald Healey era. It is powered by a 4-cylinder Coventry-Climax inlet over exhaust engine. The pre-1940 Triumph Club is ensuring the survival of more and more examples of this interesting make.
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This six-light Riley Kestrel is one of the prettiest models to come from the Coventry factory. The engine is based on Percy Riley’s magnificent Nine of 1926 and, although updated by Hugh Rose in the Thirties, it has the high-mounted twin camshafts with short rockers, valves set at 90˚, giving a hemispherical combustion chamber.
Like Triumph, Riley made far too many different models which contributed to its downfall in 1938 – it was rescued by Lord Nuffield.
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This is an Alvis Silver Eagle, a model introduced in 1929 with a small 6-cylinder engine and a variety of body styles. It is rather nostalgic to see it on Brooklands soil because Alvis entered a team of three open-bodied Silver Eagles with 2-litre engines for the 1930 Brooklands Double Twelve race. One car retired within the first hour with big end failure but the other two placed 13th and 15th at the finish.
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Charles Follett was a motor-trader with showrooms in London’s west end and he helped Alvis financially. This attractive model, introduced in 1931, was to have been called the Silver Dart but Follett convinced the Alvis chairman T.G.John that it would sell better as the Speed Twenty. The engine was based on that of the Silver Eagle but boasted triple S.U. carburettors and 2.5-litres. In 1933 the Speed Twenty was updated in two significant ways: it was given an all-synchromesh gearbox, the first British car to do so, and independent front suspension by transverse leaf spring. This particular car was made in 1935 and is the SC model with a 2.76-litre engine.
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Visitors to Brooklands seeking shelter from the persistent heavy rain would have noticed a special sign indicating that “Babs” was in the Campbell sheds. What a lovely surprise to see this historic machine back on home ground where the engineer genius Parry Thomas created it out of Count Zborowski’s Higham Special! After the Count’s death in a Mercedes in the 1924 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Thomas saw the car as the basis for a world land speed record contender and bought it. It came with a huge Liberty V-12 aero-engine and a Benz four-speed gearbox in a specially made Rubery Owen chassis but Thomas modified the car extensively, giving it components from the Leyland Eight he had designed, such as the sloping radiator which enabled him to give the car a lower cowled nose. Calling it “Babs”, he went to the Pendine Sands in South Wales and in April 1926 he set a new land speed record of 171 m.p.h. Coming back to Brooklands for the Whitsun meeting, the car ran in three races, Thomas letting John Cobb drive it in two.
Thomas returned to Pendine in March 1927 to beat Campbell’s new record of 174 m.p.h. set in “Bluebird” in February but Thomas crashed fatally and the wrecked car was forthwith buried in the sand in Thomas’s memory. Then forty-two years later the remains were dug up by Owen Wyn Owen, a lecturer at Bangor University, and he restored the car to its original condition which we see today. It usually lives in the Museum of Speed at Pendine but it is enjoying a very welcome return home here at Brooklands!
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Still viewing in the Campbell sheds, I found that the so-called Vauxhall T.T. had been moved to a more accessible position in the museum – hence this consideration. It was designed as a Grand Prix car for the 3-litre formula of 1921 but was not ready in time and was thus ineligible for the new 2-litre formula that began in 1922 despite the change in engine capacity being advertised well in advance! So three cars were entered for the revived Tourist Trophy race run on the Isle of Man in 1922 but only one survived to finish 3rd. Henceforth the cars ran privately in the following years, scoring a number of wins here at Brooklands.
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The unusual layout of the instrument panel of the Vauxhall.
2014 Brooklands New Years Day
A slightly late tribute to the Morris centenary – the Morris Six, Series MS, first introduced in 1948 as a Morris version of the Wolseley 6/80 with overhead camshaft six-cylinder engine. Like all the new post-war Issigonis inspired Nuffield models, it had torsion bar independent front suspension. Only some 12,000 were made; six-cylinder Morrises were never hugely popular although this model did far better than William Morris’s very first six-cylinder, the F-type, which was a disaster!
TAILPIECE
2014 Brooklands New Years Day
The River Wey, alongside the Paddock/Club House area, in threatening mood!

David Blumlein, January 2014