Tag Archives: Bristol Classic Car Show

Do Anything And Go Anywhere – Itala 35/45 hp

This months Tuesday blogs will feature four European Edwardian, built between 1905 and 1918, vehicles while Thursdays will feature vehicles from the same period built in the United States.

The story of the 9,000 mile plus 1907 Peking to Paris motor race begins with a challenge published in the Parisian newspaper Le Martin on the 31st of January 1907 that read “What needs to be proved today is that as long as a man has a car, he can do anything and go anywhere. Is there anyone who will undertake to travel this summer from Peking to Paris by automobile?”

ITALA 35/45hp, Classics at the Castle, Sherborne  Castle

Despite the fact that the organising committee had cancelled the event, five of the original entry of 40 entrants turned up for the start of the race outside the French Embassy in Peking (today Bejing) on June 10th 1907; an Itala, a ‘borrowed’ Spyker, two DeDions and a three wheeled Contal cycle car. There were no rules beyond each vehicle having to carry a journalist.

ITALA 35/45, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

The absence of tarmac roads or road maps meant the vehicles roughly followed a line of telegraph stations, useful for the journalists to file their reports, between the two cities across the Gobi desert, Mongolia and Russia.

ITALA 35/45, Classics at the Castle, Sherborne  Castle

The eventual winners, despite their ITALA 35/45, similar to the model featured today, falling through a foot bridge and making a 900 mile detour to St Petersberg, to make a dinner date held in their honour, were Prince Scipione Borghese accompanied by the journalist Luigi Barzini, Sr who got to Paris on August 10th 1907.

ITALA 35/45, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

While taking part in a night rally in the early 1950’s Group Captain Rexford Welch found a hub cap of today’s featured ITALA in a hedge of a farm, near Abingdon, where it had been standing derelict for 30 years.

ITALA 35/45, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

The Group Captain immediately abandoned the competition and waited until sunrise for the farmer, with whom he concluded a deal that morning, to awake. Rexford-Welch towed the car which had no working brakes at the time home to London behind his Lagonda in freezing conditions.

ITALA 35/45, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

Once the car was roadworthy and fitted with a recreation competition body, it was used on numerous events through the 50’s and 60’s after which it was abandoned for a second time for 40 years until 2004 when the present owners acquired it from Rexford-Welch and managed to restore it again just in time to take part in the 36 day Centenary re run of the !907 Paris Peking Rally, in which St Petersberg was now included on the official route.

ITALA 35/45, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

The Itala 35/45 is fitted with a 7.4 litre / 453 cui 4 cylinder motor, during the second restoration the current owners went and saw the original Paris Peking winning car at the Carlo Biscaretti Di Ruffia Museum in Turin and established their chassis was a sister to the 1907 Peking Paris winner albeit originally fitted with a landaulette body that had been rendered useless after standing derelict in a field for 30 years.

Thanks for joining me on this “Do Anything And Go Anywhere” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Blue Velvet – Bentley Mk VI Special

In May 1946 Rolls Royce, owners of Bentley, announced that there subsidiary would be making an all new model known as the Mk VI standard steel sports saloon which would mark a break in several production traditions but which would maintain it’s air of exclusivity by becoming the the most expensive production car and the worlds fastest 4/5 seat saloon.

Bentley Mk VI Special, Blue Velvet, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

The novel feature for the marque and indeed the marques owners was the steel body, complete with sliding sunroof manufactured by Pressed Steel Ltd of Coventry which meant a Bentley no longer had to be sent to an independent coach works for a bespoke body before it was sold although that was an option pursued by around 20% of Mk VI customers between 1946 and 1952.

Bentley Mk VI Special, Blue Velvet, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

Initially from 1946 to to 1951 these cars were fitted with uprated straight F-head 6 cylinder 4.257 litre / 259 cui of Rolls Royce origin but with Bentley rocker covers. 4 1/4 litre engines were replaced by 4.566 litre / 278 cui 4 1/2 litre motors featuring twin exhausts in 1951.

Bentley Mk VI Special, Blue Velvet, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

Rolls Royce never gave away hp figures for it’s motors, but a contemporary report of a vehicle powered by the earlier motor related that top gear provided “flexibility down to 6 mph” and could “climb a hill of 1 in 9 maximum gradient, complicated by bends. A vehicle tested with the later motor was independently tested from rest to 60 mph in 15 seconds with a top speed of 100 mph.

Bentley Mk VI Special, Blue Velvet, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

To illustrate just how much demand there was for the Bentley Mk VI standard steel sports saloon a pre owned vehicle report in 1951 observed that a three year old 4 1/4 litre Mk VI with under 10,500 miles on the clock sold brand new for £4038 in 1948 and in 1951 was being offered for sale at £5,335, such was the quality of the car and the post ’39 – ’45 shortage of vehicles in the UK.

Bentley Mk VI Special, Blue Velvet, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

Over time the Mk VI’s Achilles Heel manifested itself when the quality of the steels used in the bodywork, proscribed by government edict in the post war aftermath, showed itself to be inferior. As a consequence many surviving Mk VI Bentley’s, like Blue Velvet seen here at the Bristol Classic Car Show, have been fitted with cheerful one off bodies displaying varying degrees of professionalism in their finish. With the loss of the weight of the original steel body one would imagine the performance while accelerating to be quite exhilarating.

Bentley Mk VI Special, Blue Velvet, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

In all 4000 4 1/4 litre Mk VI’s like Blue Velvet were built with standard steel sports saloon bodies from 1946 to 1951 with an additional 832 being fitted with bespoke bodies from independent coach builders.

Thanks for joining me on this “Blue Velvet” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a sports pick up from Ford. Don’t forget to come back now !

Brighton Speed Trials Under Threat of Permanent Cancellation !

In their infinite wisdom, Brighton & Hove City Council are seeking to ban the Brighton Speed Trials from 2014.

If you care about speed and or motorsport history, please sign this linked petition to save Brighton Speed Trials in 2014 and beyond.

It’s a faf to Register before signing, but relatively painless compared to loosing the event which has been run with few interruptions since 1905.

You do not need to be resident in Brighton or even the UK to sign.

More on Brighton Speed Trials on this link.

Thanks and please spread the word through whatever social media you have at your disposal.

A tweet on the Save Brighton Speed Trials site this morning says that so far over 10,000 signatures have been received, thanks if you have responded, if not please do so you have until January 23rd, it would be nice to receive 100,000 signatures world wide.

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Easiclean Wheels – Wolseley 14/56

Also known as the Fourteen Series II the Wolseley 14/56 was presented to the public in June 1936 and replaced the earlier ‘New Fourteen’ that had been in production since 1935.

Wolseley 14/56, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

The beautiful example seen here is thought to have been built in 1938 and has had just two owners the first family had it in storage for many years before recommissioning it with engine and suspension overhauls.

Wolseley 14/56, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

Along with Easiclean pressed steel wheels the 14/56 could be ordered with a hand operated ‘Jackall’ hydraulic pumping system which could raise the front and or rear wheels off the ground for ease of maintenance and the frequent wheel swapping necessitated by comparatively poor quality tyres available at the time.

Wolseley 14/56, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

Wolseley was being integrated into the Lord Nuffield’s Morris empire by 1938 but despite this had the 14/56 was powered by a superior motor to the equivalent Morris.

Wolseley 14/56, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

The overhead valve twin carburetor six cylinder Series II motor was upgraded from 1604 cc / 97.8 cui to 1818 cc /110.9 cui however for reasons that are not at all clear to me this particular car has an officially quoted 1701 cc / 103.8 cui motor.

Wolseley 14/56, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

The 14/56 remained in production until September 1938, by which time 15,000 example had been built, when it was replaced by the Wolseley 14/60 Series III.

Thanks for joining me on this “Easiclean Wheels” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Winds Of Change – Volkswagen Golf GTi

In 1964 Volkswagen acquired Auto Union from Daimler Benz and in so doing sowed the seeds for the survival the thriving of both companies well into the 1980’s. Back in ’64 Volkswagen was thriving on a market mix of rather primitive if well built aircooled rear wheel drive vehicles that were developed initially by Dr Ferdinand Porsche, at the same time Auto Union were developing 4 stroke watercooled motors with front wheel drive trains to replace the 2 stroke vehicles that they had been manufacturing since before the 1939-45 war.

Volkswagen Golf GTi, Bristol Classic Car Show, Sheppton Mallet,

The first new all Auto Union became the Audi F103, curiously at the time of it’s launch Volkswagen was intending to simply use the Auto Union productution facilities to build additional Beetles and forbade Auto Union from carrying out any further developments however when a team of Audi engineers showed the Volkswagen management their ideas for the Audi 100 that had been developed in secret Volkswagen was persuaded to change it’s mind and eventually ended up embracing Audi new 4 stroke water cooled front wheel drive technology when sales of the Beetle started to show signs of weakness.

Volkswagen Golf GTi, Bristol Classic Car Show, Sheppton Mallet,

The first water cooled front drive Volkswagen’s were the relatively low volume Passat’s launched in 1973 these were followed by another water cooled front wheel drive car named after a wind, the Golf (translated into English Gulf). The 1974 Volkswagen Golf featured a two box hatch back shape with a hatch back door to the rear which was to be often copied by the likes of Ford, Vauxhall/Opel, British Leyland, Chevrolet and Dodge, to name a few, in the wake of the Golf’s overnight success, though the FIAT 128 based Zastava 101 featured a proper hatch back that predated the Golf by three years.

Volkswagen Golf GTi, Bristol Classic Car Show, Sheppton Mallet,

In 1975 the first Golf GTi was launched featuring a 110 hp fuel injected motor and suddenly any car without ‘i’ in the initialing became suspect as did any car without red piping that was pioneered by the new sports model. Neither communist built Yugo 45s nor US built GMC Syclones were immune to these little red fashion fads which started with Volkswagen’s little hot hatch which had a zero to 60 mph acceleration time of 9 seconds.

Volkswagen Golf GTi, Bristol Classic Car Show, Sheppton Mallet,

It was not long before a third of all Golf’s built were the performance GTi variants which worked wonders for Volkswagen’s finances having come close to going under completely in the early 1970’s. The Golf was mildly face lifted in 1980 without altering any of the crisp lines originally styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

Volkswagen Golf GTi, Bristol Classic Car Show, Sheppton Mallet,

The vehicle seen here at last years Bristol Classic Car Show is one the last post face lift models built in 1983, most obviously distinguished by the large rectangular rear lights.

The car seen here is fitted with a factory sunroof and tinted window’s which along with the Pirelli wheels, that were fitted with horrendously expensive Pirelli P6 low profile tyres, point to the car possibly being what is known a a Campaign Model, though some Mk 1 Golfs have been built up to look like Campaign models but with the heavier load bearing Pirelli wheels from the Mark II Golf GTi which had 10mm gaps between the P’s on the 14 inch alloy wheels instead of the original 7mm gaps between the P’s.

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Nice Door Handles – Morris Marina ADO 28

With the merger of Jaguar with British Motor Corporation in 1966 the new merger was renamed British Motor Holdings and after a further merger with Leyland commercial vehicles the corporation became known as British Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968. British Leyland as it was known decided that the Austin and Morris brands should be differentiated in the early 1970’s with Austin vehicles being based around the front wheel drive (FWD) concept pioneered by Ales Issignosis with models like the Mini, 1100 and 1800 series vehicles while Morris vehicles would be more traditional with front engines driving rear axles (RWD) as they had on the Morris Minor and Morris Oxford models.

Morris Marina, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

The design of the Marina coded ADO 28 was started by Roy Haynes who’s CV included the design of the popular Mk II Ford Cortina, however a disagreement over a common floor pan to share between models as espoused by Roy led to him quitting and Triumph Designer Harry Webster finishing the job by which time the intended Macpherson strut front suspension had been abandoned in favour of Morris Minor style tortion bars and a new gearbox design was abandoned in favour of an existing item from the Triumph parts bin.

Morris Marina, Atwell Wilson Museum, Calne

All in all the development costs of the conservative RWD concept Marina ended up exceeding those of the more radical FWD Allegro which was developed to be Austin’s competitor in the small family car market. Production facilities at Cowley had to be upgraded which included some comedy as an overpass was built so that the motors could be sent from a plant on the opposite side of a municipal road to the assembly plant, no sooner had the overpass been completed than the municipality offered to sell the road which British Leyland did not think twice to accept.

Morris Marina, Qwara, Malta

On a positive note the AMC Ambassador inspired vertical hinged door handles were a huge hit with Lotus founder Colin Chapman who specified them for use on the Lotus Elite, Eclat and Esprit models, Marina door handles were also adopted by Scimitar for the GTE shooting break while British Leyland used the same handles on the Triumph TR7/TR8, Austin Allegro and they eventually even found their way, finished in matt black, onto the Land Rover Discovery Series I.

Morris Marina, Cotswolds Classic Car Club, Frogsmill, Andoversford

Marina cars were powered by a variety of motors most common of which for the UK market was a 57 hp 4 cylinder A series which did not do much for performance but kept the handling within safer limits than the heavier more powerful motors which promoted lane changing understeer / push which induced the odd brown trousers moment for some Marina pilots.

Morris Marina, Cotswolds Classic Car Club, Frogsmill, Andoversford

The Marinas seen here are in order top to bottom a ’72 Coupé at the Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet, ’74 Twin Carburettor saloon sedan at the Atwell Wilson Museum, a Maltese 1500 saloon / sedan with after market alloy wheels and waist trim in Qwara, a ’79 Estate and ’72 Coupé both at the Cotswolds Classic Car Club meeting held at Frogsmill, Andoversford and below a saloon / sedan with an unusually straight rear bumper seen at last years Classics at the Castle, Sherborne.

Morris Marina, Classics at the Castle, Sherborne

Although much derided for almost every detail apart from the door handles the undemanding early 70’s British public lapped up Marina’s painted in tepid colours like Russet Brown, Harvest Gold, and Limeflower Green for the car to peak at second in the sales charts behind the Ford Cortina in 1973 and remain in the top 3 or 4 until 1980. Eventually over 897,000 Marina’s were sold in the UK of which 745 are thought to remain on British roads.

Thanks for joining me on this “Nice Door Handles” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Two Bearing Crankshaft – Singer 8 Junior

Like many pioneering manufacturers of motor cars Singer Motors Ltd was founded as a manufacturer of bicycles, by George Singer in 1874. By 1901 the company had diversified into producing powered tricycles which were soon followed by powered bicycles. Singer built their first car in 1905. Over the next four Tuesday’s GALPOT will be looking at four models from the interwar years.

Singer 8 Junior, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

The Singer 8 Junior was launched in 1926. Initially only a four seat tourer was available, in blue with black wings / fenders.

Singer 8 Junior, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

For tax purposes the 4 cylinder motor was classed as having 8 horsepower, it featured gravity fuel feed, a crank running in just two bearings, overhead cam shaft, 6 volt electrics, that produced 16.5 hp at 3250 rpm. The motor would be the progenitor of future Singer power units for three decades.

Singer 8 Junior, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

Eventually a range of different body styles were offered including Two Seater Tourer, Sunshine Saloon, Coachbuilt Saloon as seen here, Fabric Saloon, a two plus two called the Sportsman’s Coupe and a boat-tailed Sports which helped sell 6000 8 Juniors a year between 1927 and 1931 which made Singer the third largest manufacturer in the UK behind Austin and Morris.

Singer 8 Junior, Bristol Classic Car Show, Shepton Mallet

There were plans for the German Aga “Aga Fahrzeugwerke GmbH” company to manufacture Singer 8 Juniors under license, in much the same way as BMW manufactured the Austin 8 under license, but these plans came to naught, after a single prototype had been built Aga disappeared.

Today’s featured 1928 saloon / sedan was purchased by the current owners in 2009 at the Bristol Classic Car Show in Shepton Mallet, it is known to have resided in Cornwall and Surrey about 20 years ago. The owners say the car is great fun to drive “and we always get there eventually.”

Thanks for joining me on this “Two Bearing Crankshaft” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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