I was having a brief look at John Salter's Shoebox over the weekend. The question "What is this" against Photo 1 arroused my curiosity. The answer is that it is a Frog Eye Sprite with a "Lenham Le Mans" aftermarket bonnet. This prompted a further but brief examination. Photo 2 is Ruth Atkinson in her 1600 Kent Engined Morgan 4/4. She was a contemporary and Great friend of Margaret Woodall when they were both driving Morgans. Ruth was also very successful with the car in PCT's. Sadly she is no longer with us. Photo 19 is WAG Goodall's works Morgan. Looks like a +4 but is actually a preproduction +8 Photo 20 is Marcus Croombe in the Trojan. He is a friend of Dudley Sterry's having been aprentices at Rolls-Royce together (which is where first I met them both) and they formed a team called Derby Trad which dominated the MCC Team Championship fr years. Marc's great claim to fame was running the Trojan in an MCC aniversary run (I forget which one) in original spec, which meant using solid tyres. Despite this handicap he managed to achieve the MCC's 30mph average for the night run. A feat that means nothing unles you realise that the legal speed limit for a vehicle on solid tyres is 26mph and the maximum speed of a Trojan is only 38-40mph and the vehicle is braked by a single drum on the offside rear wheel. Photo 21 is the late great Frank Edkins. Its a supercharged 1600 Beetle. Frank was one of these people who won triple after triple. He did 4 in a row at about this time then striped the engine that had achieved this, had the crank and rods cleaned and polished, stood the assembly on its flywheel and mounted the 4 triples each one balanced on the piston end of the conrods. Ian(The Gannet)Bates was his regular passenger and still has this trophy and all his notes. Photo 23 is Roy Newton. He was also aprenticed at Rolls-Royce and made the 3rd member of the Derby Trad team. He and Dudley built their 2 MG's together in 1968, and they were very similar in specification. Roy's was just sufficiently different to allow it to run in the sports car class whilst Dudley's ran with the specials from Day 1. The car is still around, and Roy, who occasioanlly passengers for Dudley does threaten to get it out again - It would now be Class 7 legal. Photo 29 is Edgar Wadsworth's Denzel. Denzel were an Austrian Manufacturer in the 50's, building a car that is similar to the Porsche 356 in constuction using modified VW components. Like Porsche, Denzel built their own variation of VW's venerable 30hp engine but of 1300cc's. As a young lad struggling with a tatty 1200 Beetle I would have bitten this man's arm off to get my hands on this car. If the car is stll around, it is one of only half a dozen left in the world. I have the 1971 Lands End Programme around somewhere, and if I can find it I will put names to some of the other pictures. I did not look at them all this time around, the phone bill was creeping up!!
Simon,On behalf of everyone - many thanks for this goldmine of information - which with John's pictures gave me - and I'm sure a lot of others a lot pleasure. It's so good I will try to group words and pictures together over on Classical Gas if that's OK.Michael
Simon, thanks for all the information. I will try and annotate each photo with your words, hopefully just after the Land's End. As usual I have left everything, preparation wise, to the last minute. The only added complication this time is that I'm in Swindon and the car is still in Devon! I'm number 143.
I was having a brief look at John Salter's Shoebox over the weekend.
ReplyDeleteThe question "What is this" against Photo 1 arroused my curiosity.
The answer is that it is a Frog Eye Sprite with a "Lenham Le Mans" aftermarket bonnet. This prompted a further but brief examination.
Photo 2 is Ruth Atkinson in her 1600 Kent Engined Morgan 4/4. She was a contemporary and Great friend of Margaret Woodall when they were both driving Morgans. Ruth was also very successful with the car in PCT's. Sadly she is no longer with us.
Photo 19 is WAG Goodall's works Morgan. Looks like a +4 but is actually a preproduction +8
Photo 20 is Marcus Croombe in the Trojan. He is a friend of Dudley Sterry's having been aprentices at Rolls-Royce together (which is where first I met them both) and they formed a team called Derby Trad which dominated the MCC Team Championship fr years. Marc's great claim to fame was running the Trojan in an MCC aniversary run (I forget which one) in original spec, which meant using solid tyres. Despite this handicap he managed to achieve the MCC's 30mph average for the night run. A feat that means nothing unles you realise that the legal speed limit for a vehicle on solid tyres is 26mph and the maximum speed of a Trojan is only 38-40mph and the vehicle is braked by a single drum on the offside rear wheel.
Photo 21 is the late great Frank Edkins. Its a supercharged 1600 Beetle. Frank was one of these people who won triple after triple. He did 4 in a row at about this time then striped the engine that had achieved this, had the crank and rods cleaned and polished, stood the assembly on its flywheel and mounted the 4 triples each one balanced on the piston end of the conrods. Ian(The Gannet)Bates was his regular passenger and still has this trophy and all his notes.
Photo 23 is Roy Newton. He was also aprenticed at Rolls-Royce and made the 3rd member of the Derby Trad team. He and Dudley built their 2 MG's together in 1968, and they were very similar in specification. Roy's was just sufficiently different to allow it to run in the sports car class whilst Dudley's ran with the specials from Day 1. The car is still around, and Roy, who occasioanlly passengers for Dudley does threaten to get it out again - It would now be Class 7 legal.
Photo 29 is Edgar Wadsworth's Denzel. Denzel were an Austrian Manufacturer in the 50's, building a car that is similar to the Porsche 356 in constuction using modified VW components. Like Porsche, Denzel built their own variation of VW's venerable 30hp engine but of 1300cc's. As a young lad struggling with a tatty 1200 Beetle I would have bitten this man's arm off to get my hands on this car. If the car is stll around, it is one of only half a dozen left in the world.
I have the 1971 Lands End Programme around somewhere, and if I can find it I will put names to some of the other pictures. I did not look at them all this time around, the phone bill was creeping up!!
Simon,On behalf of everyone - many thanks for this goldmine of information - which with John's pictures gave me - and I'm sure a lot of others a lot pleasure. It's so good I will try to group words and pictures together over on Classical Gas if that's OK.Michael
ReplyDeleteSimon, thanks for all the information. I will try and annotate each photo with your words, hopefully just after the Land's End. As usual I have left everything, preparation wise, to the last minute. The only added complication this time is that I'm in Swindon and the car is still in Devon! I'm number 143.
ReplyDelete