H J Aldington was driving car number 323, a 1500 GN in the Land’s End April 18/19th 1924.
Dad is wondering if anyone has any other information, Reg No. or photograph of the car.
The GN marque was pretty much on its last legs and Fraser Nash started production in 1924. There were a few cars made with water cooled Anzani engines rather than the normal v-twins. Was this one?
Mark. Just spotted this earlier posting and thought I'd re-read my Nash books. Whilst there was a 1493cc V-twin available for the works GN, Thirlby says it was only used for record-breaking purposes. Through 1923 and early 1924, Nash was effectively re-designing the GN to become the first Frazer Nash proper. The engine was 1500cc 4 cylinder Plus-Power unit. Could H J Aldington, who was then the sales manager, have tried out PD 3103 on the Lands End? And still called it a GN as the Nash was not formally on sale until October of 1924 ? The first 1500cc Anzani engined car, NE 793, was not sold until February of 1925.
ReplyDeleteHi Nigel
ReplyDeleteIt could have been anything which is the problem!!
I thought it might be a little early for HJ to be involved with AF-N so I was thinking along the lines of maybe him either owning or being lent one of the latest GNs?
Books follow AF-N or Godfrey but maybe they had left GN by then.
Still a Gold in a GN with whatever engine isn't to be sniffed it especially as it probably didn't have front brakes...
cheers
Mark
Mark. It was certainly a very complicated period in that Archie had a finger in three pies so there are three possibilities. A very early try-out for the first proper Nash, the 1500cc Plus-Power engined PD 3103 (or just possibly the other demonstrator, PD 1578 as shown to the press in July 1924. But .... Thirlby reckons the first Plus-Power engine was "ready in the middle of 1924" so the Lands End would seem to be too early. Or, because he had an agreement with GN Ltd. to alter new GN chassis and call them "Frazer Nash - GN" - it might well have been a 1500cc 4-cylinder Anzani engined prototype. Or - an outside chance - as a stop-gap whilst working on the design of that first 'proper' Nash in 1923/early '24, Archie was also marketing (from October 1923) a re-bodied shaft-driven 1500cc Anzani-engined Deemster. I wonder if Donald Cowbourne's book might reveal a registration number ? Anyone got a copy?
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