V.-E.-V. Odds and Ends

The 70th anniversary of the first car being driven into the yard of the House of Commons is to be celebrated on July 3rd, when Lord Montagu will once more drive the same vehicle, the first four-cylinder car built in Britain, into the Yard of the House, this 1899 Daimler now being restored at Beaulieu specially for this occasion. It is the car which, through the enthusiasm of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, started the long tradition of our Royal Family using Daimlers and one wonders if other Daimlers will be in attendance on this unique occasion? Another Royal Daimler, a 1908/9 4-litre 22 h.p. sleeve-valve Roi de Belge-bodied car, formerly used by King Edward VII and the Royal Household at Windsor, has been entered for the Manchester-Blackpool Run sponsored by the Daily Telegraph on June 1st. This car was virtually forgotten and unused for some 40 years, until it was entered for the 1967 Manchester-Blackpool Run.

Kenneth Neve is restoring a London-Edinburgh Rolls-Royce, the actual chassis used by Lord Hives which, with a racing body, was timed at 101 m.p.h. over the ¼-mile, at Brooklands in 1911, and he has acquired the ex-Pat Melville 1924 30/98 Vauxhall, which is in many pieces. When we referred last month to the larger of the Poppe Rovers in “Book Reviews” we called it a 14/65. Dudley Noble points out that these cars were known as 16/50s. The Vintage Motor Cycle Club has its Founders Day Rally at Mallory Park on April 27th, at which there will be a cavalcade of motorcycle history, and its T.T. Rally takes place again, in the I.O.M., on June 12th, entries closing on May 7th. It is remarkable the things that turn up. Following mention of that Cox-Atmos medal, someone else tells us of some small medallions which have engravings of well-known Brooklands cars on one side, the heads of famous footballers on the reverse side. The cars feature the Hann Lanchester, a Wolseley Moth, the 100 m.p.h. AC., Clement’s Bentley, an Enfield-Allday and a Fiat, which presumably means that they were struck in the early nineteen-twenties. Does anyone know more about them? British Rail have issued a brochure about rail and sea travel to Ireland, the cover of which depicts a 1924 Ballot tourer. A Canadian reader asks what fluid he should use in the jacking system on his 1936 Brough Superior, for which he has been told that modern fluids are harmful. His car has an Atcherly dual-purpose body and is in good shape after 85,000 miles, and he reports another, six -cylinder, Brough Superior in Canada.