Cordon Rouge Prescott
On July 6th the House of Seagram, importers of G. H. Mumm’s Cordon Rouge champagne, again sponsored the Classic Prescott hill-climb and, incidentally, gave me an excellent champagne lunch; which was jolly decent oOf them, remembering the rude things I wrote last year about the supposedly-replica “Cordon Rouge” Bugatti. This time Raymond Mays, who raced the real “Cordon Rouge” Brescia in 1924, opened the hill as passenger in a four-seater Brescia Bugatti, with one of his old-time supporters and Eric Giles who, with his late brother, originated the BOC in the back.
This was the occasion of the Thoroughbred and Classic Concours d’Elegance which had an entry of 52. I was astonished to discover that this definition covered Sprites, Plus Fours, TR2s, RM Rileys, MG-As, and even Austin A70 and Wolseley 6/90 saloons! It was interesting, however, to see a post-war (1949) straight-eight Railton d.h. In fact, there were far more thoroughbred cars elsewhere than in the Concours d’Elegance park. For instance, Peter Hampton had arrived in his immaculate white 1928 S-type 26/220 Mercedes-Benz four-seater, Ettore’s Field contained a nice selection of Ferraris, and there were thoroughbreds among the competing cars, such as Clutton’s 1908 GP Italia and some GP Bugattis, etc. Johnty Williams had a rather sour-sounding ERA R10B, labelled MANPOWER. the Caesar Special was unleashed, Bowles shared a very stark AC with his wife, Baker favoured slicks all round on his Lotus 7, Burton’s Sprite looked to be J PS-orientated, Rouse ran a coupé-bodied YB MG, Mathew’s Morris is surely the ex-Ashley Cleve car(?), oversize tyres were used on the Sterry/Newton MG J2, and Michael Bowler was driving that 1940 Mille Miglia 328 BMW that is so classic that a five-figure sum was being asked for it.—W.B.
The revised placing in the MOTOR SPORT Brooklands Memorial Trophy Contest, to the Oulton Park Meeting, are Peter Morley 36 points, John Venables-Llewelyn and L.D. Jones with 26 points each. The position will have changed since last week’s Silverstone VSCC racing. The final round will he at Llandow on August 30th.
A cyclecar rally
The Light Car Section of the VSCC has decided that it would he a rather splendid idea to have a rally for cyclecars, those delightfully optimistic creations which appeared between the years 1910 and 1925. It is appreciated that in these days of DoE tests, Motorways, and the common occurrence of front-wheel-brakes, it is difficult to run a cyclecar on the road in original condition, whilst on the other hand there are very few club events which cater for these machines. [Don’t let the Morgan 3-Wheeler Club hear you say this!—Ed.I
It is therefore, proposed to hold a rally on September 21st at Caddesby Hall (10 miles N.E. of Loughborough), the home of one of our Section members, Colin Crabbe. The rally is open to anyone with a suitable three- or four-wheeled cyclecar, and will simply be an assembly and natter type of event. There will be a section of private road available for exercising those cars in running order, and we shall be equally pleased to welcome interesting non-running and incomplete cars. For the purposes of this particular exercise a cyclecar is defined as: “A three- or four-wheeled motor vehicle weighing less than 800 lb. and with a total capacity not exceeding 1100 c.c.”.
Entries already received include Tamplin, pre WW1 Morgan and GN, AC, Sociable, Jowett, Rover 8 and ABC. Full details can be obtained from Roger Richmond, 15 Penn Hill Avenue, Parkstone, Dorset.—R.R.
Change of secretary
Mr. D. Purdy has taken over as General Secretary of the Lea Francis Owners’ Club. He can he contacted at “Amberway”, Oxhill, Warwick CV35 OQR