Vintage Miscellany, December 1965

A sad 1930 Singer Junior saloon and a mid-30s 6-cylinder open Singer await new Owners in Essex. A vintage flat-radiator Armstrong Siddeley Fourteen saloon has been languishing in a Hampshire barn for many years. A one lady-owner Singer Le Mans 4-seater exists in Huntingdon. Reports from Guernsey speak of vintage engines and spares, a circa 1930 Adler, a vintage Morris-Cowley and about eight more old cars in the open, derelict and overgrown, but a possible source of spares. Our informant spent two weeks there with a 1926 9.8h.p Lea-Francis, for which two tyres and a pair of vintage sidelamps were easily obtained. There is also a 1924 Bean standing in a field, but apparently not for sale.

Non-vintage ” attic-chair” cars: for disposal include a 1934 Daimler 15 saloon, a non-runner but easily restorable, in Hampshire (£25 o.n.o.), a 1934 Morris 10/6 which has done only 36.000 miles but with u/s body, in Sussex (free if collected, and a 1934 Humber Vogue saloon, one owner, 47,000 miles. in Norfolk. A Type 40 B.M.W. lies in a Lewisham scrapyard. Someone seeks half-shafts for a Singer Junior.

J. V. Morcott has bought the ex-Brian Morgan 200h.p. Benz, which is to remain in the Birmingham Science Museum until the stripped gears in the gearbox can be repaired. After which, let us hope, it will appear in Edwardian races once more! The Armstrong Siddeley OC. now has nearly 60 Members, including one in South Africa, and a Stoneleigh owner in Holland. The club magazine is now called Sphinx Revived, and at least four meetings are scheduled for next summer. The H.C.V.C expresses horror at seeing a Box No. advertisement for a 1903/4 Milnes-Daimler omnibus, for which offers over £800 were being asked, for they tried to find a good home for this vehicle (which they date as 1906) and when this wasn’t forthcoming a dealer who took this and other vehicles in a member’s collection valued it at £300 and the Club was assured that it was being restored by a wealthy philanthropist.

The Editor recently had a no-trouble 170-mile run to Wales in the 1934 Austin 10/4 bought for £7 as a learner-car for his children, and, on arrival, heard of a 10/4 van in good condition. A f.w.d. Cord in rather derelict condition is reported from Yorkshire. The memorial to Biaggio Nazzaro, who was killed when the back axle of his Fiat broke during the 1922 French G.P. at Strasbourg, was moved when a new road cut across the corner of the circuit where the accident happened, but an inquiry addressed to-the A.C. d’Alsace has elicited the information that the stone has been re-erected further along the road. The Autumn Bulletin of the Fiat Register contained an article on 40 years of the Fiat 509, by G. Liston-Young. The Vintage Austin Register announces that it now has 400 members and is using the ” Red Cow,” Hammersmith, as its headquarters, including a large garage where members can work on their cars. The Hon. Sec., Bob Wyatt, has moved to 35, Plough Lane, Wallington, Surrey.

More and More Clubs are expressing Concern over the very high prices now being paid for vintage and veteran cars, and the V.C.C. itself devoted the Editorial in its October issue of Veteran Car to the subject, being especially disturbed at the growing number of people who buy veteran cars as an investment and never bring them to V.C.C. meetings. The Classic American Auto Club of Great Britain has also expressed agreement with MOTOR SPORTS Editorial last month on this subject. The Bullnose Morris Club’s Oxford Rally was a great success, attended by 43 Bullnose Morrises, 13 Flatnoses and 21 ” guests,” Ken Revis of B.M.C.entertaining as guests Capt. G. E. T. Eyston and John Thornley.

The Trojan O.C. Newsletter announces that the late Gp.-Capt. Scroggs left his well-known Trojan to the Club. Their R.A.F. tender Trojan has covered some 500 miles since Easter, and the Headmaster of Sarah Robinson School has bought a Trojan van which had been converted into a 12-seater ‘bus and this is now in regular use between Crawley and S. Coast towns on school engagements and next summer is scheduled to tour the French Alps. It is finished in the school colours of maroon and black— this 6-cylinder two-stroke is, admittedly, not a vintage vehicle but good show, nevertheless. The November issue of The Bulletin of the Morgan 2-Wheeler Club contains an article on that rival vehicle, the BSA 2 wheeler, which made its debut late in 1929