V to C Miscellany, January 1988

Michael Ware “discovered” that 1922 3-litre Bentley which is causing so much controversy and excitement in BDC circles, only in as much as he referred to it in his Discovered column in a contemporary publication and thus drew the BDC’s attention to it. But it was Tom Wheatcroft who first heard of the derelict car and bought it, about seven years ago, to save it from destruction.

The BDC seems convinced that this is the first Le Mans Bentley, as raced by JF Duff, and backs its case by suggesting that some entries in the official Bentley Motors records are clerical errors. This theory merely serves to strengthen our arguments (Motor Sport, November 1987) against the chassis being authentic!

Further to the Baker’s Tale Model-T Ford (Motor Sport, October 1987), another reader sends a picture of a similar van which was first registered (AX-851), in May 1915 and which a Mrs JH Redwood drove in Abergavenny during World War One for another bakery, carrying advertising for Turog bread.

A reader in Fordingbridge owns a similar tourer to the one which in 1913 replaced the van we illustrated. He says an identical car exists in Bolton-Le-Sands and there is probably another in the Ford Model T Register. It seems these bodies were made for British-built Fords by Manchester Body Builders. Our informant managed to get parts for his tourer’s windscreen at the last Beaulieu Autojumble-, they were made by Hodgsons of Carlisle, and he wonders whether anyone knows more of this company, which was also a Ford dealer?

Peter Neville points out that there were two, not three, commercial Model T Fords at the Ford T Register’s Welsh Rally (Motor Sport, October 1987), and that his 1922 van is sign-written “KJ Hardware” and not as stated.

The October Newsletter of the Friends of the National Motor Museum Trust contains diagrams of 128 different two-gallon petrol tins known to the Trust. It also announces that public donations to the NMM’s 1903 GB Napier purchase-fund have reached over £70,000, and that the RAC will be exhibiting the car at January’s Racing Car Show.

Correspondence in a contemporary magazine strongly criticises the NMM for selling for over £1,000,000 the W196 Mercedes-Benz given to it by Daimler-Benz.

Those who comply with the rule that tender-cars and trailers must not follow veterans on the Brighton Run might care to note that a BBC van closely followed Lord Montagu’s 1899 Daimler this year to promote Dave Lee Travis’ radio programme . . . WB