V to C Miscellany, January 1989

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Coventry’s Museum of British Road Transport has been given £77,420 as a result of an appeal for funds started seven years ago by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. As well as Museum improvements, part of the money will be spent on restoring a 1912 Siddeley-Deasy, as a tribute to Lord Kenilworth who, apart from his association with the Armstrong Siddeley Company of which the Siddeley-Deasy was a forerunner, was President of the Chamber of Commerce.

We hear that a very rare body from a 1933 W Austin 12/6 sports-tourer which has graced a 3-litre Bentley chassis for many years might soon return to the correct chassis.

The Austin Vintage Register calculates that more Austin 20s are now on the road than at any time in the last 30 years, a rough estimate of survivors from the 1918-1937 period being 67 four-cylinder cars and 61 sixies.

The 1903 Gordon Bennett Napier which cost Lord Montagu more than £250,000 to recover from America is not cossetted. Michael Ware drove it on this year’s Esso Bristol-Bournemouth Run, which it completed after a battery-change en route.

It seems there may be a new contender for the oldest survivor holding a 120 mph Brooklands badge: CJ Turner reminds us that he is 80, and claimed his in 1933 with his ex-Birkin blower-41/2 Bentley four-seater.

Several years ago we received a letter from a Mr JR Holland of London, seeking information about a 1950s sprint car called the Senga Special (Motor Sport, June 1986). Finally another reader has come up with news about the car, and would like to write to Mr Holland if the latter would send us his address. WB.