V-to-C Miscellany, January 1995, January 1995

On the cycle-car front, Alan Whitehead of the Classic Bike Show has restored another Tamplin, one of two once in the Smith Collection of vintage light cars and cycle-cars. It is Y 7731, and Mr Whitehead would like to ascertain its full history.

A Canadian reader would like to obtain information about Grevis Parkes, who had a twin-cam 3-litre Sunbeam, black with cycle-type mudguards, during the war and afterwards, when they were together in the Army in Burma and England. Who owns the car now? Information can be forwarded.

The commendable increase in membership of the Rolls-Royce EC continues; in the two months to last October 192 were elected, some with fleets of Rolls-Royces and the later Bentleys, a nice antidote to the Lloyds fiasco and the recession. This year’s annual rally at Althrop had a 1,250 entry (in contrast to the score of Royces that graced the first one at Blenheim in 1935) and was subsidised by Sotheby’s to offset the £38,995 organisational expenditure. It is reported with fine colour photographs, as is the Round Britain Rally in which nine Rolls-Royces, five of them pre-war, completed the full 3000 miles, in the club’s Bulletin. The secretary is Peter Baines, The Hunt House, Paulerspury, Northants NN12 7NA.

The Sunbeam MCC’s 58th Pioneer Run for pre-1915 motorcycles — the two-wheelers’ equivalent of the VCC Brighton Run for cars — will take place on March 19, starting at 8.00 hrs, from Epsom to Brighton. Entries close on January 7, to Marjorie Ayers, 59 Beechwood Road, Sanderstead CR2 OAE (081 657 4647). It is well worth watching.

The Brooklands Society has introduced Newsletters to supplement its much appreciated Brooklands Society Gazette.

The autumn issue of the STD Journal contained a long article by John Gray on the surviving 1929-1932 Roesch Talbots and a most interesting comparison between a 1934 20/25 hp Rolls-Royce and a 1932 23.8 hp Wolverhampton Sunbeam, both bought as used cars.

The front cover of the current Driving Member, magazine of the Daimler & Lanchester CC, consisted of a fine colour picture of a 12 hp BSA sleeve-valve saloon, seen at the Club’s 1994 Easter Rally.

Although we ascribed the 1899 Fiat that ran in the 1994 Brighton Run as belonging to the Fiat Company, it was restored many years ago by the National Motor Museum and is one of their exhibits, and thus represented the Museum on the Run.