Sir,

As a regular reader of MOTOR SPORT,. I am particularly interested in the Alvis articles in the last two copies I have received. The Alvis that came here is fitted now with a six-cylinder two-carburetter Terra plane engine, and performed very credit ably in its maiden outing at Penrith on Anzac Day—April 25th—being beaten only by Kleinig Hudson special—with Magnette chassis, and very similar in appearance to the new Darracq G.P., and

holding the N.S.W. flying mile record, and by Paul Swedberg’s Offenhauser Midget, a beautiful doodle with Miller four-cylinder 1,500 c.c. twin camshaft engine. The Alvis changed its power plant when J. Crouch popped a rod through its crank case. Crouch bought the Alfa Le Mans tourer which Shaw brought back with him, and made fourth in the Bathurst

Grand Prix, which was won by Sherwood —Ulster Magnette–second and fastest time Swedberg in Shaw’s Delahaye, and. third Barraclough, in another Ulster Magnette. Kleinig led this race for 29 laps until he ran out of oil and enlarged a big-end. But to return to our Alvis. The block, valve gear, camshaft, oil pumps, exhaust manifold etc. were purchased by my friend A. MacKinnon, who runs one of Sydney’s two Frazer-Nashes, fitted with an A.C. 2-litre engine. You may remember

this man competing in various events at Brooklands with this same Frazer-Nash a couple of years ago.

The bits of 12150 engine, we added to the old s.v. 32140 which we already had fitted in a doodle, and instead of the blower we fitted two S.U.s.

Tears of blood were shed by reason of the fact that in a moment of canniness we attempted to beat the owner down for his very fine bronze cylinder head, and thus lost it to another 12150 owner.

Howbeit, the thing performs astoundingly well, although it is accustomed to cooking R-11’s—which may be due to the fact that the pistons stand tr” proud of the cylinder barrels at T.D.C. We have not dared to measure the compression ratio.

I own a 3925 20-70 s.v. sports Crossley, which I have spent the last year in reconditioning as a spare time job. This car in its prime held the lap record at Maroubra track for some years, but that was long before it came into my possession. I am Yours etc.,

R. BEAL PRITCHETT.

New Zealand.