WHAT IS A SHELSLEY SPECIAL?

July 7th 2014

Last Year, S. H. Newsome presented the Newsome Trophy for the fastest climb of Shelsley Walsh by a’ Shelsley Special.”, It was duly won by David Fry and the 1 ,097 c.c. Marshall-supercharged J.A.P.engined Preikaiserwagen. This year we were pleased to see that F. Gordon RosSiter had carried on the good work and offered a Trophy for the fastest special, and that there was an M.A.C. Cup or ,!:5 in cash for the next fastest special. The winners were the Freikaiserwagen and the Skinner-Spedctl. The modern special built for sprint work is fully able to corn pete freely with the more professional rivals, as witness the fact that last month at Shelsley the Preikaiserwagen was beaten only by two E.R.A.s, the Austin and Pane’s Frazer-Nash. But it is nice for this class of car to have awards of its own to battle over. The question arises : What is a genuine sprint special? For instance, should a 4-litre car, with an eight-cylinder modern American powerunit in a shaft-driven Chassis, be included ?. Personally, we would confine the designation to the rather curious and involved, but we believe sane, interpretation of

any car having one or more twin or singlecylinder engines in a shaft or chaindriven chassis, or any car having-. a multi-cylinder engine in a chain-driven chassis, engine and chassis to be of diverse marques, and veteran cars not accepted under the latter heading. This ruling would have permitted the Freikaiserwagen, Dorcas., Martyr, Carlmark-J .A.P., • Puzzi Wasp, Tiger-Cat, Becke-PowerpluS, Anzimi-Nash, and Bolster to compete for the .Rossiter Trophy and we believe these to be inclusive of the real Shelsley special element amongst the entry.