V-E-V Odds & Ends, June 1984

Austin 7s seem apt to go to ground in Wales! Apart from the two-seater we mentioned last month, a late-model Ruby saloon which had been in a shed in a Powys town, we believe since the war, was given away by its lady owner last Christmas and was in such good order, apart from the bumpers, that it was able to be driven away to its new home on the coast after the tyres and pneumatic upholstery had been inflated. Although Harry Hawker, the famous airman / racing motorist whose big 225 hp aero-engined Sunbeam-Mercedes has been the subject of comment in these pages of late, no doubt planned the body he wanted on the car, we have since discovered that the neat aluminium four-seater, four-door body was made for him by the London Improved Motor Coachbuilders Ltd, of Westminster, London, before the summer of 1919. Two very advanced features were cycle-type front mudguards turning with the wheels and a windscreen for the rear-seat occupants, while a hood was also fitted.

The STD Register, like other clubs, continues to enlist new members, one of whom has a 1932 Sunbeam Speed-20 coupe thought to have been an experimental car, which at one time had a Cozette supercharger, while another “new” car is a 1934 Talbot 105 Vanden Plas tourer, which was on the Talbot stand at the 1933 Motor Show, was sold to Arthur Rank, and was later sold to the present owner’s father by Jack Bartlett. The Register’s next big event is the Wolverhampton Week-End, on June 30th / July 1st. There is a book about the life of Sir Charles Marston, son of the Founder of the Sunbeam Motor Company, and Founder himself of the Villiers Company, by his daughters Melissa and Marjorie, which includes a picture of one of the family cars, a 20/60 Sunbeam landaulette with the Marston crest on its rear side doors, driven by the chauffeur William, which was used to tour Germany in the mid-1920s. The book was published by Coombe Springs Press a few years ago, and a few copies may still be available via the STD Register. Those one-make organisations which support the Inter-Register Contests should note that the Austin Ten DC event took place in May and that those of the Fiat and Humber Registers are scheduled for August 19th and October 7th, respectively. — W.B.