Tracing the Moveo

Perhaps I may follow up your article on the Preston-built Moveo (MOTOR SPORT, October 1987), with a few items.

The original Moveos (Latin: “I go”), were motorcycles built by Bert Houlding for the 1910 TT and entered by Loxham’s Garage. He raced Imp, Norton, Douglas, Indian and Harley-Davidson machines and manufactured Matadors and Toreadors, the latter with Chris Shorrock.

His partnership with Blackburn mill-owner’s son Richard Haythornthwaite, who provided the finance and was co-designer in name only, led to one complete Moveo car (chassis No MK IS, engine No 7255), one complete chassis, and a part-chassis.

In 1936 the Moveo was advertised by the Motor Traders Disposal Board in Marsh Lane Preston (part of the Bradshaw empire) for £195, fitted with a Rolls-Royce body. Could it have been the now-bodied second chassis?

Just before WW2 the car was owned by a doctor in Port Chester, New York and then, for over 40 years , despite rumours of it having gone to Newcastle or India, it was lost until the sad remains tumed up in East Africa in 1981.

As for Bert Houlding, a modest genius who didn’t suffer fools, he joined Preston Electricity in 1934 as traffic engineer, served in Palestine and Egypt in WW2 and, postwar , ran a speed-regulator and carburetter-tuning business. He died, aged 67, in 1955.

MARTIN FLOWER