Club News, October 1952

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We Hear

Vintage American cars are comparatively rare, but another G44 Oakland six-cylinder o.h.v. tourer has been unearthed, in Wales, by F. J. Bristow, who needs a set of 32 by 4 tyres for it. The car had been stored for 21 years, is in good order and has a Short Bros. body.

The September issue of the Ford Times carried an article by David Hill on the 1930 14.9 Fords which operate an incredible taxi service over the sandy isthmus which joins Holy Island to the coast of Northumberland. A well-kept model-T Ford 7-cwt. van was noticed in a yard at Leighton Buzzard recently. Pegasus Documentary Ltd., have issued packets of motor-racing picture postcards. There are two sets, the pictures by Klemantaski.

Out in Australia George Brooks has acquired another Straker-Squire Six, making him the owner of three in all. In illustrating a 300 SL Mercedes-Benz coupe last August, Popular Mechanics of America referred to it as an “Italian Speedster”! At Sidmouth the local ‘bus is called the “Toast Rack,” its 1924 Austin Twenty chassis having a doorless 1921 Fiat charabanc body. It carries 15 passengers some 25 miles a day, up and down the 1-in-4½ Peak Hill which rises from the front at Sidmouth. A very early Riley Nine “San Remo” artillery-wheeled saloon was noticed recently in Chobham, and one of the original Wolseley Hornet saloons in Buckinghamshire. In quite the proper spirit Ralph Hewgill, 126, South Park Crescent. S.E.6. has saved an early de Dion radiator and some vintage Sunbeam spares from being scrapped on a Kent farm. Harry Beeler of Texas owns the 1931 4½-litre low-chassis lnvicta “Red Gauntlet,” once Donald Monro’s property. He recently completed a 4,000-mile Continental tour in it, the only repair needed being a fresh head gasket. But Beeler says some Lucas P90 or P100 headlamps would be an improvement.

Gregg’s have added the Gregg “Book of the Austin A40” (234 pages, 7s. 6d.) to their range of car manuals, which cover also the Austin Ten, Ford Anglia and Ford Prefect. The author in each case is Ellison Hawks.

Veteran cars, driven by V.C.C. members, will figure in the forthcoming First Feature  comedy film “Genevieve” in Technicolour, woven around the Brighton Run. An Edwardian Zust languishes in Wales, where a whole host of interesting old cars has lately come to light.

Coming home from the Brighton Speed Trials with our thoughts still on Wilcock’s Lambert-Talbot replica, we overtook a beautifully preserved 10/23 Talbot two-seater proceeding towards Hindhead. Tom Lush is rebuilding a pre-I914 Unic taxi and has been fortunate in discovering a person who knows almost every nut and bolt on this chassis. Prices are certainly toppling—recently a Hampshire dealer was asking £25 for a 1929 Standard Nine saloon, rough but with very sound tyres, and without prompting said he would come down on that price.

L. E. Shelley, Recorder to the V.M.C.C., craves any photographs of pre-1931 motor-cycles that readers can spare; address: 11 Enmore Gardens. S.W.14.

Rather Sweet!

The R.A.C. has defined an automobile as: “A land vehicle propelled by its own means running on at least four wheels not aligned and remaining in contact with the ground. Steering by means of at least two wheels and propelled by at least two wheels.”