KLG: one bright spark

KLG: one bright spark

IN THIS FUEL-INJECTED AGE, PROBLEMS

with sparking plugs have receded. In olden times they were experienced by most car-owners, were widely discussed, but not always cured.

Racing engines had to be warmed up on ‘soft’ plugs before these were replaced by ‘hot’ racing ones, and it was because he had had so much trouble with sparking plugs in the cars he raced that Kenelm Lee Guinness (1887-37), of the famous brewing family, devised his own. Using masses of mica discs instead of ceramic insulators, KLG plugs worked so well that they were adopted by many other racing drivers and teams. They could even be easily cleaned with a specially devised tool.

The well-known maker of car instruments and clocks, S.Smith & Co of Cricklewood, became world agents for KLG plugs.

They had competition from many other sources, most notably from Champion and Lodge, with 1920s motorists having a choice of Apollo, Binks, Igna, Reflex (They don’t soot up’), AC, Instanto, Bergougnan, Reid-View (with a lens for seeing the sparks in the cylinders!), Runbaken, Mosler (1.9 million aircraft plugs in WWI), Forward, Carpenter, etc.