V-E-V odds and ends

The Rover Sports Register is holding its third annual Belvoir Castle Rally on June 22nd, organised by its East Midland Section. This event is open to all Rover vehicles, from the first Rover bicycles to current productions and will include the usual side shows, autojumble and, in addition, a special display to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the now-defunct Marauder Car Company. It is hoped to have at least half the remaining Marauders, which are based on Rover components, on view. Details from: M. T. Couldrey, 5 Holme Lane, Radcliffe Road, Bassingfield, Radcliffe-on-Trent, Notts. The NE section of the Morris Register is going to Belton House, near Grantham, for its seventh annual rally this year instead of Donington Park. This will be a two-day event for all pre-war Morris vehicles, with driving tests on the Saturday and autojumble, Concours d’Elegance and gymkhana on the Sunday, when the Austin/Morris Trophy will be contested. The date is June 28th/29th. Details from: Brian Longdon, 7 Bensly Close, Chellaston, Derby. Entries any time up to June 14th; prizes presented by Miss ATV. The one-time Frazer Nash driver, James Martin, OBE, FICE, died last January, at the age of 72.

The owner of a 3-litre Bentley, Reg. No. YN 3333, chassis number 1147, would like to hear from anyone who remembers the history of this car, the last known owner of which was the late Lt. P. C. Ransome RN, previous ovmers having been J. H. Tilbury, James Barlow, and D. G. Love. The car was delivered in 1925 to a Mr. A. F. Bosworth of Chislehurst. Later the Bentley went abroad and became a pool of parts for those cars involved in accidents, and was rebuilt with a Ford V8 engine and Wolseley radiator and run in the 1948 Wigram races as a Bentley-V8, with polished aluminium body. In 1955 the Seccombe family, who owned 3-litre, 4½-litre and Speed Six Bentleys, bought it as a spares source from someone in Rotorua, and it lay in the open for 25 years until sold, to someone who lost the springs and other parts. The present owner, an Australian dental surgeon, imported an engine in 1976 and has almost finished the rebuild into a Fast Tourer with VDP body. Letters can be forwarded.

A reader has sent us a cutting from the Eastern Daily Press, which last February carried a very interesting account of early motor vehicles owned by Mr. Norgate of Guist Hall, Norfolk before he moved to Heath House at Swannington. This gentleman first had an Ariel Quad, in 1900, of which a photograph was published. The next motor vehicle at the house was a 698 c.c. De Dion Bouton bought in 1904, Reg. No. AH 234. After that came a Mass tourer (a car named after M. Masser-Horniman but produced in France by the Englishman J. R. Richardson). This Mass was detained by Mr. Philip Norgate until 1922, and during the war they attempted to run it on paraffin. The 1 h.p. Ariel Quad went into service towing a 36″ lawn mower and for carting firewood, after much of its road-going was over. The stabling at the house was made into a motor-house, next to the harness room, but the horse still wore leather shoes to stop its hooves spoiling the croquet-lawn. The Mass would only climb Edgefield Hill, on the Holt road, in reverse, and had an enormous hood. The acetylene lamps “made the trees and hedgerows look like fairyland, when returning from children’s parties in the dark” a nice period memory! W.B.