HE man reports success

The piece about HE cars in the January issue of MotorSport has resulted in a most interesting response from Paul Stileman, who wrote to us in 1997 appealing for spares for his 1924 14/50 two-seater HE. He tells us his car is now on the road after a 10-year rebuild, in which some new parts had to be made to drawings which had survived the takeover by Thornycroft of the HE factory, and others from those Alan Southon had obtained when making his rather special HE, which MotorSport described at the time.

Mr Stileman says his HE “now requires that final fettling which always seems to go on forever”. He remarks that it is interesting that this activity had taken place not three miles from the ‘Phoenix’ pub at Hartley Wintney in Hampshire where Alan Southon kept the spirit of HE alive, and that three of the surviving four-cylinder HEs now reside within this area.

He adds that seven four-cylinder and six six-cylinder cars are known to exist, and that some long-term rebuilds are nearing completion. He recalls that the quoted early output of 14 cars a week had fallen to one less by 1924 and that a total of 16 sixcylinder and a dozen of the final 12hp HEs were produced. The Sully family remains interested in the cars; Ken Sully, son of Roland Sully the designer, died only recently.