STD National Rally

The Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq Register really went to town with its big three-day rally, the biggest assembly of its kind of cars ever. The main event was an assembly on June 6 on the lawns of Ingestre Hall, home of the Earl of Shrewsbury & Talbot, who introduced Talbot cars to this country. They included Shirley Clark’s ex-works 1913 racing car, driven by Malcolm Campbell, Albert Ward’s rare and very genuine 6CT tourer of the same age, and Jim Boland’s 1904 12/14 Talbot, but the star of the occasion must be Sear’s 1903 Clement-Talbot.

There was a link with two 1922 Talbot-Darracqs, an 8hp two-seater and George Edwards’s DV 18/36hp saloon, both sole survivors of their kind apparently, and the evolution from 10/23s to Roesch 14/45 was nicely played in by an engine of the latter type on a show stand. Talbots ran down to a 1956 Lego T14Ls from Brittany. The competition team cars, PL2, PL3 and PL4, original and less so, were grouped together, with the Club’s Talbot AS70 ambulance in attendance.

Naturally Sunbeams of every type predominated, so many that one was overwhelmed, especially as I had to leave early on route for VSCC Shelsley Walsh. The Wolverhampton make was fully represented, from two 1904/5 12/14s to Basil Wilding’s Dawn. The Wignell family had brought three, including their twin-cam three-litre. It was a nice gesture to have the older cars on the Hall’s carriage drive, as they must have been in the days when the Earl of Shrewsbury was in residence and Percy Lambert did the first 100 miles in the hour at Brooklands for him. Among them was a 1922 straight-eight IT Sunbeam, “No 1”, KLG’s car, very smart and shiny, as it surely never quite was when it emerged from the Wolverhampton experimental shop. (A plaque was unveiled there on the Sunday). W B