V-E-V odds & ends, December 1981

 A member of the Mon-is Register, Steve Brown, celebrated the 50th anniversary of his car, a 1931 Morris-Oxford, by driving it from John O’Groat’s to Land’s End, arriving only eight minutes outside their imposed schedule of 24 hours for the 926 miles the odometer indicated, in spite of once running out of petrol and a half-hour stop for refreshments at Strensham. A reader tells no of a possibly derelict Alvin, which sounds like a 12/50 duck’s back, in the front garden of a house in Newington Green, London. The East Anglian Daily Times had an article last October about the Suffolk Royal car made by the Woodbridge Engineering Co. Ltd., Ridley Works, Woodbridge, probably in the Thoroughfare, in the 1920s, the offices and showrooms having been at the St. John’s Works, on the site now occupied by the Hennessay Engineering Co. whose Managing Director, the paper says, has found a brochure for the car, dated January 1921. From this it is seen that the engine was an overhead-camshaft six-cylinder rated at 15.64 RAC h.p., using a Zenith double-venturi carburetter and a BTH magneto. Warland detachable rims and “out-of-centre” cantilever springing figured in the specificaton and the four-seater tourer was priced at £775, the chassis, inclusive of electric lighting and starter, cost £600. The Suffolk Royal was described as a post-Armistice project and a very ingenious warranty scheme was announced with it. We have not heard of it; has anyone anything to add? The MGCC has issued another excellent “Triple-M Year Book”, containing many nostalgic photographs, some in colour, illustrated accounts of its social and competition season, and particularly interesting, an article by A. Ashton-Rigby about racing his L-Type MG Magna at Brooklands and elsewhere, the front-cover picture showing the car in action at the pre-war Brighton Speed Trials. There in also a discourse in defence of replicas, by Patrick Gardner. Details from: I. Davison, Hawthorn Cottage, Orchards, Munstead Heath, Godalming, Surrey. The Register has 1,942 MGs on its books, running from 528 PAs to a couple of F3s, and including 442 J2s, 265 M-types, and 23 K3 Magnettes. In a similar manner, the Jowett CC has published its “1981 Year Book”, with news of the Club’s Sections and many photographs, including those of Javelins and older Jowetts, the latter showing a 1929 Long Four being televised, the 1923 two-seater which was the oldest Jowett at the 1981 Malvem Rally, a smart Long Four at the same venue, a similar car in the 1922 Scottish Six-Days Trial, a pre-war gathering of Jowetts East of Suez, a 1927 meet of the Club’s Midlands Section, the Hepworth Special Jowett on Rosedale Chimney, four of Frank Wood’s vintage PR pictures, etc. The Club lists 20 Bradfords and 116 pre-war Jowetts, the latter with chassis and registration numbers; the “Year Book’s” front-cover picture is of workers at the Bradford factory in vintage times.

A member of the Humber Register is hoping to build up a 1912 11 h.p. Humber from a pile of parts. The Veteran Car, journal of the VCC of GB, reports on Richard Smith’s run from Land’s End to John O’Groat’s on his 1899 Benz Ideal, which raised over £8,000 for the British Heart Foundation.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Alex Coryton, KCB, KBE, MVO, DFC, died in October, aged 86. lie will be remembered in our sphere as driving a variety of veterans, including a 1904 PanhardLevassor on Brighton Runs. The latter he borrowed from Sir Stanley White, son of the Founder and Chairman of the British Aircraft Corporation, the car having been a 21st birthday present to Sir Stanley’s father, which he had collected personally from Paris. The Panhard had been well looked after, and kept in running order, ever since, so was in good fettle as a Brighton Run competitor. It is now in the care of Sir Stanley’s grandson George, who is thus the car’s second owner. — W.B.