Serendipity

By a remarkable coincidence a reader, having bought some photo negatives of cars at a local market stall, found that the pictures were of the Tamplin cyclecar, MD7280, which formed the subject of the Cyclecar Capers article in MOTOR SPORT for July 1995 in which I described going on two MCC trials in it with Neil Smith. I had found this Tamplin in the basement of a cycle shop in Southampton, together with several vintage motorcycles, in 1940 and Mr Smith, Snr, heard of it through MOTOR SPORT and added it to his collection of vintage cars, which he was then directing towards a light-car theme. We had no idea of the previous history of the Tamplin which is now in a Dutch museum. The photographs developed by Mr Crisp of St Albans show that in the 1920s it was apparently owned by a family who also had an early bullnose Morris Cowley tourer (PL 8665?). The Tamplin then had wheel discs and a propeller mascot. One picture shows it and the Morris outside an hotel in the company of other 1920s cars. including one of the first A7 Chummies. W B