SCRAP-BOOK

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SCRAP-BOOK

FROM time to time readers’ scrapbooks are loaned to the Editor and have the effect of making him wish that lie had been more industrious in his youth and had commenced one. The latest to come to hand is one compiled in his schooldays by I. M. Clark, who, incidentally, was at school with Whitehead, Gerald Sumner and Watson, the Talbot driver. The cover bears a coloured picture of fictitious cars taking a hairpin bend at prodigious speed, the leader bearing the racing number 13; but the interior of the book is a most valuable cross-section of an absorbingly interesting period of racing history.

There is a picture of the 4-seater Renault 45 which averaged 105.3 m.p.h. for six hours at Montlhery in the course of breaking world’s records. There is a stripped tyre on Thomas’s Leyland, which reminds one of the comparatively small section covers used on the ” heavymetal ” of those days. Some excellent pictures show the A.C., which first exceeded 100 miles in the hour in the 11-litre class, and the very intriguing hill-climb A.C. favoured by Joyce. The former car reached over 104i m.p.h., and both had the Weller exposed-driving-shafts rear axle. Segrave is seen conducting a G.P. Sunbeam with its tail fairing removed, and there is a nice picture of Holcroft’s ” 12/50 ” Alvis leaving the line at AstonClinton, the starter’s car being one of the dear old Lancia ” Lambda ” saloons. Other competitors in this Inter-Varsity event were Summers’s “30/98 ” Vauxhall, Tunnard’s “Grand Sport” Amilcar, Ileaton’s Type 30 13ugatti and Millats curious A.C. Unusual cars shown are a 11-litre six-cylinder Buc, an Indianapolis Guyot, and a Is-litre straight-eight 1Vloglia, while various views of the first experimental four-cylinder f.w.d. Alvis racer appear. Several pages are occupied with pictures of the J.C.C. High Speed Trial which embraced portions of the Brooklands entrance roads, and the A.C. crops up again as Gillett’s 2-litre taking the .24-Hour Record at Montlhery and Raymond Maya’s Rootes-blown, twin magneto Villiers-A.C. single-seater. This is a portrait of Mrs. Marion Agnew, entrant of R. C. Morgan’s Thomas-Special, and there are scenes from an event at the Solitude circuit, Germany, featuring an Alfa-Romeo in the 2-litre race, which looks like a 3-litre “22/90,” and what appear to be Type 30 touring Bugattis. Segrave’s G.P. Sunbeam is seen at

SheLsley Walsh, and we are reminded that Harvey’s f.w.d. Alvis was fastest through the bends and made second fastest time. Connelli is seen being led away after winning the 1 i-litre French G.P., on his back, his Darracq haying collided with Duller’s on the finishing line. In the same race Eldridge is seen with a very unfamiliar Eldridge-Special, its “Eldridge cowl” and a huge head-rest dearly evident.

There are many excellent views of Brook lands racing, and interesting cars therein include Law’s streamlined Clyno and Campbell’s Chrysler as a touring 2-seater, before it received its Jarvis racing body. The Jappic, of 21 h.p., is shown doing 10 miles s.s. at 67.35 m.p.h. (it did five miles, f.s. at 69.04). Bogenschutz in a car of his own name at Montlhery and the fabric-bodied 1925 Le Mans Chenard-Walckers are things of which we were not unaware, but which refresh the memory. The Sunbeam-Bentley duel at Le Mans is nicely recorded, and one is reminded of the very advanced 1,100-6.c. Chenards and the air-cooled 4-cylinder S.A.R.A. There are four views of curious 4-cylinder Mathis cars intended for the French G.P., having crab-track and the rear wheels enclosed beneath hinged panels in the wide tail, the driver’s right elbow, .even so, needing a faired bulge in the cockpit side and the cars looking very “Le Mans” on account of having 2-seater bodies, front wings and low-set headlamps. There is an excellent picture of Douglas Hawkes winning a Brooklands race at 99 m.p.h. in the 15-litre Lorraine from Howey’s Ballot, and of Cuslunan’s 4-seater Crossley with long f-elliptic rear springs prominently in view, chasing Ropner’s ” 30/98 ” Vauxhall on the Members’ Banking. Interesting, too, is the sports Imperia which Duff drove in the Belgian G.P. Some technical details of Eldridge’s underslung ” special ” with blown s.v. Anzani engine appear. In the Touring G.P. held at Montlhery (1925?) the aforementioned Mathis and Boillot’s winning Peugeot Weymann saloon are evident. The Peugeots had hotted-up 18-h.p., single carburetter sleeve-valve engines and two fuel tanks in the rear compartment, carrying 40 gallons. There is a picture of poor Count Zborowski and

his ill-hit ed straight-eight Mercedes after the fatal crash at Monza ; a daily paper error seems to be evident here, as the mechanic, Martin, looks suspiciously like our Sammy Davis, who, of course, rode with Zborowski in a Miller earlier that year. Views of Scriven’s Brooklands car ” Felix ” show a chassis with sidemembers coming to a point beyond the rear axle, which is underslung above the chassis on i-elliptic springs, while the engine, presumably_a Sage, had six separate cylinders, probably an o.h.c., and a curious inlet pipe on the off side, with a small carburetter bolted on at either end. Later pictures of this car show liberal drilling of the chassis members, a massive central cross-member, and what appears to be a 4-cylinder Thomas engine, with two carburetters. There is insufficient space in which to record all the interesting things in Clark’s book, but Eldridge with another unfamiliar-looking “special” at Arpajon, Higgin’s Miller at Southport, Senorita de Alvarez, Spanish lawn tennis champion, in a G.P. Bugatti, and a La Perle winning at Montlhery deserve mention. The Wisconsin-engined Ilaugdahi which claimed to do 180 m.p.h. at Daytona, is shown, as is the later 10-litre, straight-eight Djelmo. Mays’s later Villiers-A.C. appears, and there is an interesting photograph of a supercharged twin-o.h.c. engine with dual ignition distributors intended for a racing A.C. of about 1927 vintage. Interesting, too, is the all-enclosed single-seater Renault 45 which took the 24-Hour Record at Montlhery, which was refuelled through a roof hatch. Time Motor is shown conducting a test of a Fejes chassis, which included an hour’s lapping of Brooklands at over 50 m.p.h., J. Boggis is shown making f.t.d. at Lewes with an absolutely standard-looking Aero-Morgan, a contrast to the 490-c.c. single-cylinder FernilioughMorgan. There is a Th. Schneider at Spa, Morel with one of the first Amilcar Sixes at Mont Agel, and a Genestin, Aries, Georges-Irat and very touring Buick in the Routes Payee. A fine shot shows Don’s Wolseley-Viper in close pursuit of Barclay’s T.T. Vauxhall on the Brooklands banking, and there is that first production f.w.d. Alvis 2-seater, with very touring wings, shown for the first time at the Scottish Show on the stand of J. H. Galt, priced at over 21,0fX). Such scrap-books are most instructive, and we shall be pleased of the opportunity of reviewing from time to time those of other readers.