Frazer Nash Flashback

A mystery of sixty years’ standing was solved last month when the owner of an early Frazer Nash was taken by AFN Ltd’s MD, John Aldington, to the AFN Archives and Showrooms, as a result of something he had seen in an advertisement for these archives, which are looked after for AFN Ltd by DSJ. The gentleman was Sir Richard Jenks, who had been puzzled by the use of the name “Jenks” in AFN’s advertisements.

It transpired that he had owned the Frazer Nash Fast Tourer from new, but his name had never been recorded in the AFN chassis register. Sir Richard told Mr Aldington that he had bought the car in 1925, the second Anzani-engined Frazer Nash to be built, from the Frazer Nash agents, ASC Ltd, of Great Portland Street, after admiring it in the showrooms for many weeks. It was registered XX 6994, the chassis No. being 1029, built in the Kingston upon Thames works. As Capt. Archie Frazer-Nash called his racing cars after animals in Kipling’s Jungle Book, Sir Richard obtained his consent to name his car Raksha, after the Mother Wolf, and a wolf mascot was mounted on the radiator cap. Although this Frazer Nash was never raced, Archie gave the young owner a ride round Brooklands to christen it, 80 mph being reached along the railway straight it is said. The car was then used regularly until 1930, when a projected year’s sojourn in Paris mused the owner to sell it.

Richard Jenks’ father was Maurice Jenks, Lord Mayor of London in 1931-32, and Its Baron of Cheape. When Sir Richard arrived at Falcon Works, Isleworth, with John Aldington, he drew from his pocket the Mother Wolf mascot which had adorned his Frazer Nash all those years ago, and he produced a photograph of it, saying “I don’t have the car anymore”. So 61 years after the car was sold, the AFN archivist solved the mystery of who bought it, and DSJ was able to show 80-year-old Sir Richard the 1924 Powerplus-engined Frazer Nash which is kept in AFN’s Isleworth showrooms, home of these cars from 1929 to 1958. WB