V-E-V Miscellany-, January 1986, January 1986

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 570 cc Fiat Topolino the Fiat Register is to hold an International Topolino Meeting, with dinner and Concours d’Elegance in Lincoln in 1986, over the weekend of June 7th/8th. Details from L. Humphreys, 20 Darbeck Road, Scotter, Lincolnshire DN21 35U. From Veteran Car, journal of the VCC, comes news that among the Veteran and Edwardian cars undergoing restoration are a small and mysterious electric car, an 1893 5 hp Benz owned in the 1930s by Richard Shuttleworth, an overheadvalve 1912 Bedford-Buick, a 1909 30 hp Daimler tourer. a 1914 frictiondrive GWK two-seater, a 1904 Humber Olympia Tandem and one of the popular twin-cylinder Type AX 8 hp Renaults, this one dating from 1910.

The Veteran Car Club intends to run a sort of replica of the Prince Henry Tour round England in 1986. The 1911 event, suggested by HRH Prince Heinrich of Prussia, was intended to be an interGerman/British team competition but it became more of a social run, although starting in Hamburg and in this country going via Southampton, Winchester, Newbury, Oxford, Woodstock, Stratford and Leamington and the next day to Rugby, Leicester. Nottingham, Worksop, Doncaster, Wetherby and Harrogate. the third day’s run being to Newcastle via Darlington and the next to Edinburgh, after which the cars ran to the finish in London, the whole thing occupying 10 days, with one day off, an indication of how Edwardian touring-cars were used. Stately homes, notorious, if main-road, hills and a visit to Brooklands Track were included, so the VCC has plenty of scope for the re-enactment. The 1986 FIVA World Rallies are in Germany from July 2nd-8th and in Natal and Eastern Transvaal on September llth and 12th. The 1924 Humber racer built up by Winder over one weekend in the 1950s. using 9/28 hp running gear and engine in an 8,18 by chassis, has changed hands and is now owned by S. L. Baxter in Huddersfield. The one make clubs continue to enrol new members. For example. the Austin Ten DC elected 14 new followers in a month, the Rolls-Royce EC announced 233 new recruits in the last edition slits Bulletin, some with more than one Rolls-Royce and several with whole fleets of these cars. the Vintage Motor Cycle Club has over 5,200 members, and going to higher things, the DH Moth Club lists 57 new members in the latest issue of its toumal The Moth. The Alvis Register Bulletin for last October carried an article about how Alvin cars were built, reproduced from The Automobile Engineer of January 1931, which recalls our series “Factory Methods of the Vintage Era”, but I do not propose to poach from this one. I hear that two large Edwardian chain-drive chassis were used to prop up a barn roof in Herefordshire until found a short time ago. Curiously, they were within a short distance of Roger Collings’ house and he has now acquired one of them, and a 27-litre V12 Liberty aero-engine from Cecil Bendall, with the idea of building a sort of “Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang” — stand well back and show some respect,— W.B