V to C Miscellany, January 1987

Replying to the query as to whether a recently-discovered Ford V8 “woodie”, Reg No EXY 3, might at one time have been the property of Sir Malcolm Campbell, Michael Ware, Curator of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, tells us that this Ford was known to them, and he sends a photograph of five cars that were at one time in the garages of Campbell’s house at Headley Down, none of which carries the number plate in question. Two of the Fords have Reg Not BXO 1 and CXF 1; it is interesting that all five cars each carry many club badges, including those of the BARC, which must have been good for the Clubs concerned! This does not prove conclusively that EXY 3 was never owned by Sir Malcolm but it does cast some doubt on the claim. The Crossley Register, which owes much of its new-found activity to Malcolm Jenner fielded nine of these cars at last September’s Inter-Register Rally, won by the STD Register with 551 penalty points to the Crossley Register’s 382, and it is interesting that the latter Register includes three half-track Crossley Kegresse tenders amongst the membership.

Our mention of the Bean having been one of the first, if not the first, make to fit a steering column lock, at least in this country, has brought a note from the owner of a 1923 8.3 hp Renault which has two brackets on the column through which a bar can be inserted, and retained by a padlock. Was this a standard Renault fitting, we wonder, or extra, or an owner’s ingenious idea?

The 1986 Inter-Register Contest, between six one-make clubs, was won by the Humber Register, from the STD Register and the Fiat Register. Incidentally, it was clever of the STD Register Newsletter to publish a picture of the Founders’ Board which hangs in the Weybridge Hospital, a place other Brooklands’ enthusiasts had not thought to look apparently. The founders’ names include those of H. F. Locke King, Dame Ethel Locke King, and the Percy Lambert Memorial Trust, suggesting that the hospital was founded around the year 1913. WB