V-E-V Odds and Ends

We regret to learn of the death of Mr. Denham Brown, who died last March. He worked on the racing Straker Squire now owned by Adrian Liddell and showed considerable interest in the car in recent years. The VSCC President, Tom Threlfall, has added the ex-John Rowley Edwardian Th. Schneider to his versatile stable of interesting motor cars. The AC OC is pleased that after a space of 42 years Ray Morley has been reacquainted with the Montlhery AC that he drove in rallies and trials in the 1930s, acquiring in 1931 the body from the similar car used by the Hon. Mrs. Victor Bruce for her 24-hour run at the French track. In 1938 the AC was part-exchanged for a 1938 16/80 AC, the monetary part of the deal amounting to £22 10/-. The car later passed to Col. Draccopoli and has now been acquired by David Hescroff, who showed it to Ray Morley; it figured on the front cover of the Christmas issue of Action, magazine of the AC OC, in which was being serialised the story of the 1927 Monte Carlo Rally, won by the Bruces’ AC, which S.F. Edge then presented to them.

The Morgan Three-Wheeler Club’s Bulletin for April carried an article by Kelvin Lee about how he took his restored 1922 De Luxe Morgan back to meet one of its previous owners, who was then 87 years old. This gentleman had bought the Morgan when it was nearly new in 1922 and the only other owner since then had been a nephew, who never got round to using it, so the mileage when the Morgan’s present owner acquired it was a mere 12,800. Incidentally, this is another case of the person who bought the Morgan in 1922 having been an assistant coachman who, after he returned in 1919 from war-service on the Somme, was promoted to chauffeur, driving a Fiat on the then-quiet roads of sleepy Herefordshire. By the way, for those who like to see Morgans racing, the next round of the Morgan Three-Wheeler Racing Championship takes place at Brands Hatch on July 5th with the following round at Cadwell Park on July 18th, no three-wheelers masquerading as Morgans being permitted to run. The annual Morgan SCC “Mog-In”, including modern Morgans, will be held at Elvaston Castle near Derby on June 6th/7th. The Morgan Three-Wheeler Club Secretary is Doug Ellis, 105, Mays Lane, Earley, Reading, Berks.

When Bedford Commercial Motors handed over the first of its new TM 4-4 military trucks to the British Army at Buller Barracks, Aldershot recently, the keys of the first five of these Bedfords were handed to their Army drivers by Major-General F.J. Plaskett, MBE, Director General, Army Transport and Movement. He arrived with Dee Savage, Bedford’s Director of Marketing, in Vauxhall Motors’ WW1 D-type 25 h.p. Vauxhall Staff-car, which has been featured in Motor Sport — alas, the Press hand-out calls it a WW2 vehicle! Besides this car from the Vauxhall Motors’ Historic Collection, a display of historic Bedford vehicles was also staged, including the original-type 2-tonner of 1931 and three earlier generations of Bedlerd 4WD Army trucks, a reminder that it is exactly 40 years after the production of the first 4WD Bedfords for the Armed Forces that the recent order for more than 2,000 Bedford TM 4-4 trucks, worth nearly £40 million, was placed. — W.B.