Miscellany, November 1997
Bill Mason is working on a new film on the motoring-racing of Mercedes Benz, with hitherto unseen footage. Some of this will be shown, with his other great films of this period to the Friends of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu on December 6.
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The museum’s newsletter tells me the winner of the Michael Sedgwick Run was Maurice Rowles, in a 1936 Rover. The runners-up were Paul Adams (1926 Austin 12/4) and Rodney Lock (1939 Morris E-series) and the Distance Award went to Michael Gough’s Standard Ten.
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The North Hertfordshire Centre of the 750 MC celebrated the 75th birthday of the Austin Seven with its Le Tour, involving 2543.7 km and 55.9 driving hours in 11 days. It had a fine entry including A7s from a ’24 Chummy and Dave and Janet Edcoff’s Special to five Big 7s. Nine A7s came from Australia to take part. All were encouraged by a fine route book with maps, French phrases and conversion tables.
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After Lord Montague of Beaulieu’s daughter Mary was married to John Scott in the chapel at Buckler’s Hard they left for their honeymoon by water, in the amphibian Amphicar Sea Bee III. Congratulations, too, to Ben Collings, who has campaigned the family Mercedes-Maybach, 8-litre and other Bentleys, and the 1913 Züst, on his wedding to Lady Louisa Gordon-Lennox, younger daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, Lennox and Gordon. The wedding was at Boxgrove Priory while the reception took place at Goodwood House.
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The Brooklands museum researchers have completed a list of the makes of cars which competed at the Track in the 1920s, including the JCC and MCC High Speed Trials, and minor races, that is, for 92% of the events held. MG is the most popular make, inclusion of Club contests making it more than twice as popular as Riley and Singer. But for the BARC races, Bugatti would oust Riley as the second most popular car. The order for the 1920-1929 period is Bugatti, Austin and Vauxhall.
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Some aeroplanes for a change. A reader who is constructing a replica of the 1926 ANEC Missel Thrush using original drawings and some original parts is seeking additional drawings, photos of the airframe and a spare Blackburne Thrush engine, or any similar light aeroplanes that are available. Any letters can be forwarded.
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It did not pass unnoticed how well the team of pre-war Talbots did in winning the Team Award against tough opposition at this years Coy’s Historic Festival. One of the participants was the Talbot 105 BGH 21, which the late Anthony Blight retrieved from South Africa. Now fully restored, this was its first appearance since the war, and is now owned by Blight’s daughter Anne and her husband Stephen Curtis. It was in this Talbot that Tommy and Elsie Wisdom drove to another great success in the 1934 Alpine Trial.