V-To-C Miscellany, October 1992, October 1992

When the Wolseley Hornet Special Club re-enacted the 1932 LCC Brooklands Relay Race at Silverstone on July 26, it was able to get three drivers who had driven in this race to take part. Mort Morris-Goodall was in Nick Mason’s Aston Martin LM7, brought to the event by Alan Archer; this is the actual car Mort drove in the Relay Race, and he wore the same red shirt he had worn sixty years before. Rex Johnston drove the black Boulogne Frazer Nash, now the property of Freddie and Janet Giles, in which he had competed in 1932, and the third of the original driver trio was Peter King, who had driven another Frazer Nash in the Relay race. What is more, seven other cars present were those which had competed in that 1932 race. It is thought that one of the Eustace Watkins Daytona Wolseley Hornet Specials present, brought by Mike Anthony, whose suggestion the event was, may have been in the team that won the 1932 race. If anyone can provide any proof, the Club’s secretary, Patricia Eames, Jasmine Cottage, Weston, Sidmouth, Devon EX10 OPH, would be pleased to hear from them.

Owen Wyn-Owen had intended to demonstrate the 27-litre Liberty engined “Babs” at Oulton Park during the VSCC week-end, but the Welsh Museum Trust which shares the famous car with him required insurance which would have been fabulously expensive. What a pity! Indeed, the old Parry Thomas giant, which should have been on show last June or July at the latest, has instead remained under a tarpaulin in the Trust’s North Wales shed. Let’s hope that this doesn’t imply that we shall never see “Babs” in action again.

David Harrison, who is restoring the MG that was one of the Alpine Trial team in 1933, car JB 2265, engine no 810AL, is anxious to discover whether W E C Watkinson who drove it is still about and whether the car was ever raced at Brooklands. Watkinson apparently bought the MG from the MG Company at the end of 1933, after having driven in the works team, had it extensively modified by the factory, then sold it back to them at the close of the 1934 competition season. MG’s then sold it to Collier in New York early in 1935. If anyone knows more of what Watkinson used the car for, apart from driving it in the 1934 Abingdon-to-Abingdon Trial of 1934, letters can be forwarded.

A reader who has the Bertelli Aston Martin Le Mans originally owned by the comedian Jimmy Knox of Nervo & Knox fame and has started to restore it would like its history from that time on. The Reg No is GN 8254, and it was rebodied by Freestone & Webb. W B