Vintage Odds & Ends

Writing to us about the Chic, before our “Fragments on Forgotten Makes” about it was published, George Brooks, the well-known Australian Straker Squire enthusiast, says that at least 22 four-cylinder and nine six-cylinder models were registered in their native country, the first one in September 1924. At least four survive, a six- and three four-cylinders. Two of the fours are unused chassis, one in the Bridwood Museum, the other privately owned. The six is rotting in the open. The unused chassis are additional to the 22 registered Chics. The Beaulieu Autojumble takes place on September 14th, with Lord Montagu as “Lord of the Jumble”, and the second annual “Steam Happening” will be held at Palace House, Beaulieu, on October 3rd-5th, when it is expected that five Showman’s engines will be in steam and five organs will be playing. Galloping horses, a miniature railway, etc. will be in action.

In Radnorshire a 1927 277-c.c. Triumph motorcycle was restored in six weeks from near-scrap to a condition which won it a prize at the Royal Welsh Show at Builth Wells, and the same rebuilder has now found a 1923 Raleigh. The Llandrindod R.D.C. is having its steam roller overhauled for further service.

Also in Radnorshire a 1916 Lister single-cylinder stationary engine is still in use of a farm, where a 1916 Bentall had run continuously, on the original magnets, until frost cracked its cylinder jacket a few years ago; a pre-war Fordson tractor, the first to be used in the Radnor Forest area, is also still in service. A Herman with aluminium body was unearthed in a barn in Kent, possibly the car raced at Brooklands before the war. The V.S.C.C. worked out that the most popular makes racing at their Silverstone meeting in July were as follows: Riley 21, Frazer Nash 19, Aston Martin 15, Austin 15, Alvis 14, Bentley 12, Lagonda 11, Maserati 8, Bugatti 8, M.G. 7, Alfa Romeo 6, and E.R.A. 5. A recent tour of mid-Wales revealed a 1930s Austin Twenty hearse for sale at a garage, in running order, for £40, a semi-derelict 1930s Austin 12/4 saloon with rebored engine, laid up because the starting handle tunnel had broken, a village blacksmith who still uses two 1921 Hornsby stationary engines, one a paraffin hot-bulb engine, a J.A.P.-engined B.M.B. tractor, two Sunbeam 20s, one a 1934 saloon, derelict in a barn, a 1924 Type M3 o.h.c. Rhode light car at a caravan site and early advertising signs for R.O.P. petrol, Raleigh bicycles and New Hudson motorcycles. The July issue of The Dalesman contained an article on the Jowett, one of the illustrations for which was a Jowett Kestrel towing a period Rice folding caravan. Most unhappily we learn that the magnificent Vickers Vimy replica biplane, built at B.A.C., Weybridge, was somewhat damaged by fire while in a hangar at Manchester Airport.