V-E-V.Miscellany., September 1975

V-E-V • Miscellany.—The four-cylinder Austin Twenty, first post-Armistice new model from Longbridge, while now a rare encounter, isn’t exactly extinct. There was that Marlborough landaulette wearing a vast trunk which turned up at the Brooklands Society Reunion, another landaulette, possibly a Mayfair, with tatty Bedford Cord upholstery in its back parlour, made its appearance at the elsewhere-reported Austin 10/4 DC National Rally, and the Secretary of this Club, Elaine Whinney, and her husband possess another of these cars, if we have totted up correctly. But what has become of the two Sports Twenties, one in W. J. Wyatt’s care at one time, which some years ago evoked memories of the late Felix Scriven and his famous racing and trials Austin Twenty “Sergeant Murphy” ? The Railton OC’s Bulletin for July carried an article about the VSCC’s attitude to Railtons, which at one period it classified as “post-war bastards”, and listed a dozen open Railtons or Railton Specials, including three Light Sports replicas, that have since been accepted. That ex-R. C. Blake 1903 Gordon Bennett Napier, on the step of which MOTOR SPORT’s Editor once rode round Brooklands, a British racing car which left this country for America under something of a cloud, has now returned, to the National Motor Museum, on loan from the Harrah Collection at Reno. It is a 7.7-litre four-cylinder car weighing only 17½ cwt., and after the Blake brothers had had fun with it it was used by S. F. Edge when he opened the new Campbell “road” circuit at Brooklands in 1937, when it was described erroneously as the 60-h.p. Napier on which Edge had set his famous 24-hour record at the Track in 1907. The Stamford & Rutland Archaeological & Local History Society is anxious to learn more about Pick cars, of which only two still exist. Letters will be forwarded. Incidentally, we thought that Rutland, like Radnorshire, had ceased to be so-called and are glad the Society takes no notice of this re-grouping of old British counties! It is astonishing that an unused Type 46 5-litre Bugatti chassis has turned up in the South of France. It has been purchased by Barry Price, who also owns the Type 57SC Atlantic coupe. Stored since new, this chassis is now on view in the Stratford Motor Museum. Those who enthuse over Scott motorcycles should note that the Scott OC has its Annual Rally at Crown Meadow, Evesham, on September 7th, starting at 11 a.m.