V-E-V Odds and Ends

A bull-nose Morris-Cowley engine and chassis, adapted for farm purposes, and an early lorry of unknown make lie on a farm in Berkshire, and a Rolls-Royce chassis, probably a Twenty, is derelict in a scrapyard in Hampshire. In connection with recent reference to a pre-war Armstrong Siddeley having a leather valve cover, a reader reports that he once had a 1935 Vauxhall with Salmons d.h. body and that the valve cover was lined with felt. Someone else, anent Fiat’s present-do method of simple tappet adjustment on o.h.c. engines, recalls a simple form of adjustment he encountered on a 1928 10-h.p. push-rod Bianchi. A Sussex car repairer, according to the Evening Argus, has imported from France a 13-h.p. Sigma tourer, circa 1921, of which he believes only 12 were made, of which his is thought to be the only one in England, although there is said to be another in America. The queer cyclecar seen at the Booker Rally has a 1910 i.o.e. JAP engine, a Sturmey Archer gearbox of the same age and a two-seater body, not a side-valve engine and single-seater body as we reported. The car was built in 1921/22 by a Mr. F. W. Burrell of Northallerton and it was used on the road until 1923. Modifications were then made to the steering and front axle and the owner intended to convert it into a three-wheeler. This was never done and the remains came into the possession of Mr. R. Hogg of the Uxbridge & Dist. VVS this year. An Austin 10/4 is derelict in Berkshire and available for spares or rebuilding. Letters can be forwarded. In London an early vintage Essex chassis has turned up, with wire wheels on the back axle. It is alleged to have been raced at Brooklands but the name of the person said to have driven it there is unfamiliar to us.

Among the exhibits likely to be seen in the Doune Collection of Cars which is scheduled to open next year alongside the Carse of Gambus speed hill-climb course in Scotland are the 8C 2900B Alfa Romeo Superleggera coupé which, driven by Sommer and Biondetti, led the 1938 Le Mans race until a tyre burst, after which it was never raced again, and the 1924 37.2-h.p. Hispano-Suiza with Bligh touring body which was built to the order of Count Zborowski but delivered to his widow after he had been killed in the 1924 Monza GP. The latter was part of the Sword Collection and Lord Doune has brought it back to Scotland.

A letter in the September issue of The Tank, journal of the Royal Tank Regiment, confirms that a 1924 Rolls-Royce RAF armoured car took part in the action at Rutbah, Iraq, in 1940. In a barn somewhere in Warwickshire there is apparently a full-size photograph of an artillery-wheeled Rolls-Royce pasted on to a card and now covered in dust. It seems that it was used by a film company in 1926 and has never been removed; it is said to have sent one enthusiast hurrying there from Essex hopeful of having discovered a real Silver Ghost—or is the Editorial leg being lengthened? We regret to announce the death of F. O. Wilson-Jones, the well-known Salmson driver. who won the 1,100-c.c. class of the 1924 JCC 200-Mile Race at Brooklands.