V-to-C Miscellany, January 1993, January 1993

Despite the recession, clubs are announcing their 1993 plans. The Daimler & Lanchester OC, which enrolled 27 new members in September last, with cars from 1938 to 1981, is to hold its International Rally at the home of the fifth Earl of Lichfield, Shugborough Hall, Milford, near Stafford, in the 900-acre estate there, on June 13. And the National Rally of the long-established Jowett CC is scheduled for the Ramside Hall Hotel in County Durham, from May 28/30, 1993. Incidentally, the front cover of the November issue of The Driving Member, magazine of the Daimler & Lanchester OC, was filled with that remarkable photograph of eight Daimler motor coaches (or charabancs) which took lady members of the Widnes Conservatives for their annual outing in 1922. Each coach seated 25 people including the driver, in five rows of five seats, with one person, preferably small, on the driver’s right. How on earth did he manage, thus seated, and on solid tyres, with rear brakes and this top-heavy loading? The last two rows of ten passengers were behind the back wheels, too! All the ladies (and two gents) wore hats, three secured by veils tied over them. The coaches seem to have come from Marshall’s Garage, with DJ registrations. A happier age?

The former Alvis factory on the 11-acre site in Coventry has become the Alvis Retail Park, a project of Longwood Alvis, opened last October by HRH Princess Margaret.

From the magazine of the Bullnose Morris Club comes news on the motoring archeological front that in Coventry the one-time Hotchkiss engine works still stand, soon to be occupied by an annex of Coventry University, as do the Calcott factory premises in Gosford Street, now part of the long-established Astley firm.

The Bucks Free Press carried recently a photograph of an old-time garage in Princes Risborough, with, standing outside, an early two-seater, a motorcycle, and a cowled-radiator racing-car, the last also unidentified, but possibly associated with the near-by Kop speed hillclimb, which dates back to 1911.

At the Invicta OC’s AGM the Club’s premier award, the Ahern Cup, was presented to Colin Hinks for his efforts on behalf of the post-war Black Prince, and Miss Jo Moss was presented with the trophy awarded originally to A E Mills when the Invicta team at Montlhery and Monza took many records with a 3-litre Invicta which resulted in Violet Cordery gaining the prestigious Dewar Trophy. Jo has driven extremely well during 1992 with Robbie Pollock’s low-chassis S-type 4 1/2-litre Invicta. The 1926 cup she now holds was given to the club by Miss Robina Webber, thanks to the efforts of Invicta historian Douglas Irvine.

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