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Tottie Wyer


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#1 Fr@nk

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Posted 21 December 2012 - 20:08

Hi friends, I'm writing about John Wyer, and I need know something also about his family.
I've found he was married with "Tottie" (is it a nickname ?) but he had sons and daughters ?
What the real name of Tottie Wyer, do you have some photos ?
Thank you.
Fr@nk

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#2 Tim Murray

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Posted 21 December 2012 - 20:41

Her given first name was Pieta. I'd guess that 'Tottie' was some sort of diminutive of Pieta.

http://sportsillustr...83269/index.htm

#3 Stefan Schmidt

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Posted 21 December 2012 - 20:46

Look here: Brian Redman is talking about John and Tottie :)


#4 Sharman

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Posted 23 December 2012 - 09:38

Her given first name was Pieta. I'd guess that 'Tottie' was some sort of diminutive of Pieta.

http://sportsillustr...83269/index.htm


Tim
Victorian/Edwardian diminutive of Charlotte is Tottie or Tot. I had an Aunt so named, everybody but her husband an sons referred to her by those names. Her spouse and offspring knew her by her second name which was Myrtle :confused:
John
q.f. also Lottie

Edited by Sharman, 23 December 2012 - 09:40.


#5 Tim Murray

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Posted 23 December 2012 - 10:06

Agreed, John, but is there any other evidence that her given name was Charlotte, not Pieta?

#6 Vitesse2

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Posted 23 December 2012 - 10:35

She was originally Pieta F Crandall and was born in Canada in 1914. Family lived in Calgary. Source: Ancestry.

Edited by Vitesse2, 23 December 2012 - 10:36.


#7 ReWind

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Posted 23 December 2012 - 10:36

On SSDI she is known as Pieta Wyer (1914-2007).

I have seen her name also as Pieta F. Wyer; I assume "F" relates to her maiden name (which I don't know).

Maybe Pia K. Wyer from Payson, Arizona, is the daughter of Pieta & John?

#8 JB Miltonian

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Posted 23 December 2012 - 17:45

Wyer's obituary in Classic Cars magazine, July 1989, says "In recent years John and his wife, Tottie, lived in Arizona, with their daughter, Pia, not far away."

#9 Emery0323

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Posted 23 December 2012 - 18:51

Wyer's obituary in Classic Cars magazine, July 1989, says "In recent years John and his wife, Tottie, lived in Arizona, with their daughter, Pia, not far away."


I recall that when John Wyer's own Ford GT Mk3 (the rare road-going version) was sold at auction after his death, sometime in the 1990's, Pia Wyer was reported to be the consignor.

A google search turned up this brief history of the car. Apparently, it (#p1102) was actually registered in her name from the outset:

http://shelbyamerica...ion/p1102.shtml



#10 oliver heal

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 18:18

This is slightly off Tottie but is anything known about what racing cars were worked on at the Ace Service Station on the North Circular Road when John Wyer was General Manager there? He seems to have worked there from 1945 to 1947. The Directors were H.R. & M.E. Edenborough but Wyer's name also appears on the letter heading during 1946 as General Manager.

#11 Vitesse2

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 18:47

Presumably you've seen this on the Ace Cafe site, Oliver?

Urged by patriotic motives, the owner soon turned his attention to war work and by 1943 new buildings had been erected with machine tools installed, with 120 people employed as direct contractors to the M.A.P., specialising in the machining of high tensile steel components for aircraft. By 1944 the Ace Service Station was operating engineering shops reputed to be the finest of their size in the country. During the war period the petrol station was kept open and was one of the very few that gave an all-night service.

After the war the machine shop closed and once again the dynamic founder of the business had the showrooms redesigned with new plant equipment; he made representations to leading car manufacturers which led to him becoming a stockist for Austin, Standard, Triumph, Daimler and Lanchester, in addition to being appointed distributor for Citroen cars. The showroom, which could accommodate 25 vehicles, was believed to be the biggest in London, with a team of first class mechanics capable of handling any job from engine tuning to complete overhauls.

One employee, John Wyer, went on to manage the Aston Martin, Gulf Ford GT40 and Porsche 917 sports car racing campaigns, and Charlie Gee was a Bugatti expert. Racing driver Earl Howe was a regular at the Ace, along with many motoring journalists and photographers, even Malcolm Campbell spent the night at the Ace, albeit sadly in a hearse on the way to his own funeral.

http://www.ace-cafe-...v...m=11&y=2000

My reading of that would be that it was primarily (wholly?) a dealership.

I have a feeling I've seen something in the journals of the time about Wyer being appointed.

#12 oliver heal

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 19:11

Thank you very much. No I had not seen that but I found a picture of it at www.20thcenturylondon.org/brnt-4070. Any other closer up contemporary pictures known?
I have a photo that might possibly have been taken there in the workshop and am trying to identify it. It shows the GP Sunbeam in pieces with what appears to be a Maserati just visible behind. Hence the question about what did they work on. I can't imagine Wyer would have been happy for long in a dealership showroom!

#13 CiroMenotti

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 20:09

Thank you very much. No I had not seen that but I found a picture of it at www.20thcenturylondon.org/brnt-4070. Any other closer up contemporary pictures known?
I have a photo that might possibly have been taken there in the workshop and am trying to identify it. It shows the GP Sunbeam in pieces with what appears to be a Maserati just visible behind. Hence the question about what did they work on. I can't imagine Wyer would have been happy for long in a dealership showroom!

The Maserati is likely to have been the 8C 3000 which John Wyer drove at the 1946 Elstree Speed Trials, and which was then driven in various events in 1946 by Taso Mathieson.


#14 Vitesse2

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 22:14

Oliver: on page 190 of Motor Sport, September 1945 there is a reference to Wyer having "attended to" the Claudel Hobson carbs of your father's (recently acquired?) 1926 3-litre F-series Sunbeam, so that it now gave 16mpg on pool petrol.

There's also a mention that "Pomeroy is putting the car into John Wyer to have a thorough overhaul ..." in an article by Cecil Clutton about Pom's Prince Henry Vauxhall in the January 1946 issue, but I'm not sufficiently versed in Maserati chassis history to verify the claim that the one Wyer owned was indeed the Birkin Tripoli car as stated in the May 1946 issue.

#15 Tim Murray

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 22:28

This article by Cyril Posthumus from Classic & Sports Car indicates that the Wyer/Mathieson Maserati was indeed the Birkin car:

http://www.maserati-....uk/maser07.htm

#16 oliver heal

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Posted 27 January 2013 - 19:33

Thank you very much for all these leads which I think confirm that the picture was taken at The Ace. In ploughing through Motor Sport for 1946 and 47 I have just come across the following which also answers one of my questions:
"The Ace service Station has been responsible for preparing some notable cars this season, including Rowley's ex-Mathieson ex-Rayson 2-litre G.P. Bugatti with E.N.V. gearbox, which was converted to supercharged form by Gale, who is now with Ace. This garage also service Heal's G.P. Sunbeam and are converting Mathieson's 3-litre Maserati into a road car." Motor Sport september 1947 p 265.

#17 Vitesse2

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Posted 27 January 2013 - 20:14

While you're around, Oliver, I know that your father took part in the 1946 Cavalcade of Motoring in London in the GP Sunbeam. Do you happen to know if he took part in any of the others in Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast, Manchester or Edinburgh?

Or, more generally, does anybody have details of any competition cars or drivers who took part in those? I have a fairly good idea of what and who was exhibited in London, but not elsewhere.

#18 oliver heal

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Posted 28 January 2013 - 19:24

While you're around, Oliver, I know that your father took part in the 1946 Cavalcade of Motoring in London in the GP Sunbeam. Do you happen to know if he took part in any of the others in Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast, Manchester or Edinburgh?


All I know is that in the London Cavalcade on 27.07.46 the 1926 Three Litre touring car was driven by John Wyer with, appropriately enough as we are on this thread, Tottie by his side. Who the people in the back of he car were I do not know. Wyer also drove the same car in the Edinburgh Cavalcade on 5.10.46.

The 1922 TT Sunbeam (3 litre 8cyl) was paraded at Edinburgh on the back of a Commer flat-bed truck courtesy of Rootes and again at Manchester.

I have no photographic evidence that my father took part in any of the parades nor that the 1924 GP Sunbeam was there either. Are you sure they were?

Whilst we are on the subject of parades, John Wyer also drove the 3 Litre tourer in the 1949 Lord Mayor's Show through the City of London. On that occasion his passenger was W.B.


#19 Vitesse2

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Posted 28 January 2013 - 21:39

Should have rechecked my notes :blush: The TT car indeed. Thank you for that. The implication in the report in The Times seems to be that it ran under its own power in the London event though, since the 1908 Austin and Cobb's Railton are both specifically noted as being exhibited on lorries. Although having said that, I'm not sure the Slug and Golden Arrow would have been running under their own power either!

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#20 Vitesse2

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Posted 02 February 2013 - 12:59

Apropos the Cavalcade, I found some nice unused and unedited footage of it on British Pathé. Nothing of the Sunbeam, I'm afraid but some nice static shots of various cars including the latest Allard and the Railton. If you look carefully you can also see Sammy Davis shooting through the frame in his 1897 Bollée tricar!

http://www.britishpa...in-regents-park

John Cobb also did the voiceover for this:

http://www.britishpa...s-of-motoring-1

#21 cstlhn

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 16:06

Pia is John & Tottie's daughter and I believe their only child. The MkIII was hers from new until it was sold to Peter Livanos in 1989. If memory serves me correctly he sold the car to George Stauffer.
The Wyers lived in France before moving to Scottsdale for medical reasons. Pia was fluent in French and often served as a translator for John Horsman at LeMans, which is the last place I ran into her.