Another vehicle ident!
#1
Posted 14 February 2013 - 16:26
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#2
Posted 14 February 2013 - 16:45
#3
Posted 14 February 2013 - 16:49
It's Robert Waddy's Fuzzi. Two 500cc JAP engines in each end, and 4-wheel drive.
Thank you, nice and short, as is the car!
#4
Posted 14 February 2013 - 17:10
#5
Posted 14 February 2013 - 17:19
#6
Posted 14 February 2013 - 18:14
#7
Posted 14 February 2013 - 19:31
My mistake - I was posting at work from memoryI'm not aware of it ever having had four JAP engines. After the war it was rebuilt around a single Ford Mercury V8 engine.
#8
Posted 14 February 2013 - 19:32
#9
Posted 14 February 2013 - 19:49
DCN
Edited by Doug Nye, 14 February 2013 - 19:50.
#10
Posted 14 February 2013 - 19:55
#11
Posted 14 February 2013 - 20:05
It looks to have been a cold day at Brighton - the onlookers appear to be well wrapped up, so he was possibly glad of the warmth.How hot can a JAP exhaust get on a 1/2 mile run ?
The car obviously didn't stay long in that configuration. There are several photos of the car in the Pre-War sprints and hillclimbs photos thread, including one from Simon Lewis and these from Richard Atkinson (taken by his uncle) when Waddy crashed the car at the Whitchurch Sprint in May 1937:
Cue more pictures!
Whitchurch May 1937
Waddy and Fuzzi:
The exhaust has been repositioned so that the driver is no longer actually leaning on it, but it must still have been uncomfortably close.
#12
Posted 14 February 2013 - 20:39
DCN
Edited by Doug Nye, 14 February 2013 - 20:52.
#13
Posted 15 February 2013 - 09:59
#14
Posted 15 February 2013 - 11:19
I'm not aware of it ever having had four JAP engines. After the war it was rebuilt around a single Ford Mercury V8 engine.
Sorry. I posted at 4.45 and was due at work at 4.50. I meant one at each end. Maybe the four-engined special D-Type is thinking of is the later Bolster Special? Those were happy days - listening Bernie?
#15
Posted 15 February 2013 - 16:00
Sorry. I posted at 4.45 and was due at work at 4.50. I meant one at each end. Maybe the four-engined special D-Type is thinking of is the later Bolster Special? Those were happy days - listening Bernie?
It was indeed the later Bolster Special that had 4 engines.
#16
Posted 15 February 2013 - 20:44
... In 1946 Robert Waddy saw the possibility of developing the idea still further, using one large engine in place of two small ones. Unfortunately his enthusiasm ran away with him and instead of starting from scratch he cut Fuzzi in half, lengthened it and tried to carry on from there. A Mercury V8 engine was put in the centre and a complex system of chains and shafts took the drive to the front and rear axles. Suspension and driving members able to cope with the 42bhp of a J.A.P. could not deal with the power of a V8, so everything was redesigned until the final car bore no resemblance to Fuzzi, apart from the conception of space-frame and 4-wheel-drive. Poor little Fuzzi no longer existed, and in its place was a complicatedcontraption that defeated itself by its complexity, but due to various differences of opinion never reached fruition. the writer can recall working with Waddy at the time and shedding a tear as he helped to saw the original Fuzzi frame in two.
#17
Posted 16 February 2013 - 00:08
To quote DSJ in my 50-year old copy of The Racing Car Pocket Book
Where is FUZZY today????
#18
Posted 16 February 2013 - 09:21
Where is FUZZY today????
Partially the reason I asked the question, although based on the discovery of a chassis, which the owner thought might be this car, but with this background, it blatantly isn't this car (as it's still being very short). The initial question to me was, "what's this chassis, is it this, and where is the Swandean Special?".
#19
Posted 16 February 2013 - 10:15
Last heard of in the USA:... where is the Swandean Special?".
http://www.conceptca...re-Special.aspx
http://www.hadesign...._for_speed.html
http://www.flickr.co...ero/2791191675/