12 replies to this topic

[theotherharv]

Ladies and gents,

 

My ongoing interest in Norman superchargers lead me to write an anecdote recently about Eldred Norman (with thanks to many on the forum for their help – see http://forums.autosp...orman-anecdote/). The era has tickled my curiosity, and I am in the process of gathering material to write a similar anecdote about the Wray supercharger (and J.G. Wray). It’s early days, and I have little information to hand on either the man or his machines. The illustrious Mike McInerney is already on the trail for me (with thanks Mike).

 

Appreciate any information (or sources) the forum may have to offer.

 

One thing I have been able to unearth is an article from The Advertiser (Adelaide) from October 14^th 1954. I’ve included the text and photograph below. I suspect that this is the J.G. Wray I am hunting for, but would welcome views from the forum.

 

Vintage Racing Car Has History

 

Historic Racer

 

A vintage racing car, now being rebuilt in South Australia, has one of the most colorful histories of any vehicle in this State, and because of its age an even more colorful one than the ex-Prince Birabongse, MG K3, owned by Andy Brown. The car is a 1923 2-litre Miller, owned by Gordon Haviland, and at present being rebuilt by John Wray and Len Poultridge. Believed to be the first Miller to leave America, the car was taken to Europe in 1923 with two other Millers to compete in under 2-litre formula races. Count Louis Zborowski took delivery of the first car and entered it in the Spanish Grand Prix, run at Sitges-Terramar, in which he finished second. The other Millers also ran against Zborowski in the Grand Prix de l’Europe, at Monza, one of them, driven by Murphy, scoring third position. Count Zborowski kept his car when the other two returned to the US, and raced it in late 1923 and early 1924 before competing in the 1924 French Grand Prix. Well known author and writer in 'Autocar,' S. C. H. Davis was Zborowski's mechanic on this occasion. The introduction of the supercharger on other vehicles gave the Miller a considerable disadvantage in this event, but when 'blowers' were fitted, an American driver, Harry Hartz, covered 50 miles at 135 m.p.h in 1925. The Miller did not finish in the French Grand Prix, and Count Zborowski was killed at Monza shortly afterwards when his Mercedes skidded into a tree during the running of the Italian Grand Prix. All Zborowski's cars were then sold. The car was bought by Dan Higgen and raced at Southport Sands, in England in 1925. The Miller covered the flying kilometre in 25 seconds, and finished fourth. It raced in several events at Brooklands and in other meetings during 1925 and 1926. The car came to Australia a year or so later. It has had several owners in this country and competed in numerous hill

 

climb and other events. The body has been lowered, but it still retains its original Miller engine. Picture shows John Wray working on the car this week.

 

<a href="http://s929.photobuc...mbgfsh.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i929.photobuc...zpszqmbgfsh.png" border="0" alt=" photo Asvertiser_zpszqmbgfsh.png"/></a>

 

Cheers, and thanks,

 

Andrew

[theotherharv]

[karlcars]

Hello!

 

Busy as I am with a history of supercharging, may I ask what leads you to the conclusion that John Wray built a supercharger of his own design?

 

That doesn't seem to be evident from the material you supplied.

 

Which reminds me -- I would like to have good high-res images of the Norman superchargers if you can provide them.

 

Good luck in your work and best wushes

[theotherharv]

G'day Karl,

 

Wray certainly built his own superchargers. Manufacturing was undertaken in Glenelg, then Somerton Park from the early 1960's through to 1983. Two models were produced, targeting primarily BMC machines with the smaller, and the Holden grey with the larger. I've managed to make contact with two former Wray employees, and with Mr McInernery, who test-piloted one of the early prototypes. My Wray anecdote is currently running to some eight pages... suspect it may double in size before it gets published here.

 

Send me a pm with your email address and I can onforward some Norman pictures (or take some more from my Norman stash).

 

Regards,

Andrew

[theotherharv]

Quick update - the Wray supercharger anecdote is coming along well, and running to about 40 A4 pages. I've managed to locate quite a few former (and current) owners of Wray-blown equipment, along with a decent amount of the history (including the second generation of Wrays that were built by a new owner of the tooling... some pretty cool stuff). Lots of photos, and some interesting stories.

 

Hoping to have the anecdote wrapped up in about a fortnight, and will publish here. If anyone has any more info on Wrays, I'd love to see it.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[bradbury west]

Like, I suspect, many here, I am looking forward to the results of your labours. More power to your keyboard.
Roger Lund

[theotherharv]

Ladies and gents,

 

A link to the completed Wray anecdote below (along with my other Norman supercharger ramblings):

http://www.fbekholde...18810&start=105

 

My apologies for not posting the article here directly - unlike other forums, when I try to post I get an error message telling me I cannot use a specific image link on this forum (I use IMG format normally). I have all the text ready to paste here, but the idea of replacing the IMG codes on all the images doesn't appeal... there are lots of photos.

 

If anyone wants a pdf, shoot me a PM and I will email you one.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[Peter0Scandlyn]

Never heard of the man or his blowers.....

BUT, fascinating stuff!

Thank you for sharing.

[Lee Nicolle]

Ladies and gents,

 

A link to the completed Wray anecdote below (along with my other Norman supercharger ramblings):

http://www.fbekholde...18810&start=105

 

My apologies for not posting the article here directly - unlike other forums, when I try to post I get an error message telling me I cannot use a specific image link on this forum (I use IMG format normally). I have all the text ready to paste here, but the idea of replacing the IMG codes on all the images doesn't appeal... there are lots of photos.

 

If anyone wants a pdf, shoot me a PM and I will email you one.

 

Cheers,

Andre

I have glimpsed through this interesting post. A name keeps popping up, Alec Rowe. A very clever bloke in making s/c engines work reliably. Many never did.

His s/c Renaults, Consul, Pug and in the end VW engines in midgets were very succesfull. Up until the  late 90s. With Bill Wigzell and later Steve Stewart as drivers

With the Outfits AFAIK blowers were never banned. The most succesfull blown engine was Len Bowes Vincent, used up to the later 70s when the ring a dings and noise problems outed the Vincents. That bike is still around in classic events and still sounds absolutely great. IF you have heard a Vincent outfit at full noise it is glorious,,,,BUT the blown one is that much better! And louder too.

 

Looking at some of those pics the very small inefficient carbs would have limited the power, even on mild road engines. And the smaller 4s too.The 170 Ford with 2x 1 3/4 SUs was a lot better. Or the DCOE. Though even in the early 70s fairly trick. The SUs though were quite common and fairly efficient.

A very well known Torana speedway sedan from the Rowley days ended up with three 2" SUs on top of the Rootes. It sprayed rubber all over the back wall at Stan Keens dyno! And I bet the methanol fumes would have killed insects for a month!

 

As you say the days of ingenuity with this stuff became obsolete mostly with the advent of Chevs and Fords. And the more modern engines. The little s/c Toyotas still cause some fun though. There is still a few Tinkerers who have fun with blowers though. A regular hillclimber [and now his son]  has had an early Torana going quick. The blower is now on a RB30 in a Skyline. Sounds sharp but not quite there. Done on a budget by I believe a farmer.

And yes I knew of Wray Superchargers, I am sure I have seen them. And knew where the factory was at Somerton. Beyond that I knew nothing so this has been interesting.

Edited by Lee Nicolle, 09 December 2015 - 07:58.

[theotherharv]

Thanks Lee.

 

The Len Bowes Vincent is an awesome machine that I stumbled across in my Norman research. Len was both a South Australian and Australian champion rider. He fitted a Norman and a single 2" SU to the 1000cc Vincent in the early 70's. Len sent a template of the bike chassis to Eldred, who supplied a supercharger to suit. Looks to be a Type 65. The bike changed hands, with an image showing Brian O'shea and Neil Partridge flipping the unit (January 1973) posted over on the Rowley Park site:

http://www.rowleypar.../images/507.jpg

 

The bike was restored by the late David "Coach" Cottrell in 2003. The bike is still alive, and in the hands of the Walker family in Victoria. The video below shows the Walkers putting the machine through it's paces at Broadford Speedway, Victoria in Easter 2013:

 

When I spoke to Len he was pretty crook, and I haven't yet spoke to Jack and Ken Walker. I really should call them again and write this one up - a very cool piece of kit.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[Lee Nicolle]

Thanks Lee.

 

The Len Bowes Vincent is an awesome machine that I stumbled across in my Norman research. Len was both a South Australian and Australian champion rider. He fitted a Norman and a single 2" SU to the 1000cc Vincent in the early 70's. Len sent a template of the bike chassis to Eldred, who supplied a supercharger to suit. Looks to be a Type 65. The bike changed hands, with an image showing Brian O'shea and Neil Partridge flipping the unit (January 1973) posted over on the Rowley Park site:

http://www.rowleypar.../images/507.jpg

 

The bike was restored by the late David "Coach" Cottrell in 2003. The bike is still alive, and in the hands of the Walker family in Victoria. The video below shows the Walkers putting the machine through it's paces at Broadford Speedway, Victoria in Easter 2013:

 

When I spoke to Len he was pretty crook, and I haven't yet spoke to Jack and Ken Walker. I really should call them again and write this one up - a very cool piece of kit.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

That does not seem right. The Brian Oshea Vincent was his. Or the Taylors.

The Len Bowes Vincent sat at Birdwood Mill for a long time coated in Rowley dolomite  and oil [about 2" thick] with Lens name on the bike.

Early 80s for a Vincent national rally they got it fired up in the grounds. 

Neil Munros was there too, 73 title winning outfit though not blown.

The restored bike looks so much better than it ever did in its day. It is lovely and clean!  In the end it had either Castrol or GTX on the 'headlight' area.That flat spot you here coming off corners was probably there, just in the day they seldom wound the throttle off at all! It was quite frantic. The track was well graded too ofcourse but the Vincents used to dig trenches and throw rooster tails over the fence with the torque. And turn the back tyre around about every two heats. A tyre a night, big nights some times two.

The ring a dings while fast really were no faster. The thing that killed the Vincents was age, parts availability and too an extent the people who understood them. And ofcourse the noise. The bigger the muffler the less the power.

The Suzukis and later Yams and Kwackas you could buy parts for over the counter.

Back tyres lasted longer too!

It is probably easier 40+ years later with the internet to buy Vincent parts now. That is yet alone the people in Victoria remaking improved ones. How much interchanges I do not know.

 

That era of speedway will never happen again. 5 sometimes 6 sections on one programme will never happen again.

Yet alone bikes, sidecars and cars on the same bill.

Though I have seen some very average footage from Rowley early 70s and the cars just look so slow! Supermods which I am involved with in particular look so slow, the same cars today are so much faster,, when set up properly than they were in the day. Often with the same driver!  Hooky clay tracks do that. It took some of the older blokes a while to re learn how to set them up and drive them.

 

On subject,sort of, a decade or so ago there was a supercharged Y block Ford powered mod that came over for the Murray Bridge Classic. It sounded very sweet and went ok too.

In the day there was a few s/c Modifieds, Holdens, Valiants and the like. And ofcourse several s/c midgets. Up to recent times in fact. A s/c VW was run not so long ago [ Alec Rowe had a lot to do with that!] and in the last decade Snowy White ran a s/c Renault. Caravelle engine I believe.

 

The bikes as speed goes really do not look much faster. I am sure they are though I went to a big sidecar show last year and it was largely dissapointing, track too heavy and lack of reliability. There was a few good races but not near enough

Edited by Lee Nicolle, 13 December 2015 - 02:32.

[theotherharv]

I could be wrong, but methinks the Walkers do have Len's rig:

 

http://i929.photobuc...zpssza1ndkn.jpg

http://i929.photobuc...zpsptudpxr5.jpg

 

....mmmmmm.... Norman .

 

I was out at Oakburn Park (Tamworth) about a fortnight ago. Lots of motorcross crotch-rockets, but also one late-model sidecar rig. They only made a few runs around the dirt, but still had me grinning like a Cheshire cat.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[Lee Nicolle]

I could be wrong, but methinks the Walkers do have Len's rig:

 

http://i929.photobuc...zpssza1ndkn.jpg

http://i929.photobuc...zpsptudpxr5.jpg

 

....mmmmmm.... Norman .

 

I was out at Oakburn Park (Tamworth) about a fortnight ago. Lots of motorcross crotch-rockets, but also one late-model sidecar rig. They only made a few runs around the dirt, but still had me grinning like a Cheshire cat.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

AFAIK it is Bowesy's bike.The only s/c one.  I do not believe it is the one Brian Oshea rode. There was a tie up with the Taylors, in fact it may well have been Dean Taylors originally. Before they went Yamaha. Pretty sure it was N/A.

And when the ring a dings broke the whole Taylor team rode the poor thing. Dean. Kevin and Brian Oshea. I reckon it did at least 10 heats one big night. 4 with Brian and the rest with Taylors. I think Brian rode it in the feature though.

 

The Bowes Vincent too did service as an alternate to the Suzukis. 

 

As I said the Bowes bike spent quite a few years at Birdwood Mill covered in Dolomite and oil. Past the Vincent period at Rowley. In fact I feel at least early 80s.