267 replies to this topic

[Tim Murray]

There's a history of Salome on this page:

http://morgan3w.de/photos/album10.htm

but it doesn't make clear exactly what happened to Salome following the 1936 accident until she was rebuilt after the war by John Bendall.

[Pete Stowe]

Backwell July:



Cheers,

Richard

& from my earlier post #27

Backwell no. 11 was, according to the programme, Joan Richmond, HRG.

Referring back to these earlier posts, I’ve recently been looking into the 1937 (3rd July) Backwell hillclimb again and while number 11 was listed as Joan Richmond (HRG 1497cc), she was entered in one of the sports car classes, and according to the event programme “The sports cars must carry wings, head and side lamps, and two or more seater body complete.” - which doesn’t exactly fit the car in this photo.

A couple of event reports do however mention the Halford-Cross Rotary special being there, although it wasn’t listed in the program.

August 1937 Motor Sport mentions that at Brooklands 10th July meeting “Miss Joan Richmond drove the new Cross-Rotary HRG monoposto for EA Halford”.

So, are there any HRG experts around who could confirm if this is photo is actually of the Halford-Cross Rotary? I have little pre-war car knowledge, and the only information I’ve found on the interweb is that in 1939 its chassis was used as the basis for the 1938 HRG coupe.

The information on HRGs at Backwell I have from various sources is as follows:

Event Programme
Entry list, with times annotated (presumably by a spectator)
Sports car Class E unsupercharged
#11 Miss Joan Richmond, HRG, 1497cc 32.0 29.7
Sports car Class F unsupercharged
#12 EA Halford, HRG, 1497cc 31.0 30.0

Bristol MC&LCC Journal report
“The event was opened by Miss Joan Richmond driving a HRG who went up in the very excellent time of 31.2 seconds and bearing in mind this was the first time she had driven on the Hill, being too late for practice in the morning, it was undoubtedly a splendid effort.
The meeting itself then opened with WWE Walker in the Austin……”

Light Car report
“The HRGs showed their amazing road-holding to advantage, and even with a none-too-healthy motor Joan Richmond managed to achieve fastest unblown sports time of the day. The Cross-Rotary job was beset with teething troubles, although it showed promise in its brighter moments.”

Motor Sport report
“Amongst the merely sporting cars Miss Joan Richmond made best unblown time in 29.7 secs., although her HRG was not in the very finest fettle. The Halford-Cross-Rotary appeared in the racing class, but was not yet on form.”

Autocar report
“HRGs did well, Joan Richmond putting up the fastest time for an unblown sports car”

The magazine reports were all fairly brief – possibly all originating from the same source, and the results all gave:
Class E (upto 1500cc unblown) Joan Richmond, HRG 29.7 sec
Class F (upto 4500cc unblown) EA Halford, HRG 30 sec

Since all the event reports have Joan Richmond winning the upto 1500cc sports car class, an explanation for this photo carrying number 11 could be that it shows her on her course opening run, and in the Halford-Cross-Rotary, before the event proper?

[Pete Stowe]

The first photo is Bert Hadley, who set FTD in the #33 Austin. I'm fairly sure the second photo is the Freikaiserwagen again, driven by David Fry. This was its first event of the 1937 season - front bodywork and aerofoil-shaped tank came later.

Full details of the Whitchurch Sprint are on the Bristol motor sport section of TNFer Pete Stowe's site:

http://website.lineo...church_1937.htm

The account of the Whitchurch Sprint has now been moved to https://bpmc.org.uk/...dTrials1937.pdf .

For anyone interested in the Backwell hillclimbs 1935-39 there is now also an account of these events at https://bpmc.org.uk/...imbs1935-39.pdf

Edited by Pete Stowe, 18 August 2021 - 09:47.

[john medley]

Why is there such a difference between "your" Backwell map and that Page 20 in Rob and Hugh Dunsterville's "Freik"?

[Tim Murray]

For anyone interested in the Backwell hillclimbs 1935-39 there is now also an account of these events, beginning at http://www.petestowe...ckwell_1935.htm

Interesting to see Viscount Curzon in the 1936 entry. What was the extent of his competition career?

[Vitesse2]

Pete: don't know if it's just me (or my ISP - Orange), but your "new" site is very, very, very, very slow to load. Both Firefox 13 beta and IE 9 report slow server response. IE did eventually load the Backwell 1935 page while it was "diagnosing connection problems", but it gave up on 1936. Firefox wouldn't load it at all: pinging either of the links above produces "unknown error 1214".

[Tim Murray]

No problems for me on either Firefox or IE9. My ISP is T-Mobile.

[Vitesse2]

Hmm ... Bath Chronicle are reporting "Many people in Bath lost internet and phone services last night due to problems at the Kingsmead exchange off James Street West affecting the Talk Talk network." I'm not actually in Bath - or even on the 01225 exchange - but maybe traffic from 01761 numbers might be routed through it?

[Pete Stowe]

Why is there such a difference between "your" Backwell map and that Page 20 in Rob and Hugh Dunsterville's "Freik"?

The map on the 1935 page was that published in 1935 previews; that on the 1939 page is from the 1939 programme, as is the the one in "Freik".

[Allan Lupton]

No problems for me on either Firefox or IE9. My ISP is T-Mobile.

Loaded instanter using Talktalk via Firefox

[john medley]

Pete Stowe
Thanks. Was the final corner changed, or is there a map error?

[tsrwright]

For anyone interested in the Backwell hillclimbs 1935-39 there is now also an account of these events, beginning at http://www.petestowe...ckwell_1935.htm

That's terrific stuff. Prints nicely - 16 pages in total - so I will read it in bed tonight.

Thanks

[Pete Stowe]

Pete Stowe
Thanks. Was the final corner changed, or is there a map error?

The only track changes I'm aware of are when the course was widened and retarred for the 1937 event. I've now included the plan from the 1937 programme. The 1937 plan is almost identical to that in the 1936 programme (apart from a few extra trees and re-arranged text). Whether or not the 1939 plan has been redrawn and lost some accuracy or possibly represents the 1937 track changes I don't know. Some of the 1939 photos from Backwell earlier in this thread are at the final bend, but aren't a wide enough view of the corner to be able to draw any conclusions.

Edited by Pete Stowe, 14 September 2021 - 07:57.

[streamlineunmasked]

As a possible aid to photo identification, referring to the account of the Aug 1939 CAPA meeting in post35 there appear to have been ten cars participating:

Loki, with sv JAP engine - Loki was a GN chassis with Morgan ifs, & was rear-engined

BSA - Dick Caesar later described one CAPA car as “a double-ended BSA (two BSA f.w.d. front-ends back to back)”

Piglet – referred to in posts above

Lazarus – Austin

(Red) Biddy – GN-Anzani

Stromboli – 1½-litre GN Special

Jabberwock – GN Special

2-cyl Jowett

Perham Scud. Austin

& Tony Taylor, - presumably in Alfi-CAPA

I've been on the trail of a'double ended BSA' for some time, formerly known as the Wellesley special. It was built before the war and was used post war in a few events. Can you tell me where your Dick Caeser reference to it comes from, and whether you know any more about it? I have a photo of it in it's original single seat form, and a photo of it in use at Prescott in 1947 in it's later incarnation.

[Pete Stowe]

I've been on the trail of a'double ended BSA' for some time, formerly known as the Wellesley special. It was built before the war and was used post war in a few events. Can you tell me where your Dick Caeser reference to it comes from, and whether you know any more about it? I have a photo of it in it's original single seat form, and a photo of it in use at Prescott in 1947 in it's later incarnation.

That came from a letter on CAPA from Dick Caesar in the 9 September 1959 issue of The Motor magazine – the above quote was the complete reference to BSA.

The only other reference I have to a BSA (not necessarily the same one) in CAPA is from The Motor 11 April 1939, which mentioned an Independent air-cooled BSA from Torquay appearing at a CAPA meeting on 12 March 1939, which could I suppose be Beeton’s BSA referred to in the August 1939 meeting report in post35 above.

[streamlineunmasked]

That came from a letter on CAPA from Dick Caesar in the 9 September 1959 issue of The Motor magazine – the above quote was the complete reference to BSA.

The only other reference I have to a BSA (not necessarily the same one) in CAPA is from The Motor 11 April 1939, which mentioned an Independent air-cooled BSA from Torquay appearing at a CAPA meeting on 12 March 1939, which could I suppose be Beeton’s BSA referred to in the August 1939 meeting report in post35 above.

It would be a remarkable coincidence if there were two twin engined BSAs competing just pre or post war. I know with reasonable certainty that the car I'm researching was still in Richard Wellesley's ownership until after the war, so the 'Beeton's BSA' is a bit of a mystery, though there were, of course, plenty of three and four wheel air cooled BSA's around at that time. Once I figure out how to post photos here I will add the ones that I have and see if it jogs anyones memory.

[Tim Murray]

Once I figure out how to post photos here ...

To get them onto the forum you need to upload the photos to a website, either your own (if you have one) or one of the image-hosting sites such as Imageshack. Check out the 'How to post images' sticky thread towards the top of the threads list. Looking forward to seeing the photos.

[bradbury west]

Try this one. Simple to use, and free of the imageshack baggage
Roger Lund
http://www.postimage.org/