31 replies to this topic

[Darren Galpin]

I was searching TNF, and we have the results for 1904-1907, but are missing the results of the 1908 Tourist Trophy, which that year was Formula Libre. Can someone please supply the results for this race?

[Vitesse2]

Not exactly Formule Libre, since there was a limit on cylinder diameter which translated as four inches in a four-cylinder engine. Thus, it's known as the "Four Inch Race"

Nine laps. 339.5 miles

1 William Watson (Hutton) 6:43'05.6" 50.25mph
2 Algernon Lee Guinness (Darracq) 6:45'21"
3 Arthur George (Darracq) 6:48'36.6"
4 Leslie Porter (Calthorpe) 7:14'19"
5 Tom Thornycroft (Thornycroft) 7:39'15.4"
6 M Ross-Browne (Vinot) 8:07'52.4"
7 Alfred "Toby" Rawlinson (Darracq) 8:11'51.8"
8 Thomas Rimmer (Vulcan) 8:14'29.2"
9 Louis Coatalen (Hillman-Coatalen) 8:20'35.2"
10 DS Hodge (Thornycroft) 8:56'10"

Flagged
Léon Molon (Vinot) 8 laps
Cyril Roberts (Arrol-Johnston) 7 laps
Roland Outhwaite (Vinot) 7 laps
HR Browning (Rover) 5 laps

Retirements
PD Stirling (Hutton) crash 0 laps
Geoffrey Moss (Arrol-Johnston) valve tappets 1 lap
J Gaal (Westinghouse) magneto 2 laps
Warwick Wright (Métallurgique) timing gear 2 laps
Dario Resta (Arrol-Johnston) clutch 3 laps
Jack Stocks (de Dion) timing gear 3 laps
Philip Graham (Deasy) crash 4 laps
RO Harper (SCAT) timing gear 4 laps
Ernest Hutton (Hutton) accident damage - bent axle 4 laps
Kenelm Lee Guinness (Hillman-Coatalen) broken frame 4 laps
Henry Robinson (Calthorpe) crash 4 laps
Edmund Lewis (Deasy) crankshaft 5 laps
GWA Brown (Coventry-Humber) axle 5 laps
Oscar Cupper (Métallurgique) valve 5 laps
A Hartridge (Westinghouse) broken wheel 6 laps
James Reid (Beeston-Humber) crash 6 laps
JTC Moore-Brabazon (Métallurgique) exhaust valve 6 laps
WG Tuck (Beeston-Humber) ignition 6 laps
André Debuissey (Piccard) water circulation 6 laps
Harold S Buckley (SCAT) timing gear 7 laps

[Darren Galpin]

Thanks - I hadn't realised that the Four Inch Race and the Tourist Trophy were one and the same either.

[raoul leDuke]

I happen to have just come into possession of a number of early motoring magazines including a Sept 29th 1908 copy of the Motor.

This has an 11 page report on the 4inch race if anyone is interested.

[Darren Galpin]

Yes please!

[Boniver]

Yes please

[Kvadrat]

And ye-e-e-e-s please!

[Marticelli]

I note that mention was made here a few years ago about the story of the 1908 TT as reported in the contemporary press. I wondered if it was posted somewhere else or am I missing something? As I am restoring a 1909 Thronycroft 18HP which shares all the same running gear as the 1908 TT cars, I had an initial plan to rebuild mine in the style of the TT cars, but in the end as we discovered an original picture of the car which confirmed the Torpedo bodywork mentioned in the surviving production records, we decided to recreate that bodywork rather than have the fun of a bolide!!

Edited by Marticelli, 08 March 2011 - 14:48.

[RTH]

That is really interesting Marticelli , can you show us some photographs of work in progress ?

[Marticelli]

That is really interesting Marticelli , can you show us some photographs of work in progress ?

If you look at the Barn Finds thread, post #171 you will see a story I posted about the discovery and restoration of the car so far... Last March, I brought the chassis up to Scotland where I now live and stopped en route to visit Mark Walker and his amazing 200HP Darracq project. We were both at the stage of chassis work then, but he has since got his running... but then his doesn't have a 4 seat Torpedo body or mudguards to construct!

Incidentally, I did manage to acquire a job lot of leftovers from the restoration of the three TT Thornycrofts that had been kept by the company and are now on display at the excellent Milestones Museum in Basingstoke. Two are racers with pair cast IoE engines, and the third is I am certain one of the ill-fated 30HP cars entered for the 1907 TT where as a heavyweight entry, it was obliged to carry a huge wooden board behind the driver's seat to represent the drag of a large enclosed body. The consequence of this requirement was that many of the heavyweigfht entries for that year fell over during practice or the actual race, which was presumably not what the organisers intended.

Beaulieu has some wonderful Thornycroft archive material, which includes an album of pictures of H2499, the car driven by Tom Thornycroft from 1905 until the 1908 practice when it was involved in a crash with another competitor. This led to Tom taking over the DS Hodge car pictured above which he drove to fifth place and which is the third TT survivor. The album shows the repaired H2499 as it was rebuilt in late 1908 to the car now on display at Milestones with a pointed front radiator and a four seat touring body, as personal transport for Tom Thornycroft. The 30HP car which capsized was presumably also badly damaged and subsequently rebodied by Tom Wheatcroft's team at Donington so it could be displayed as a complete car not the rolling chassis it had become over the years. I attach two pics of this car as it lay on the TT course, which affords the restorer a unique view of the upholstery and underside as you seldom see cars like this..!

Edited by Marticelli, 08 March 2011 - 16:07.

[taylov]

One of my favourite Edwardian PCs.

Tony

[Marticelli]

Whilst doing some further research into the 1908 TT recently, I noted that one of the competitors who drove an Arrol Johnson was one Geoffrey Moss. I wondered if by chance he might have been a forebear of Sir Stirling Moss but despite extensive searches I can find no mention of SM having a relation called Geoffrey who drove in the 1908 TT.

SM's father Alfred was also a racing driver, who in 1924 came 16th in the Indianapolis 500 (some sources say 14th), and was born in 1896, so perhaps his father or uncle was indeed the self-same Geoffrey Moss. By coincidence, another 1908 TT driver was PD Stirling, who drove a Hutton in the TT but also drove a TT Arrol Johnson (maybe Geoffrey Moss's car) in a match race at Brooklands in 1909... Serendipity?

Marticelli

[Pullman99]

Beaulieu has some wonderful Thornycroft archive material, which includes an album of pictures of H2499, the car driven by Tom Thornycroft from 1905 until the 1908 practice when it was involved in a crash with another competitor. The album shows the repaired H2499 as it was rebuilt in late 1908 to the car now on display at Milestones with a pointed front radiator and a four seat touring body, as personal transport for Tom Thornycroft. The 30HP car which capsized was presumably also badly damaged and subsequently rebodied by Tom Wheatcroft's team at Donington so it could be displayed as a complete car not the rolling chassis it had become over the years.

The Edwardian period in motor racing produced some truly fascinating cars and the Thornycrofts seem to represent a fairly high proportion of survivors. Is there a list of which cars are extant and thier current whereabouts? Best wishes for your own project and congratulations for keeping to its specification as originally built. Not everybody does that!

Edited by Pullman99, 09 March 2011 - 14:44.

[Vitesse2]

Alfred Moss had two brothers, called Ardon and Nathan. Nathan was named after his grandfather. Source: Robert Edwards' biography of Stirling.

[jj2728]

One of my favourite Edwardian PCs.

Tony

Fantastic!...

[Marticelli]

The Edwardian period in motor racing produced some truly fascinating cars and the Thornycrofts seem to represent a fairly high proportion of survivors. Is there a list of which cars are extant and their current whereabouts? Best wishes for your own project and congratulations for keeping to its specification as originally built. Not everybody does that!

Thanks for the support regarding the preservation of originality wherever possible, as its quite important to the goal of rebuilding the car that things that can be reused are reused as above all I want to enjoy the same car as far as possible as existed in 1909, not some 'lookalike'. For example I have restored the original camshaft with original profiles, which might not be as quick as a modern camshaft, and likewise am using the original cast iron pistons which are all sound, rather than using alloy ones.

As far as 1908 TT survivors are concerned, maybe others can help here. The winning Hutton (which was really a four cylinder Napier) survived in a fairly parlous state and was so extensively rebuilt back to look like the TT winner 'Little Dorrit' that an attempt to prevent the car being exported after being sold in 1999 was unsuccessful as the car was argued to be practically a replica and hence not worth keeping for the nation, an interesting decision in view of the claims made by the auctioneers in the sale catalogue!!

Two of the three cars entered by Thornycroft survive, both at present in the Milestones Museum in Basingstoke (which I recommend is well worth visiting for those who aren't sure, its a wonderful place). First is H2499, the 1905 14HP car that was first entered for the 1905 TT driven by 'TT', Tom Thornycroft, and entered also for 1906, 1907 and 1908, but which was damaged in practice for 1908 and not driven in the actual race. It was rebuilt after the 1908 race as a four seat tourer with demountable rear seats, and was used by 'TT' as his own car for some time after the rebuild and was then preserved by the family - a fascinating album of its rebuild is in the Beaulieu Museum archives.

The second surviving 1908 Thornycroft TT car is now registered DS6684, but carried the registration AI-180 in the TT (which was possibly a Manx temporary registration). It was entered by Guy Baxendale but taken over by 'TT' when his own car was damaged, and driven to 5th place by TT with Baxendale as passenger, and then kept by the family afterwards hence its survival, albeit with a completely replica two seat body which bears little resemblance to that it wore in the 1908 TT. The third 1908 TT car, H4878, driven by DS Hodge to 10th place does not survive AFAIK. The third TT Thornycroft survivor is the 30HP 'Heavy Touring' car entered in 1907 by H Niblett, which fell over when cornering in practice but ran out of fuel before finishing the actual Heavy TT race, in which only two cars finished. It is also at Milestones with again totally replica four seat tourer bodywork which is similar to that it wore in the 1907 TT.

The only other possible survivor from the 1908 TT I know of is an Arrol Johnson which was extensively restored by an NZ enthusiast, and which has been acquired by a UK based enthusiast so is likely to be seen in UK events soon. As they ran events at Brooklands in the years following the 1908 'Four Inch' TT for eligible cars ('under 26HP' class) some 1908 TT cars including a Hutton, a Piccard-Pictet and an Arrol Johnson enjoyed a vigourous competition career at Weybridge which may have helped them survive or maybe the reverse, as Brooklands was a harsh place to compete.

Any other information about surviving 1908 TT cars would be welcome.

Marticelli

[Pullman99]

The winning Hutton (which was really a four cylinder Napier) survived in a fairly parlous state and was so extensively rebuilt back to look like the TT winner 'Little Dorrit' that an attempt to prevent the car being exported after being sold in 1999 was unsuccessful as the car was argued to be practically a replica and hence not worth keeping for the nation, an interesting decision in view of the claims made by the auctioneers in the sale catalogue!! Two of the three cars entered by Thornycroft survive, both at present in the Milestones Museum in Basingstoke (which I recommend is well worth visiting for those who aren't sure, its a wonderful place). Any other information about surviving 1908 TT cars would be welcome. Marticelli

Thank you for your most enlightening response. I have visited Milestones briefly not long after it opened and agree that it is a fascintaing and well-presented museum primarily concentrating on the industrial and agricultural history of Hampshire. Thornycroft plays an important part in that story. They also have an ex-Portsmouth tram and (I think under restoration) one of the Southampton cars as well. I would say, however, that Milestones would benefit from improved promotion as it is not located in a traditional tourist area of Hampshire although you could take in Basingstoke and Beaulieu in a single visit if you were really keen!

For anyone that wants to read the report that culminated in the Hutton's export, they'll find the details on page 24.

Hutton export licence document

TNFrs in Scotland may be amused / disgusted by the comment that it was not uncommon for English cars to be successful in the TT. Perhaps they weren't quite sure about Arrol-Johnston!

Edited by Pullman99, 09 March 2011 - 15:16.

[bradbury west]

....1908 'Four Inch' TT for eligible cars ('under 26HP' class) some 1908 TT cars ..., a Piccard-Pictet .Any other information about surviving 1908 TT cars would be welcome..Marticelli

Not sure if this is relevant



I have not checked the programme for the declared year.
Copyright Roger Lund
Roger Lund

Edited by bradbury west, 12 March 2011 - 22:12.

[ensign14]

The second surviving 1908 Thornycroft TT car is now registered DS6684, but carried the registration AI-180 in the TT (which was possibly a Manx temporary registration).

AI would not be Man, all their plates at the time would be MN. It's either a trade plate, or perhaps an Irish registration, which would fit with the more enlightened attitude to racing in Ireland...AI in 1908 was the code for County Meath.

Or it was A1180...

[Marticelli]

AI would not be Man, all their plates at the time would be MN. It's either a trade plate, or perhaps an Irish registration, which would fit with the more enlightened attitude to racing in Ireland...AI in 1908 was the code for County Meath.

Or it was A1180...

I have researched all this and unfortunately Meath is not the answer as AI-184 was not registered in Meath to a Thornycroft at all. I see that several cars at the 1908 TT bear registrations with unusual configurations. The Baxendale Thornycroft was AI-184 and the Piccard-Pictet driven by Debuissy was A-3-FD and the Moore-Brabazon Metallurgique was A1-186. The Hillman-Coatalen of Kenelm Lee Guiness was registered C-N-5. I had assumed these oddball configurations were trade plates of one sort or another. Many of the cars in the actual race had no registration numbers visible at all..!

Final point, the Pic-Pic seen at recent VSCC events is a creation which is the fantasy of its builder.... I doubt if it contains any Pic-Pic parts except perhaps the gearbox which bears the Pic-Pic name. The car bears no resemblance whatever to the Pic-Pic driven by Debuissy, which was the subject of a recent competition elsewhere on the web - here

Marticelli

[bradbury west]

Thought so.
RL

[Marticelli]

Further research into Thornycroft matters (using the survivng factory records) reveals that the first of the so-called 4" Thornycroft cars, chassis number 580 and registered H2499, was built for a customer called H G Pelissier. The car itself survives rebodied as a tourer, after its practice crash in 1908 prevented it being run in the actual race, but the mystery for me is why H G Pelissier should buy a racing car from Thornycroft in the first place. Wikipedia describes Harry Pelissier as a composer and theatrical impresario, Pelissier's Follies touring the seaside resorts giving concerts from the 1890s until his untimely death in 1913.

This car was actually entered by Tom Thornycroft in the 1906, 1907 and 1908 TTs, so what was Pelissier's role in the car, as I can find no reference to him being active in motor sport... Maybe he was an amateur enthusiast and patron of the racing scene. Tom Thornycroft was certainly a young man of spirit, judging by his exploits which included coming 5th in the 1908 TT and winning two gold medals at the 1908 Londpon Olymoics, for motorboating of all things!!

Maybe someone here can elucidate...

Marticelli

[Vitesse2]

Pélissier certainly appears to have had a penchant for speed. There are two court reports in The Times which might be of interest, both dating from 1909. Firstly, October 19th:



Secondly, November 25th:

[Marticelli]

Pélissier certainly appears to have had a penchant for speed.

Maybe the recent events of somebody being asked to take the points for another driver are not such a recent phenomenon! Perhaps its too much of a coincidence that on both occasions, Mr Pelissier was merely a passenger in his own car while others drove it furiously! Evidently Pelissier's pleasure in fast driving was a vicarious one!! Or perhaps not!! You decide..

Thanks again Vitesse2 for more remarkable sleuthing.

Marticelli

[D-Type]

Different times! It looks as if the owner of a car was considered legally responsible for how fast his chauffeur drove. Well, he was more likely to be able to pay a fine and the law always goes for the money!

[Marticelli]

That is really interesting Marticelli , can you show us some photographs of work in progress ?

After a lot of delays and difficulties beyond my control, the ex-Sir Sidney Kidman 18HP Thornycroft is finally coming to gether as a recognisable car. As mentioned earlier in this thread, it is first being recommissioned in the style of the 1908 TT Thornycrofts (nos 9 and 22) as entered by messrs Guy Baxendale and D S Hodge. In the event, Baxendale relinquished his drive so Tom Thornycroft could use his car instead of Thornycroft's own car, No 35 (also known as H2499), which had been badly damaged in a practice crash when he ran into a Westinghouse car at the Ramsey refuelling depot.

Although I already have a reconstructed four seat Torpedo body for my car (built using the original body drawings), I decided to recreate a TT style body for my car so as to facilitate access to mechanical components during the inevitable settling in process, as the car has not run since probably the 1920s.

Last Tuesday evening, VSCC members from my local Scottish section gathered to welcome the car as it was brought out into the open, and I attach a few pictures taken that night and in the few days beforehand as the car was being assembled. The L head sidevalve engine is mightily impressive, and uses almost every original internal component save for the big end and main bearings which have been replaced. The original iron pistons have approximately 4 thou skirt clearance which suggests the car has seen little use. Interestingly the valve springs when reassembled appeared to be a good deal longer than they should have been, almost coil bound with the valves closed. This may explain the fairly extensive cam and follower wear. A replacement set will need to be obtained.

I will post some more images as the car progresses so others can see it in course of its final stages. I should also like to put on record my gratitude to the many people who have helped me get this far, most notably the owner of the only other surviving 18HP Thornycroft, Grahame Dutch. His car was included in the fabled Sword Collection sale in the 60s where it was bought by an Italian who didn't manage to restore it. Coincidentally, my milling machine was bought some years ago from Sword's nephew who is into model engineering.




Marticelli

[ensign14]

Congratulations.

[Hamish Robson]

[Pullman99]

Superb work! Looking forward to the next instalment...

[Marticelli]

Sharp eyed readers may have spotted recent references to my 1909 18HP Thornycroft which is currently wearing replica 1908 TT bodywork.  After many technical and health setbacks, it finally took to the roads earlier this year, and I hope to have it out at some VSCC events next season before refitting the four seat torpedo bodywork we constructed to the original body drawings which miraculously survive.  

 

Maybe see some of you guys out and about then.  

 

Marticelli

 

Edited by Marticelli, 13 December 2016 - 17:43.

[bradbury west]

Excellent stuff. Congratulations.
Roger Lund

[john medley]

A sidebar to this discussion is that the very large remains of the Kidman properties (larger than many sovereign nations) have recently been sold in Australia.

 

Good work, Marticelli