42 replies to this topic

[Hse289]

Hi, anybody ever heard of "The Triangle Special". This is a car raced by Ken Miles at the Great Auclum hillclimb on july 23rd 1950. Is this a car Ken Miles built or something else. Paul

[Vitesse2]

I believe this might be the beast ....

http://forums.autosp...7748#post787748

The thought of that going up the tiny and narrow hill at Great Auclum is frankly mind-boggling! Probably never got out of second gear ....

[humphries]

Not 100% sure but I think the car that Ken Miles raced at Great Auclum in 1950 was the old Skinner Spl (built by Peter Skinner pre-war, based on a Morris). Ted Lloyd-Jones acquired the car and modified it hence the name "Triangle". It had a 4,168cc engine in 1949 when raced by Ted.

John

[Hse289]

Thanks for the info guys, i will have to find a picture of the" Skinner Special" to see the resemblance. I have to admit i don,t know anything about Peter Skinner, John can you tell me anymore. Paul

[Stephen W]

Originally posted by Hse289
Thanks for the info guys, i will have to find a picture of the" Skinner Special" to see the resemblance. I have to admit i don,t know anything about Peter Skinner, John can you tell me anymore. Paul

If you have a copy of John Bolster's Specials book there is a photo on page 117 plus on pages 143/144 there is a brief history of the Skinner Special.

[Hse289]

Stephen W, thanks ,i will look out for that book.
I did a search here on the forum and found that Karlscars had posted some info. He say,s that Peter Skinners father was managing director of S.U. and built the car for him. The car originally had a supercharged Morris Minor engine.
Later on it had a straight eight Hudson engine with 4168cc. Paul

[Sharman]

SU=Skinner Union, the engine size and the name Triangle suggests ALVIS.

[David McKinney]

Veering off-topic, didn't Skinner's sister Barbara, another well-known sprint driver pre-war, marry one of the Bolster brothers?

[KJJ]

Barbara Skinner was married to John Bolster, she was killed in a road traffic accident in 1942

[Dutchy]

Originally posted by Sharman
SU=Skinner Union, the engine size and the name Triangle suggests ALVIS.

Not so. Straight eight Hudson

JH

[Sharman]

I bow to superior knowledge on engine but why Triangle?

[Dutchy]

That's the Ted Lloyd-Jones connection. He ran Triangle Garage in Birmingham, hence a number of cars associated with him have the name Triangle.
The thread started with a reference to his creation the Triangle Flying Saucer which was a wartime Daimler Dingo scout car chassis fitted with a 21 litre Rolls Kestrel aero engine - a truly fearsome device. My father remembers a wet Prescott meeting in about 1950 when the Triangle promptly swapped ends as T-LD gave it a bootfull off the line!

JH

[Sharman]

Thank you, I couldn't think past the Alvis badge and the RED triangle

[Hse289]

Thanks guys in the space of 24 hours i have found out about another small piece of Ken Miles racing history. Cheers, Paul.
P.S. wonder if this car still exists?

[Dutchy]

The Skinner Triangle is alive and well and competes in VSCC hillclimbs in the hands of , IIRC, Matthew Harding.
Sadly the Triangle Flying Saucer has long since disappeared. I believe it was broken up in the 1950s

JH

[LotusElise]

Is the SU mentioned upthread the SU carburettor people ?
Just curious.

[Sharman]

Originally posted by LotusElise
Is the SU mentioned upthread the SU carburettor people ?
Just curious.

In a word, yes

[rbm]

I seem to remember an article on the Triangle special fairly recently (last year or so) in the Automobile or the VSCC bulletin.

[Dutchy]

There was a thread on it in Vintage Knowledge.

JH

[Hse289]

Dutchy, do you think Ken Miles was borrowing the car and racing for the Triangle garage or did he own it then. I notice in Art Evans book "Ken Miles" he only raced it once. Paul

[Dutchy]

I really don't know. I would have thought the former.

[Gerr]

A triangle had always been the Hudson logo/badge/emblem/symbol.

http://www.automedia...uell/hudson.htm

[humphries]

Paul

When you wondered if Ken Miles drove the Skinner Triangle Spl just the once I decided to do a check. I should have left it alone!

In "The Autocar" 21 July 1950 I spotted a photo of the Triangle Spl competing at the Bugatti OC's meeting at Prescott on 16 July 1950. A bare-headed Ken Miles appeared to be at the wheel of a car identical to the one shown in the Art Evans "Ken Miles" book although it was photographed from the opposite side and therefore no exhaust pipes are visible. The triangle badge is positioned in exactly the same place on the radiator grille as the photo in the Evans book.

The caption reads "K.Miles conducting the original Triangle Special which uses a supercharged Meadows engine round the semi-circle at the top of Prescott."

A little surprised I read the report which included the following "....Ken Rawlings made his Prescott debut with the Hudson-engined Triangle Special, and Ted Lloyd-Jones argued his way to the top in the Kestrel aero-engined version."

Thinking that maybe the scribe had confused himself I searched for detailed results and found in "The Motor" that indeed Ken was 3rd in the 1101-1500cc Racing Car class! Rawlings and Ted did not feature in the first three in their class.

So it appears that there were possibly two Skinner Specials or the car in the Evans book is a Lloyd-Jones creation. At Great Auclum Ken looks to be in the Meadows-engined car and not the Skinner Triangle-Hudson. Unfortunately Ken did not finish in the first three in any class so no confirmation there.

As we all know motor-racing research is never straightforward.

John

[Hse289]

Thanks John for finding that out. I will have to look out for that magzine now.
As you,ve mentioned the car had a Meadows engine i ,ve dug out all my Ken Miles magazine articles and reread them .
There is a Ken Miles article in the Sports Car Graphic september - october 1959 called "The Miraculous Mr Miles". In the article is the same Guy Griffiths picture as the book one and the caption says the car is a Triangle special with a supercharged 1500cc Meadows engine. Wish i had remembered that earlier. Still now i know he raced it more than once and i now know the origins of the car thanks to members of The Nostalgia Forum.
On a different matter i noticed in a interview in Car and Driver october 1963 he called his Frazer- Nash special the Elektron- Nash, but i should,nt be confusing matters. Paul

[AKH]

hi

I'm Andrew Harding (note not Matthew) -the current
custodian of the Triangle Skinner Special.
I have done a bit of research over the years and can hopefully
help with some facts about both Triangle and Skinner Specials.

Triangle Specials were named, as Dutchy says, after the Triangle
Service Station in Solihull where Ted Lloyd Jones ran a garage.

The first Triangle was, I believe, the blown Meadows engined one
-which I think is the one Ken Miles must have driven. It had a very
cut-off tail and is shown on the cover of the photography book
'Speed Camera'. It was also driven by Bruce Spollon.

The second was the Triangle Skinner Special which was the
development of one of the Skinner Specials- a Morris Minor chassis
with a Hudson Straight Eight. The car features on the front cover
of Autosport of 22.9.50 with Ken Rawlings (better known as a trials
driver)driving. It went on to be driven by John Derricourt and Arthur Owen.

The third was the 'Triangle Flying Saucer' ,which was the combination
of the scout car chassis with an R/R Kestrel engine behind the driver.

As far as the Skinner cars are concerned I'm not completely clear ,
but there were at least three. Two were based on Morris Minor chassis
with blown sv engines. The 'red car'' was driven by Peter and the
'white car' by Barbara Skinner. Both were very succesful hillclimb cars
notably at Shelsley.

The former was based on the '£100/100mpg/100mph' Minor used
to publicise the new cheapo and retrograde side valve Morris Minor in 1931.
When the special block of this car and all the spare ones had all been used up,
-succumbing to the effects of high pressure supercharging, the Skinners
hit on the idea of shoehorning in a Hudson 8 cyl lump giving c 140 bhp.
In this form the car held the record for unlimited Shelsley specials for
1937/38/39. This was the car that Lloyd Jones developed into the
Triangle Skinner single seater. in the early post war years. There is a
chapter about it in the excellent Vintage Specials book by Bateman as well as
the Bolster Specials book referred to.

The white car went through John Bolsters hands and ended up with a
Ford 1172 engine. It is owned now by David Baldock.

There was. I think. another Skinner road car with a Hudson engine which
I last heard of when it was in the St Austell Motor museum(now closed)

I hope this helps.
Andrew

[Hse289]

Hi Andrew, thanks for sharing this imformation. Do you know if Ken Miles raced your car? Paul

[Dutchy]

Andrew, apologies for getting your first name incorrect.

James H

[Trigwell]

Paul,
I have the Elektron-Nash once owned by Ken Miles. It was built by the works (AFN) in 1935 as a lightweight racer and included various magnesium-alloy parts, hence the nickname Elektron-Nash. Ken Miles bought it in late-1948 without its 1.5 litre engine and installed a 3.6 litre Ford V8 side-valve motor. He used at Silverstone and Prescott in 1949 and it was then known as the Miles-Nash. It was rebuilt in the 1970s with a correct 1.5 litre Meadows engine

James Trigwell

[Hse289]

James, thank you for your reply and sharing a bit of history on the car. Are you going to Goodwood next saturday by any chance?
In this car according to Art Evans book Ken Miles raced it up to 1951 . At a hillclimb at Prescott in 9th october 1950 KM raced under the name "Mr Disney" . Paul

[Hse289]

Hi, sorry to revive an old thread but would like to learn more about the Triangle Special.
Like what did the Ken Miles Triangle Special evolve from or was it a completely new car. It seems it did not evolve from the two Skinner Specials, as i believe the red Skinner Special became the Hudson engined car and the white Skinner Special seemed to have stayed the same comfiguration all its life.
Did Ted Lloyd Jones build this car from scratch? Does the car exist , i would love to know what colour the car was too. I only have a few pictures of the car, Autocar magazine, Art Evans book "Ken Miles" and a picture on the cover of E.S. Tompkins book "Speed camera".
Paul

[David McKinney]

Bolster's book tells us the Hudson-engined Skinner Special passed after the War to Ted Lloyd-Jones, who ran it as the Triangle Skinner Special. It had started life as a Morris Minor...

[Hse289]

Thanks David, I have that book. I was wondering if Ted Lloyd Jones had built the Miles car from scratch. I guess there must have been a third Skinner Special. There is a picture of the white Skinner Special as it looks now on this link. Also the red Hudson engined Triangle Special.


http://www.prewarmin...nors/4536381764

[VAR1016]

Just found this thread.

I was interested in the references to the SU company and the Skinner family. Back in 1973/4 I was working for a company that had as one of its senior sales representatives one John Skinner. He was about 60 then I suppose and was, he told me, a member of the SU family.I suppose he might have been one of the offspring of the founder?

Edited by VAR1016, 16 March 2010 - 22:07.

[Hse289]

Apologies for reviving an old thread but does anyone know of a Mr Guy Spollon. His father used to own the Triangle Special which possibly Ken Miles raced. Please PM me if he does,nt mind me contacting him. Love to know more about the car.

[Tim Murray]

It seems very likely that he's the same Guy Spollon who is the current secretary of the ERA Club. If so, you can find his address here:

http://www.eraclub.co.uk/

[Hse289]

Thank you Tim.

[Wilyman]

Hi, anybody ever heard of "The Triangle Special". This is a car raced by Ken Miles at the Great Auclum hillclimb on july 23rd 1950. Is this a car Ken Miles built or something else. Paul

Didn't Ken Miles drive an MG based special in the '50's/'60's on US road circuits? Called the "Flying Shingle". Name confusion perhaps?

[Hse289]

Didn't Ken Miles drive an MG based special in the '50's/'60's on US road circuits? Called the "Flying Shingle". Name confusion perhaps?

Yes he did build and race the "Flying Shingle". If you do a search on this forum for Ken Miles ,you will see on page five my model of the car.

[Hse289]

Please help! does anyone know what colour the Meadows engined Triangle Special was, which Miles raced?

[Hse289]

Hi, i have decided i am going to try and make a model of Ken Miles Triangle Special. I have worked out that the car was built around a Lombard AL3 chassis and radiator. The axles were Lea Francis Hyper ones with Riley stub axles.
I still don,t know what colour the car was in Miles`s ownership and i need one other important thing. I would love to see a close up of the badge on the radiator, of the three Triangle cars only Mr Hardings is known to exist. Can anyone help please with a close up picture of the badge? has anybody taken a photo of it recently at a hillclimb.
Paul

[Hse289]

Well the model is finished now, thanks to all who helped with info.

[Hse289]

Hi ,

i would love to know if this car still exists, not to be confused with the red Skinner Special which is alive and well. I have seen footage of this car on youtube at a Silverstone vintage race, probably filmed in the late sixties. The footage has been taken down now sadly. The car was painted cream then and the driver/owner was i think Gilbert Baird.
I only ask this as people who follow my interest in Ken Miles know that i would love to see the car in person.

Paul

[Hse289]

Correction, the driver/owner of the yellow Triangle special in the Silverstone (late 1960`s ) footage which i mentioned in the last post was Freddie Bird. Does this car still exist?