27 replies to this topic

[kayemod]

There, I've done it, started by posting my own post from the Lola reminiscences.

Specialised Mouldings (don't forget the 'S' on the end), started in a basement somewhere in North London, later moving to some derelict sheds in a Crystal Palace builder's yard. They moved to a smart new purpose built factory in Redwongs Way Huntingdon (that isn't a spelling mistake) in 1967, originally 10,000 square feet, and later enlarged to well over double that. They had one of the first wind tunnels in the racing business operating out the back, under the control of Peter Wright, who was later to do much of the work on the Lotus 78 & 79 wing cars. Just about SM's first 'proper' job in racing was the Lola Mk 1 prototype, and they did all the bodies for almost all other Lolas after that, including the T70 of course. Lola followed them to Huntingdon a few years later, and were just around the corner in Glebe Road, the Charles Lucas operation Titan Cars was more or less opposite Lola in Windover Road. Spaceframe chassis builders Arch Motors were right next door to SM.

[2F-001]

I didn't know they'd ever been in the Crystal Palace area; do you have an address for that part of their life?
Just curious to see where they were, being my locality.

Arch are still busy in Redwongs Way.

[kayemod]

Originally posted by 2F-001
I didn't know they'd ever been in the Crystal Palace area; do you have an address for that part of their life? Just curious to see where they were, being my locality.

Arch are still busy in Redwongs Way.

Before my time with the company. I was told much of the SM history by MD & co-founder (with his brother David) Peter Jackson. Pleased to know that Arch are still going, I've been given mugs if tea in there a few times. Who used to run it? Bob something or other. Don't tell me we need yet another thread on Arch.

[2F-001]

At the risk of subverting the SM thread almost before it's started...
Principal figure at Arch is Bruce Robinson (and a brother whose name I forget); Bruce is not exactly old, so I'd always assumed that someone else (father perhaps? I'm sure I know all this, but can't recall it all from heat-befuddled brain) began it all.
For a long time now, (and as, I don't doubt, you know) Arch have made the chassis, aluminium panelling and virtually every other fabricated part of Caterham Sevens (and, of course, Lotus Sevens before that).
There's been something of a move recently to build Seven chassis elsewhere, by more mechanised processes, but as far as I can see this isn't working out as planned and Arch's experience and artisrty is still in demand by both the factory for the time being and owners wanting refurbs or race-crash rebuilds. Bruce is very well thought-of among the Seven community.

I believe they make the Ariel Atom too.

[kayemod]

Originally posted by 2F-001
At the risk of subverting the SM thread almost before it's started...
Principal figure at Arch is Bruce Robinson (and a brother whose name I forget); Bruce is not exactly old, so I'd always assumed that someone else (father perhaps?)

Yes, it's all coming back to me now, ruddy faced Bob Robinson was the founder, and they took the company name from the railway arch workshop where they started, again somewhere in north London. Back in the distant times I have some experience of, Arch used to make many of the parts for Lotus Sevens which were all assembled in Hethel, Caterham weren't in the picture back in those days. This isn't a private conversation between me & 2F-001, the rest of you can join in if you want.

[Terry Walker]

Just to get the geography right -

the red circle is on Redwongs:




And in closeup ...

[kayemod]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Terry Walker
Just to get the geography right -

the red circle is on Redwongs:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



There's certainly been some building going on around Huntingdon, the town and the industrial estate only used to be about half that size, and my old house is on that map. "I can remember when it used to be all fields ..... "

[Sharman]

The name Peter Jackson related to Specialised Mouldings answers a conundrum in part. A few months ago I was trying to help sort out the provenance of a Lola Mk 2 and I came up with the following piece of information. When Eric Broadley was doing the Mk 2 he saw a minature Vanwall which was being built by Peter Jackson for his son. Eric liked the shape and used it for his Junior, this explains why the prototype Junior was glass fibre. What now puzzles me is why subsequent production cars were alloy bodied. All I can think of is weight, any other suggestions.
JF

[kayemod]

Originally posted by Sharman
When Eric Broadley was doing the Mk 2 he saw a minature Vanwall which was being built by Peter Jackson for his son. JF

Shureley shome mishtake. Peter Jackson never had a son, only five daughters, none of them even marginally into miniature Vanwalls to the best of my knowledge. Also, Peter Jackson was never a modelmaker, he left all that kind of thing to his brother David who was very much the practical one. David was a first class modeller, but only really interested in model planes. As far as I know he never built anything else, other than a lovely model of the SM wind tunnel that we built between us. Peter's previous employment was as a carpet fitter, he did a superb job carpeting the interior of the prototype for roadgoing version of the Lola T70

[Sharman]

Wrong choice of word on my part, I gather it was a a vehicle using a Vanwall shaped body. The information was horses mouth from a Broadley family member in response to my direct question. If you send me your email I will forward a copy of the received info
JF

[RTH]

Lola Mk 2

[kayemod]

Originally posted by Sharman
Wrong choice of word on my part, I gather it was a a vehicle using a Vanwall shaped body. The information was horses mouth from a Broadley family member in response to my direct question. If you send me your email I will forward a copy of the received info
JF

It's starting to come back to me now. I think you were more right than wrong with all that, but it was the 'Peter Jackson modelmaker' bit that threw me. The original SM basement was somewhere in the Croydon area (I think, not sure about that), and Peter got involved in a short-lived venture making Vanwall pedal car replicas with GRP bodies, one of which was seen by Eric Broadley. Eric asked if it would be possible to take moulds from a Maurice Gomm aluminium prototype Lola, then turn out more of the bodies in fibreglass. The rest is history, but a bit of a coincidence about the Gomm connection, everything in TNF seems to go around in circles doesn't it?

Also, lovely Lola pic RTH.

[RTH]

The red Lola Mk 2 was owned for a very long time by Frank Tiedeman he only sold it a couple of years ago after about 30 years. They were aluminium bodied. on his car the nose had been cut off separate from the bonnet (yes I know ! ). At Donington about 5 years ago the nose flew off and was run over by a following car and destroyed.

I rang everyone I could find to get a quote for a new metal nose to be made , the cheapest was £4000 some wanted double that ! After some research we found some later numbers had GRP bodywork, so it was acceptable to the FIA and HSCC as original. Tony Steele ( who also has a Mk 2 ) hired out to me a combined mould for bonnet and nose and I laid up and moulded the front you see in the picture.

[Sharman]

I was told that (see earlier post) that the prototype was f/glass and the production cars alloy, how many alloy cars as opposed to f/glass & starting when? The Fitzwilliam cars were alloy.
JF

[Andrew Kitson]

Until recently I had lived in the Huntingdon area most of my life.
A couple of additions to the map posted above.
The red circle is Redwongs Way, two black squares I have added to show Specilised Mouldings ( left) and Arch Motors (right). Lola is the blue square outline and just out of interest, John Major's Huntingdon abode is the green square at top left, his neighbour being historic F2 pilot Bob Juggins.



Bruce Robinson's father did start Arch in the early 60s. I painted a montage for Bruce showing some of the famous cars that the company worked on. This was printed as their Christmas card to celebrate 40 years.

[Andrew Kitson]

I popped in to see Bruce Robinson at Arch today and whilst there, walked around the corner to get a snap of the decaying ex-SM windtunnel. You can just make out part of the SM logo. Probably used as a storage shed now. To think of the amazing body shapes we are all so familiar with that have been developed inside there.

[ErleMin]

Arch Motors re-jigged the chassis and re-skinned my Seven. Bruce Robinson met me when I picked it up. He took time out to stop and talk to me not just because I one of hundreds of customers through his door. He appeared to enjoy his work and it showed. Genuine bloke.

[Andrew Fellowes]

Peter Jackson asked me once if I would like to go up in his Tiger Moth, he mentioned aerobatics and my brain didn’t kick in fast enough to stop my mouth saying ‘Yes Please’ (the plane was kept at a farm just out of shot in the map above, top left, very close to the USAF base)

Lovely man but a mistake to get in an aeroplane with him.

I swear it was 2 days before I could eat again. No, I did not disgrace myself and paint the plane, but grass to lie on was never so beautiful as after that flight.


Incidentally the graveyard at Specialised was a fascinating place to walk around, I imagine long since gone.
Edit. Construction of the wind tunnel was quite an expensive exercise at the time I recall being told, but by todays standard I guess not at all.

[David Birchall]

Originally posted by kayemod
There, I've done it, started by posting my own post from the Lola reminiscences.

Specialised Mouldings (don't forget the 'S' on the end), started in a basement somewhere in North London, later moving to some derelict sheds in a Crystal Palace builder's yard. They moved to a smart new purpose built factory in Redwongs Way Huntingdon (that isn't a spelling mistake) in 1967, originally 10,000 square feet, and later enlarged to well over double that. They had one of the first wind tunnels in the racing business operating out the back, under the control of Peter Wright, who was later to do much of the work on the Lotus 78 & 79 wing cars. Just about SM's first 'proper' job in racing was the Lola Mk 1 prototype, and they did all the bodies for almost all other Lolas after that, including the T70 of course. Lola followed them to Huntingdon a few years later, and were just around the corner in Glebe Road, the Charles Lucas operation Titan Cars was more or less opposite Lola in Windover Road. Spaceframe chassis builders Arch Motors were right next door to SM.

At the risk of being overly picky: The prototype Lola Mk1 was bodied by Gomm Bros in aluminium.

[kayemod]

Originally posted by Andrew Fellowes
Peter Jackson asked me once if I would like to go up in his Tiger Moth, he mentioned aerobatics and my brain didn’t kick in fast enough to stop my mouth saying ‘Yes Please’ (the plane was kept at a farm just out of shot in the map above, top left, very close to the USAF base)

Lovely man but a mistake to get in an aeroplane with him.

Digging around at home, I found an old model flying magazine dated February 1976 with a full colour cover shot of Peter Jackson's Tiger Moth, with his brother David kneeling in front of it holding his prize winning six foot wingspan scale model of the same plane. I helped David to build the model, and I also flew it on several occasions. Peter told me that his Tiger was the second oldest still flying, or something like that, but it had been completely rebuilt of course, probably more than once. My Father was the Specialised Mouldings Bank Manager, as well as to Lola, Charles Lucas, Arch Motors and several other racing businesses in the Huntingdon area. He went up with Peter more than once. I was offered rides as well, but the tales Dad told me about Peter's flying rather put me off, so I never went up in it. Also, because the plane, the full-size one, was based just a couple of miles away, PJ often flew low over our house, and the way he did that also helped to dissuade me from accompanying him in the thing. I'd been with Peter (and David) many times in their road cars, and I'd concluded that a rather casual attitude to risk ran pretty deep in that family, though as far as I can remember, Peter never had any kind of mishap in his plane, cars on the other hand were a very different matter. And I've just remembered something else, together with David, I hammered the rather battered and moth eaten aluminium front section of the full size Tiger's cowling back into some kind of shape, and made a mould for the production of fibreglass replicas, which were a big improvement on the originals. Don't know how true it is, but I was told that most of the Tiger Moths still around are fitted with one of the GRP nose cowls, so if you ever see one flying overhead or at an air show, please give a wave to 'my' cowl. I've scanned the magazine cover, and when I have time, I'll try to add the picture to this thread, always assuming of course that I'm able to understand the picture posting instructions elsewhere on TNF.

[2F-001]

Originally posted by ErleMin
Arch Motors re-jigged the chassis and re-skinned my Seven...

ErleMin - are you a Lotus Seven Club member, perchance?
Just wondering if I know of you by another name...

[kayemod]

http://s165.photobuc...0001_edited.jpg

You wouldn’t believe how long I struggled to achieve this link. The problem I have is that my brain starts to hurt when I’m confronted with instructions of the kind you find on the Imageshack site. I’ll keep practicing, so bear with me. This is the magazine cover I mentioned in my previous post, Peter Jackson’s lovely Tiger Moth with younger brother David Jackson holding his scale Tiger in front of it. For the record, I was responsible for the basic wing(s) construction of the model, together with the fibreglass cowl on the full-size. I thought I took the original photo as well, but the magazine appears to credit someone else, so maybe it isn’t one of mine. For any model fliers among you, the model was O.S. 60 powered and weighed something under 5kg ready to fly.

Does anyone know if Peter is still with us? I have an address and e-mailed him last year but didn't get a reply. Sadly David died in an especially tragic car accident only about six months after the magazine cover pic was taken in early 1976. David was the practical one of the duo, and Specialised Mouldings didn't survive for all that long after his death, I can probably find a bit more info if anyone's interested.

PS Apparently that full size Tiger was the oldest one still flying, not the second oldest as I said earlier, when the pic was taken.

PPS I'm fairly sure it was my photo, I think I've just found the 35mm Ektachrome original, slightly faded unfortunately, proudly taken with the first Nikon I ever owned.

PPPS Following a helpful PM suggestion from 275 GTB-4, I tried Photobucket and found it much easier to understand than Imageshack, so I've replaced the original pic, further improvements may follow.....

[willga]

Hi,

I'm trying to get an old Lotus single-seater looking relatively 'in period'.
Theres a small depression/recess in the bodywork, just behind the driver's head - I assume this is where the 'Specialised Mouldings' badge went.

Does anyone have a picture of their 'plaque'?

Thanks

[kayemod]

Originally posted by willga
Hi,

I'm trying to get an old Lotus single-seater looking relatively 'in period'.
Theres a small depression/recess in the bodywork, just behind the driver's head - I assume this is where the 'Specialised Mouldings' badge went.

Does anyone have a picture of their 'plaque'?

Thanks

I used to have loads of them, I've searched everywhere I can think of, but couldn't find a single one, they probably went many years ago in a desk clear-out, sorry. All I did find was an old SM business card with their logo, but you probably know what that looks like. I think there were at least two versions of the badge, the later one was predominantly dark blue, and the earlier one which is probably the one you want, had a white background with silver lettering (I think). What Lotus is it, something like a 51 Formula Ford ?

[willga]

A 41 F3.

[Jacko005]

kayemod - It was nice to read through this thread and find out some of the history of Specialised Mouldings and motorsport in general - I'm David Jacksons grandson and currently working at McLaren - the fact I have a link to some of the very early McLarens I walk past at work every day is very interesting! 

Edited by Jacko005, 28 October 2018 - 17:57.

[Myhinpaa]

Motorsport article from '67 : https://www.motorspo...lised-mouldings

 

Sticker from a March 701 body and reproduced stickers of two different designs.

[Rupertlt1]

There was an article ref SM in Motoring News circa 1970, says they did the styling for many of the bodyshells - I'll see if I can find it.

 

Chevron B16, 1969.

 

RGDS RLT 

Edited by Rupertlt1, 30 May 2020 - 17:36.