THE FORGOTTEN MODEL?

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31379, 26 May 1967, Page 9

THE FORGOTTEN MODEL?

(By Major R. R. D. WIGLEY. R.A. (Ret’d), in the “Guardian”, Manchester. Reprinted by

arrangement)

T AM sure I am not alone in _ regretting the passing from the motoring section of those articles and letters recalling the golden age of motoring and particularly those affectionate accounts of unique cars with half-forgot-ten names which had personalities as distinct and pronounced as the family dog or horse.

engine of 24 litres capacity which gave it a horse power of 192 under the old R.A.C. rating. The transmission was more or less conventional except for a dog clutch which made starting off spectacular, to say the least, as one had to rev up the engine to its limit to prevent stalling when one let in the clutch.

I am sure there are aficionados who would be interested to hear of my privileged association with none other than the great Igotta Bastardi Straight Eighteen. The S.E., which belonged to an elderly but energetic aunt with whom I lived as a boy, was the only one to come out of this famous stable and was the last car designed by Bastardi just before the Monaco tragedy in '2l when, as older readers will remember, he was decapitated by a carelessly held chequered flag. Literally his final moment of triumph. (Igotta left the firm soon after and made a fortune, I understand, conducting the affairs of some dubious establishment in either Bangkok or Lahore, I forget which.) The car came into my aunt’s possession in a rather curious way. She awakened one morning to find it standing on her lawn (she lived deep in the country) without number plates and in immaculate condition except for a deep dent in the offside door, for all the world as if someone had administered a vicious kick with a heavy boot. As its name implies, the S.E. was powered by an IScylinder in-line

First gear was very high (there were only two) so one was travelling quite fast in no time at all, but I found that if I slammed on both foot and hand brake immediately the car moved forward I was able to bring the car under control in less than a quarter of a mile.

It took some time for me to perfect this technique as the operation required both hands to be off the wheel, the right hand on the external handbrake and the left, of course, was concerned, as at all times, with the oil pump, a simple but effective device fixed to the dash. On the very rare occasions I carried a passenger (my immediate family and friends unaccountably lost interest in motoring about this time) he was able to relieve me of this duty; Once safely in second (top) gear, the ride was exhilarating. Due to the 42in wheels fitted with very narrow, special high pressure (1801 b p.s.i.) tyres, the very direct peg and draw-bar steering linkage, and the rather bumpy roads of those days, maintaining a reasonably steady course was rather like piloting a four-master round the

Horn in a gale. .1 was fortunate that there was little or nothing on the roads in our part of the country. I couldn’t get as far as the nearest town, which was 15 miles from my aunt’s house, as the tank held only 30 gallons, allowing a round trip of 10 miles if one was lucky.

One had to think about stopping quite long time before arriving at one’s destination as the brake was of the

external contracting type operating on the propshaft The brake band was held clear of the revolving shaft by an electro-magnetic field energised from a dynamo driven off the camshaft, and to apply the brake one had to first overcome the pull of the magnets which varied in direct proportion to the speed of the shaft

Even at low speeds this required considerable pressure, at high speed it was impossible even by standing upright and jumping on the pedaL Therefore one had to allow the car to lose speed of its own accord in good time with the clutch out. This last precaution was essential because of the gigantic flywheel, weighing over two hundredweight, which would continue to, revolve for a good 20 minutes after the engine was switched off. In case of emergency, there was a sort of sprag contrivance operated by a red handle marked DANGER which caused a block of lignumvitae on the end of a heavy steel rod to come into contact with the road. The result of resorting to this extreme was understandably startling* and, while I cannot say with honesty the car came to a stop, at least forward progress was arrested.

In the summer of ’33 my dear aunt died. The executors sold the car, at a knockdown price, to a flint knapper from Cold Christmas in Hertfordshire who kept it until after the Second World War (during which he converted it to steam). The last I heard of the SE was that she was doing yeoman service drawing a train of slag trams at a steelworks in Runcorn.