HISTORIC MODELS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22140, 20 June 1935, Page 18

HISTORIC MODELS

EARLY ENGLISH CARS Rarely docs it happen that the first tentative, experimental models of any successful product escape destruction. It is interesting, therefore, to find that the first experimental Wolseley cars are not only still in existence, but in the possession of the Wolseley company. The earliest of these, which to-day would not rank as a car, is a threewheeled vehicle, the single wheel at the rear being driven by a horizontallyopposed twin-cylinder engine, not unlike some motor-cycle engines of to-day. The driver's seat is between the two front wheels, and there is a seat at the rear for one passenger, looking backward. Steering was by a tiller operating on the front wheels This car was built and run in 1895 and 1896. Ihe successor to this was built in 1897. It also is a three-wheeler, but the paired wheels are at the rear, the front wheel being mounted in a fork of cycle pattern, with a tiller steering arm. The engine is still at the rear, driving on the back wheels, and the driver and passengers sit over it, back to back. The third of these old cars was the first real Wolseley four-wheeled car. Built in 1899, it was entered in the first 1000 miles reliability trial organised by the Royal Automobile Club in 1900, and was awarded first prize in the Yoiturette class. It has a single-cylinder horizontal engine, 4iin. bore by sin. stroke, battery and coil ignition, three-speed gearbox with gate change, and Ackerman type tiller steering. In November, 1928, when 29 years old, this historic vehicle took part in the veterans' run from London to Brighton, and tied for the first prize. It is still, at the age of 36, in running order.