Sorry about the number of queries but my (lack of) knowledge is starting to show! Any info I do have is below. Would also be nice to know if any of these still exist.

Not sure what these are! Any ideas? (Click for bigger images).


It's the 1932 RAC Torquay Rally.



1933 LCC Relay Brooklands, GE Brooklands??



1933 Colmore Cup Trial, Swallow??



1933 BARC Easter Meeting, Brooklands. GE Brooklands??


1932 Shelsley Walsh

The car in the 1932 Shelsley photo is the Cutler Special in Mk 1 form; at this stage it does not contain the 25 stud engine now in David's car, but the supercharged "Ulsterised" magneto engine with which it started its specialised career.

Driver; not sure but might be Gerry Garman again. Beatrice can probably tell us.

Regards, Stuart

Colmore Cup picture is R.J. Richardson in an 'Austin Open Sports'. The Trial ran on 13 February and Richardson gained a First Class Award. He used the same car in 1934 and probably in 1932, 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938. In 1934 he won a Principal Award.

Car appears to be a Special?

STEVE

Of course Steve, I should have recognised those ventilators. Confusingly both RJ Richardson (who also drove the Cutler (qv) and JR Richardson drove this car; I believe they were related - cousins, perhaps?

Regards, Stuart

I have just found a new pile of old boxes to look through! At the moment I know nothing about the images so have no dates, or even what magazine they were used for. I should find out after the holidays.

Anyway, they are fantastic quality, (very large glass plates, 6" x 4"?). 3 interesting cars, 2 of which have vents... Guessing that they are coachbuilt specials, they look to professional to be home efforts, (and in the photos appear to be unregistered.)

I have put these plus the list above in a mystery car section.

Any thoughts, please let me know via here, the site comments or email etc.

Austin,

great photos, as ever!

The top two photos are Taylor bodied cars (the upermost is a new style to me the but the second car down is known as a Semi Sports and was made between 1927 and 1930), wonderful clear photos. Although I haven't seen an example like the third boat tail body style before the wings and sidelights are similar to the the other two and therefore might indicate another Taylor also.

See the articles by Ced Verdon in the A7CA Magazines 2003c, 2003d and 2004a.

Keep them coming

The car shown in pictures 4246/4247 is definitely a Taylor Semi Sports 1928/9. The earlier version had straight sided doors. The previous pictures 4313/4 and 5 could be a version that Taylor offered with a dickey seat. However, by 1930, the Dickey seat was incorporated within the body shape shown in pictures 4246/7. The following are details of the 1930 car. The wooden section at the base of the windscreen has disappeared but otherwise very similar.

I have just found that photos 4246, 4247 and 4315 were featured in an article in the March 1st 1929 issue of the Autocar titled 'Three Special Austin Sevens' which had details of Gordon England, Taylor and Swallow models. Photo 4315 is confirmed as a Taylor Launch. The price of the Launch was £165 and the Semi Sports two seater £160 with £10 added if the Dickey Seat option was chosen.

Thanks Bryan, a quick trip to the archive and I now have photocopies of the article. Will give me something to read on the train home.

Would think that the Taylor Launch was older than Mar 1929 note headlights , dished steering wheel and mag switch panel.Lovely car but surely a bit outdated to sell well in 1929.

David,
I have also found that the Taylor Launch is shown in the Autocar November 9th 1928.

The No2 car at Shelsley on 25 June 1932 was indeed the Cutler Special but this time it was driven by AH Jilling. The engine was not supercharged at this time.

By the way I forgot to say "Happy Christmas everyone" Why not buy the book for a self present.