The pensive looking chap looking into the engine compartment is my 'beau frere'. He has just acquired this extremely purposeful 1929 Frazer Nash Super Sports. To be honest it rather suits his devil-may-care attitude and he will soon be terrorising the roads of East Sussex with it. For those of you who are interested in such matters, despite the car's relatively late date, it is driven by chains - several of them, in what is a theoretically highly efficient method of transmission. However, these chains break every so often necessitating much struggling at the roadside with the oily objects, re-connecting them, shortening them or throwing the worn out ones over the nearest hedge. The Frazer Nash has a marque following with an entusiasm bordering on the clinically insane. Huge journeys are undertaken in them, and due to their favourable power to weight ratio and fast acting transmissions they often win vintage races against much more esoteric machinery. Personally I like the unpolished Brillo-padded aluminium finish and the general touch of the smithy that characterises many of its fittings. As you can see it won't be long before it requires new tyres which, driven in the manner intended have a half-life of about 25 miles. Behind the wheel there are several items to amuse the conductor such as an object which looks like the handle from a garden syringe - this you pump furiously in order to build up enough pressure in the fuel tank to propel the motor spirit from tank to engine. The dinner plate size revolution counter would look more at home in the treadmill room of a Victorian house of correction and the other gauges, such as they are, have an air of The Great western Railway about them. All in all this is my type of car. Quite fast enough to frighten yourself, yet not so hot rod that it doesn't draw admiring looks from tweed-capped old gentlemen who nod sagely and talk animatedly of the late 1930's and tales of how you 'could buy a good one for fifteen quid in those days', etc., etc. It's nice to see this old iron being used for as long as possible before the powers that be declare how dangerous and antisocial it all is and that we should jack them all in for 2000 quid each and buy electric cars instead.
10 comments:
Fabulous! What a car, albeit chain-drive has some minor problems (ref. Parry Thomas and Babs....).
When everyone has to drive a hybrid People's Car Type 2A at a uniform speed of 23 Km/h, probably in a Government-approved convoy, I so hope to see one of the Dudleys snorting by in an F-N with two fingers in the air......!!!!
Just marvellous. Your evocation of the marque is so superb I immediately want to stand at the side of a Sussex road and get grit blown into my happy face as it chain rattles by. Or be in the rudimentary passenger seat reciting Belloc to the be-goggled driver.
I too would be honoured to be given a good dusting by your brother in his capital conveyance.
Come one, come all and join us in chain-splicing along the byeways of England. You are most welcome.
Mr Belloc, sadly wouldn't have enjoyed the experience. A reluctant motorist himself (he owned a perpendicular black Ford), he drove with a distinct lack of mechanical sympathy. His dislike of a local lad's two stroke motorcycle meant that the poor chap had to stop, dismount his steed and push silently past Belloc's Shipley home - any time his journey took him that way, an attempt to trickle by on a closed throttle would bring the man in black out of the house cursing and remonstrating.
Thank you so much. Once again your post has restored my faith in human nature.....I speak as one who is just about to be allowed back on the road after a slight unpleasantness, and will be firing up my beloved 230,000 mile, 17 year old Saab 900 turbo shortly,in the sure and certain knowledge and belief that it`s an altogether better bit of kit than some soulless new Eurobox , and worth a damn site more to me than the immoral automotive blood money or scrappage, masquerading as enlightened governmental thinking.
And all this in the week when I learn that my very first car ,a 1938 MG TA Tickford bought from a mate in the next village,for 15 quid in 1967,has found its way back to him and is probably now worth about 2000 times more than I gave him .
And I didn`t get to Goodwood this week end either......
Sorry Chaps...Rant over.....Better now !
Hmm.....Might make Goodwood yet,as Those Who Know have just told me it`s not until next week.
Life ain`t all bad then !
See you all there ?!
Well done BR! The SAAB's got miles left in it yet! On balance I prefer the Goodwood Revival to the Festival of Speed...but then it depends if you like dressing up or not...if you know what I mean.
I do think one of you clever bloggers should start a blogpost on the Scrappage Scheme. It is just about the dumbest thing - both fiscally and ecologically speaking - that could have been done.....in my view, of course!
You're the right man Affer! It would be fascinating to see just what sort of stuff is being handed in...a bit like the firearms amnesty.
Good reasoning Jon. I think I'll take my Lee Enfield down to the Harborough Ford dealership and see if they'll chop it in against a Granada.
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