With regard to the British motor car, I think to pick one car i.e the MG and hold that up for scrutiny against the might of the American car industry is a bit lame; how about crossflow Rileys circa 1929, Bentleys, jaguars,Astons the Mini; anyone remember that classic piece of motorport they always show on the tv with 2 minis racing a Ford Mustang, yes the mustang was quicker on the straights but on the corners…apparently thats why they have crossroads in the US rather than roundabouts.

A rather odd mix of cars, lets look at these and thier wonderful testament to the quality of British engineering:

The WO Bentleys were magnificent machines with a great Le Mans record but were crude tools with an agricultural chassis and won through massive engines, gross over-engineering (the track was really rough then), vastly superior organisation and some arcane rules. Otherwise they were so relevant that the firm went bust in 1931, even with Woolf Barnato bankrolling it so that he could win Le Mans, after a massive twelve years of trading. After RR took over the Derby Bentleys were nothing to write home about, as for the badge engineered RRs…. now at least the firm is building half decent cars again – designed by VW and using many VW parts.

Jaguars were built down to a price and had shocking build quality and reliability – until Ford took them over and sorted it out. Oh and that wonderful 150mph icon the E-Type – only achieved by issuing a car to Autocar (who were equally deceitful) that was fitted with a C-Type head, bigger rear (racing) tyres, aluminium panels and perspex side windows – try getting 140mph out of a standard 3.8 E-Type. We won’t even talk about body rot.

Aston Martins – when they opened the M1 the DB4s ran their main bearings when run consistently at speeds of over 100mph. Are more modern ones better – the DB7 was an appallingly built car that is notorious for its unreliability. Again it has taken acquistion by Ford to sort the quality out -largely by going to their European parts bin. Just what great innovation has AM ever given the world of motoring?

The Mini – yes a wonderful design icon and a real trend setter, but with some appalling detail design and dreadful build quailty. I should know about this we had one as family car from new in 1961 until it fell apart in 1974 (and our only car until supplanted by a Peugeot 504 in 1973) – my late father used to spend very many weekends repairing its continuous niggling faults, and until he put in a lot of his own electrics in a heavy downpour the electrics would get wet and the engine would die. Then of course there are the economic aspects – as if badly building a design that was never properly developed and insufficiently tested by a bolshy workforce was not enough BMC were so incompetent that they had no idea what the car cost to build and sold it at a loss… is there anything that is symptomatic of British industry?

Trying to say that British cars are better than US cars is a bit like saying that it is better to have your hand chopped off than your head – I agree they are, but both are woefully short of the best world standard – the competition was and is with the rest of Europe and the the Far East. Are you really saying that one would have been sensible to have bought an Austin Allegro rather than a VW Golf (amazingly in the UK more people did, which says a lot as well)?

If one looks at a selection of cars that are more relevant to the sucess and failure of a nation’s car industry, rather than a few highly priced exotics, what about the Morris Ital, the Austin Maestro, the Ford Poplar, the Standard 8, the Vauxhall Victor, the Austin Atlantic, and the Austin Cambridge/Morris Oxford as testament to the “World leading” nature of the industry. Yes other European nations had their lemons (e.g. 50’s and 60’s Opels and Simcas) but they had more properly developed, competently built and priced world leading designs to compensate.

Going back to the thread Mercedes have history at Brooklands and have every right to be there, I find the xenophobia that has been expressed on this subject somewhat offensive. Even my 83 year old father-in-law, who was a navigator in Liberators during the war would get hot under the collar at such remarks.

If may be allowed a controversial thought (for this forum) Brooklands is far more important as a racing circuit than it is as an aircraft manufacturing site – as an aviation centre it was one of many, but as a racing circuit it was a unique facility in Britain (until Donnington?) with a unique approach. As such it also tells an important lessons to future generations. Firstly of the of the dangers of protectionism – races were run to an absurd handicapping system that enabled British cars to be competitive and penalised the otherwise much faster Bugattis, Alfas, Maseratis, Delages, etc, particularly once the Campbell Circuit opened (and also encouraged cheating – read Leo Villers on Malcolm Campbell for example). This fools paradise kept British racing car design behind for years. Secondly, ‘the right crowd and no crowding’ is an example of how we have moved on as a society and a lesson in the attidute of mind that allowed our lead in the Industrial Revolution to be squandered.

I must say that I admire the Brooklands Museum – I would very strongly recommend it as a day out for anyone with even a vague interest in cars or aircraft – even my aged mother thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I do feel that the post war concrete aviation buildings adjacent to the Finishing Straight are utterly ghastly and are a negative asset.

Well,

This is one of those threads that are sadly typical of forii.

This past weekend saw the centennary celebrations highlighting all those things mentioned in the first post. Many people gave their time and worked hard to make it happen. A lot of people turned up at the weekend and a large number of people put their hands deep into their pockets on Friday night at the fundraising dinner.

Some of the most significant vehicles were back there and Mercedes (apparently the bad guys here) put a lot of money into the weekend.

As for the development, the place was for sale on the open market. The fact that Mercedes bought it is down to the market, not heritage. The fact they have done more than many companies would have to preserve what was left is clearly being ignored. They didn’t have to. They chose to. They have a history on the site too (look up Mercedes racers).

The original post here was misinformed at best.

A lot of people gave up a lot of time in the last few months to celebrate the history of Brooklands and to bring the story to people who may not have known this before.

Others just posted misinformed drivel on forums.

Where were you?

Well said Mervyn! Daimler-Benz have now secured a substantial portion of the former track and have pledged to preserve it. This compares with the piecemeal loss of the surviving bits of track that has been going on for years.

Gallahers are not exactly white knights – they demolished about 200 yards of the historic Home Banking to stick their ghastly building across the line of the track – the fact that they rebuilt a tiny bit of missing track and the footbridge can be seen as nothing more than a planning quid pro quo to achieve this.

I find watching The Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines quite depressing to see how much of what was left of the track has been lost in recent decades.

Sea Hawk

Yes, I can add a little info for you. I met Ron Murphy a few years ago. He did indeed recover a lot of Typhoon remains, of which much is still around. Last I heard of Ron, he was looking into underwater wrecks in the far east. Anyone hear from him recently?

Roger Marley got the lions share of it, and hence see his substantial typhoon exhibit. Some went to the museum at Shoreham (by the sea) into their cockpit. I believe this has now been sold to France. Aeroventure has one, museum of Jet Age has another. A private collector had his in store at the museum at Coventry airport, and I know of atleast one other under re-build in a private UK collection.

That makes 6. As for the remainder, I don’t know, but these may have been consumed by the ones I have mentioned. Two more are owned by Pete Smith in Kent, but these originally came from another yard altogether (Brownhills?) I wonder how these projects are progressing?

Thanks very much – most interesting.

The SE5 under restoration at Milden, Suffolk is not on your list. Unfortunately I don’t know whether it is an a or e.

Thanks for this – cannot find this in W&R20 – can you provide some more information please?

As a general update, I have not posted on this for a while, but I am slowly writing letters to the question marks on the list so that we can complete the blanks. Although I am afraid that the day job has got in the way a bit with a bit of a peak in my workload. This has passed in the last week so things should move forward more rapidly one again now.

Presumably this was also where David Purley flew his Pitts from – perhaps his death in 1985 had a lot to do with the demise of the airfield?

Don’t know the answer to your question, but I believe that the two forward wires were only provided on Victorious, Formidable, Indomitable and the two Implacable Class units. I believe that these were installed new on the Implacable class but were retrofitted to the three Illustrious class vessels – at the same time that the three extra rear wires were fitted & the roundown was flattened out to gain extra deck parking?

One presumes that they were intended for landing the odd aircraft when the rear deck park was full in readiness for flying off.

I hazily seem to recall reading somewhere that the two forward wires were not used very much and were removed as plane weights and landing speeds increased.

Surviving Nieuport 23

I note from The Aerodrome forum that the Brussels Nieuport 23 has now finished its restoration and is on display, pictures here: http://www.philippesmodels.be/En/RealAircrafts/Nieuport_disp/Nie23display.html

The recent silence does not mean that I have lost interest – I am very slowly trying to untangle Curtis JN-4 identities, will post again on this when I have been able to move this part of the list forward substantively. In the meantime please don’t hesitate to post if you have any comments/amendments/additions/deletions.