Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

time, there comes the temptation to introduce changes in
an aged car’s specification, in order to make it go faster
or handle better, or both. Safety considerations can mask
some of this, for how can a race organiser, with safety in
mind, really advocate cable instead of hydraulic brakes,
and feeble shock-absorbers and a flexing chassis? Yet
Edwardian racers go quite rapidly in VSCC races with
rear-wheel cable-operated brakes and so on! Which
rather defeats the retort that might be made, namely that
what was safe on the wide expanse of old Brooklands
may not be so on the tight Club circuits of today.
However, it does seem that the over-riding will to
win may be what starts the rot of rendering an ancient
car non-original. That is not to suggest that those who
race nicely unmodified Vintage and Historic cars do not
try to do well, in the events they enter. Some will observe
the maker’s former rev.-limits, or something a bit lower,
while cornering as fast as they can and mixing it with
other competitors when a situation arises. Isn’t this
better than risking blowing-up an old engine and having
to rebuild it with modern parts? That would be the rot
setting in again. . . .
The old racing cars had all manner of idiosyncrasies,
which the purist at any rate should not wish to build out,
I would have thought. One Brooklands’ single-seater
indulged in the endearing habit of gently pinching
its driver’s thighs as it took a bump, but if its chassis
were stiffened by some present day owner with a view
to more effective road holding on his way to trying
desperately to win races, a liny piece of history would
have been eradicated. Is this childish thinking, or is there
anyone who agrees with me? When MOTOR SPORT got
Stirling Moss to drive racing cars from different periods
of the Sport at Donington, so that we could publish his
comments in a birthday issue, he was quite horrified at
the way a GP Bugatti handled and with its controls, in
the context of racing it, say, in a Monaco Grand Prix.
Yet, because we chose decently-original cars for Stirling
to sample, at least he was able to compare and assess
them. Had that Bugatti been drastically modified, his
comments would have lost much of their interest. And
why run a Bugatti in 1980 if you do not enjoy driving it
as much as those who purchased these cars when they
were brand-new used to do? The ERAs that continue to
race are very much as they used to be, apart from some
engine changes, and I suggest those who race them, a by
nO means inexpensive undertaking, do so because they
have long admired the cars themselves and those who
drove them pre-war. If not. wouldn’t they build specials?
If you do not see some point in racing an ancient car,
why not compete in some other formula, say with a Lotus
Seven or one of those now very quick and competitive 750
MC Formula cars? But if you do see the point of racing
the old cars, how far should you go in altering them until
you fail to have quite the same task to accomplish as their
original drivers? That ERAs lap quicker now than they
did formerly undermines my point only in respect of
perhaps slightly-changed handling endowed by modern
rubber, because surely the end result is largely a tribute
to improved driver skills and a good knowledge of the
circuits used frequently today?
I wonder whether this idea I have been trying to
expound fits Vintage racing more than Historic-racing?
But it so, why? As for replicas, of course they must not
be permitted. Yet the droll thing is that if an absolutely
perfect replica of any car, whether Brooklands outercircuit,
sprint or LPR machine, could be made, the
person driving it would presumably experience exactly
what its original driver did when extending it, give and
take a changed terrain. And no spectator would see any
difference! But this couldn’t be done, or if it could, they
wouldn’t build them as 100% original!
Of course, the fact that drivers in VSCC races have
to cover their heads with bone-domers makes a small
nonsense of the ideals I have been trying to express, so
maybe all we can do is to like what we have and not take
old motor cars too seriously. Which is not to suggest
for a moment that I am not firmly behind C.R. when
he says that Historic racing is a live museum and as
such its credibility ought to be safeguarded, or Michael
Bowler when he holds out about what he refers to as a
“replication”. Or D.S.J., of course, in his plea that non-one
shall put forth claims of possessing a car which has ceased
to exist in its original form. But how do we ensure this?
That is the question, and unless it is quickly solved
one almost feels like saving to hell with all old things;
why not drive and race modern vehicles, over which there
can be no dating or originality arguments? Incidentally,
before I close, I note that Michael Bowler himself has a
stiffer-than-original front anti-roll bar on his Lister-now-
Jaguar that won him the FIA Historic Championship (its
smaller wheels and tyres, like safety considerations and
compulsory bone-domers, are simply a sign that time
moves on), so perhaps he does not wish, as my purist
would, to step too tightly into the shoes of drivers from
the past, who raced these cars? — W.B.
V-E-V Miscellany. — We hear that a well-known
VSCC member has found an Ettore Bugatti-designed
Bebe Peugeot engine and is looking for a chassis for it,
and rumours are abroad of a mysterious, possibly singleseater,
Brescia Bugatti, its engine linered-down before
the war with the intention of taking Brooklands’ 1,100
c.c. records. It apparently broke its crankshaft before this
could happen, but has now turned up again in dismantled
form. And they still turn up, a 1926 Morgan three-wheeler
with no Log Book or Reg. No. having been found recently
at a Shrewsbury blacksmith’s. Last year’s Triple-M MG
Year Book contained an article by Leslie Seyd about the
four MGs he owned, and used in competition events,
before the war. The Autovia CC is still hoping to hear of
more of these cars still in existence, or from owners who
used to own them; the Secretary is N. W. Plant, 18, York
Road, Birkdale, Southport, Merseyside, PR8 ZAD. It is
sad to learn that the original Morris Garage in Longwall
Street, Oxford, is no more. It was demolished last year
to make way for extensions to Nuffield College, and
now only the facade remains. Before the demolition took
place Ken Revis, MBE, Consultant to BL Heritage, and
a few other sympathisers, stood to attention before this
historic building as the Last Post was sounded. There is
also opposition to the scheme for erecting a permanent
memorial to Lord Nuffield at his home, and it might
help if those in favour were to write to the Warden of
Nuffield College, Oxford, expressing their wish that such
a memorial should be erected on the correct site.
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