Country Motor Australia Issue 14 1
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Issue 14 Country Motor Australia issue 14 1 Country Motor Australia IssueISSUE 314 Contents 100 Years of Armstrong Siddeley 3 Two Chrysler Fours Rescued 5 Stoneleigh 9 Canberra EJ-EH Holden Display 10 Milton Job Discusses Cars he has Owned 11 Alex Gow’s Chrysler Roadster Trek From Bendigo to Goornong & Back 12 Back copies of Country Motor are available upon request Bits & Pieces David’s Photo Gallery of Wrecks 15 Editor’s Entries Welcome to the fourteenth edition of Country Motor Fourteenth Issue photos and his commentary on the EJ- EH Holden Rally in Canberra. It is Thanks to Richard Tonkin for his always of interest to hear what classic comprehensive and interesting study on car activities are going on interstate. Armstrong Siddeley. A story comes to Many cars we once owned are mind about an Armstrong Siddeley now regarded as classic cars. Milton Job Hurricane. When I was young I attended discusses cars he has owned and is Ferndown Secondary Modern (in interested to hear from anyone with a Dorset, UK). The science teacher was a pre-war BSA car. particularly nasty pasty who owned a Tractor Treks have become very Hurricane. A few years after we came to popular and Neil Athorn is one keen Australia a friend reported that the tractor driver. His brief account of treks students were so sick of him they rolled adds variety to the magazine. A national his Hurricane into the school’s new trek is planned at Wedderburn in spring swimming pool! 2020 that may attract over 170 entries. Alex Gow has provided a story Bits & Pieces are a collection of on his twin vintage Chrysler 4 cylinder small stories or photos that readers send roadsters. It would have been a in. If you are not into lengthy articles formidable task restoring these wrecks. then just send in a few photos of your Old car enthusiasts are well cars and a brief description. acquainted with the fact that many Once again I am showing more The editor has the prerogative obscure makes appeared on the market photos of vintage wrecks seen in the to edit all material published in then just as quickly disappeared. The 1960s. I can only hope some have Country Motor Stoneleigh was associated with survived as they are certainly not where Armstrong Siddeley in the early 1920s. they were seen any longer. The light car never lasted, fortunately a Happy motoring, few survive. David Andrew McLintock has provided Country Motor Australia issue 14 2 Richard Tonkin “Armstrong Siddeley – wasn’t that the car they said made walking a By 1936 it pleasure?” This statement was first coined was time for John by the British motoring press in 1921, and Siddeley to retire. later by J.D. Siddeley himself when In the words of referring to his company’s unsuccessful Bill Smith – Stoneleigh economy car. Only the ignorant “Siddeley was a say that about Armstrong Siddeley cars. paternalistic autocrat, In fact, the company’s slogan was de ville with coachwork by Lancefield) in control but seemingly magnanimous, with “Cars of Aircraft Quality” For it was the This article does not attempt to cover a strong puritan streak. His strong religious parent business, Hawker Siddeley Aircraft, the history of Armstrong Siddeley for the convictions led him to dismiss one works which made the Hurricane fighter, of Battle next 41 years, until the end of car production manager for suggesting manning a shift on of Britain fame, the Typhoon fighter bomber in September 1960. That is extensively Sundays. In many respects Siddeley was a and the Lancaster bomber – aircraft that, covered in Bill Smith’s book and in the Victorian, in the mould of his father. Indeed, along with the Spitfire, helped turn the tide works of the Australian author and marque the first years of his life were lived during of World War II. guru, the late Robert Penn Bradly. The the reign of Queen Victoria. Although the But back to the beginning and a look company was successful from the beginning, Victorians were harsh taskmasters, they had at the events which led to John Davenport making a wide range of vehicles and a strong sense of social responsibility as did Siddeley becoming a captain of the British enjoying Royal patronage. Including the Siddeley. The moral, social and industrial car and aeroplane industries. Born in 1866 at honeymoon car of the Duke of York and his sensibilities of someone like Siddeley made Longsight, Manchester, Siddeley’s father, bride, later King George VI and Queen it extremely difficult to contemplate the William, owned a hosiery and glove business Elizabeth - there is a Royal Siddeley contemporary developments in science and and later a factory and mill. He was a shooting brake on display in the mews at the engineering. By 1935 Siddeley no longer Member of Parliament in the Manchester Sandringham Estate. understood the industrial landscape around area. John was a cycling enthusiast, opening Armstrong Siddeley were also him and managed a workforce of around a bicycle shop in Manchester and organising innovative – at the 1928 Motor Show they 2,500, many of whom he did not recognise.” record breaking runs from Land’s End to introduced the pre-selector gearbox, On 30 September 1936, at the age of John O’Groats. He joined Humber, then a developed by Walter Wilson and called by 70, the by then Sir John Siddeley sold the bicycle maker, at the age of 26. The next Siddeley the “Self-Changing Gear” – at a company he had spent most of his life year saw him opening and managing the time when almost all cars had “crash” gear- nurturing. Armstrong Siddeley Motors was Dunlop Cycle Company’s factory in Belfast. boxes. This system involved pre-selecting a sold to the Hawker Aircraft Company, which In 1896, when he was 30, Siddeley set up his gear from a lever on the steering column and had been named in honour of an Australian, own factory in Coventry, the Clipper when that gear was to be engaged, depress- Harry Hawker, by Englishman T.O.M Pneumatic Tyre Company, making tyres ing the “clutch” pedal. Armstrong Siddeleys Sopwith. The car business thereafter became under licence from the German Continental were offered with that system up until 1958. a division of Hawker Siddeley Aircraft. In company. While well known for their cars, the 1937 Sir John Siddeley, previously knighted, Following success in motor trials at company was very much involved in the became the first Baron Kenilworth for his the turn of the century, Siddeley’s first foray development and manufacture of aircraft services to the car and aircraft industries. He into motor cars came in early 1903, when he engines – as early as 1925, Britisher Alan died on the island of Jersey on the 3rd of displayed the Siddeley Autocar at the Crystal Cobham flew from England to Australia and November 1953, aged 87. Palace Motor Show. His subsequent back. Some 60,000 people swarmed across The Second World War saw complicated involvement with Wolseley the grassy fields of Melbourne’s Essendon production turn to aircraft and munitions. (Wolseley-Siddeley cars), Deasy (J D aerodrome (now there’s a lovely old word – The Armstrong Siddeley Motors factory at Siddeley Type Deasy or JDS Deasys for do you recall your parents/grandparents Parkside, in Coventry, was bombed short), Siddeley-Deasy and, ultimately, with saying they were going to the ‘drome to extensively by the Luftwaffe in October and the huge Sir W.G. Armstrong-Whitworth catch a plane?) Cobham’s de Havilland November of 1940, during which 568 lives Company industrial complex, which took aircraft was powered by an Armstrong were lost in and around the city. Following over Siddeley-Deasy in 1919. This is set out Siddeley engine called a Jaguar. The story further bombings in November 1941, which in exquisite detail in Bill Smith’s definitive goes that Siddeley gave permission to destroyed the nearby Alvis car factory (but work “Armstrong Siddeley Motors” Suffice William Lyons to use that name for the not the one across the road which was to say in this little monograph, that Jaguar car – the former name of SS (for repairing aero engines – the pilots got their Siddeley’s extensive experience with those Swallow Sidecar) having fallen into serious maps mixed up) the Germans believed that businesses in the first 19 years of the 20th political disrepute. Charles Kingsford Coventry had effectively been destroyed and century stood him in good stead to launch Smith’s and Charles Ulm’s Australian they did not return until the night of 8 April the first Armstrong Siddeley car, a 6-cylinder National Airlines four AVRO, ten passenger 1941. Then, two bombs hit the Siddeley 30 horsepower model in 1919. (above: 1935 planes each had three Siddeley 240 horse- factory and 280 people died in Coventry. In version of 30hp, a Siddeley Special sedanca power Lynx engines. summarising the company’s war effort, Bill Country Motor Australia issue 14 3 Smith says —“The Hawker Siddeley Group upgraded to 18 horsepower in March 1949. In vehicles came to Australia. I remember that a contributed a major proportion of both fighter June 1949 a Utility Coupe (a “ute”) and a school friend’s parents in Sydney had a and bomber aircraft to the war effort as well Station Coupe (an early version of a Twin Station Coupe as their daily driver and to as those in the areas of transport, training and Cab, with rear seats and a smaller load ferry goods around for their antiques shop. reconnaissance.” capacity at the back), were introduced.