ATTEND ONE OF OUR FREE OPEN www.motoringclassics.co.uk www.bmh-ltd.com SUMMER 2019 DAYS BABY DRIVERS HARRINGTON’S WE MAKE A MEMORABLE VISIT TO THE UNDER 17 RICH HERITAGE CAR CLUB RECALLING THE PRODUCTS OF SUSSEX’S FORMER COACH-BUILDER merlinTHE STORY OF THE UNFORGETTABLE JAMESON SPECIALSmagic TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT EITHER OFFERING, OR BOOK AN OPEN DAY SEE WWW.UNDER17-CARCLUB.CO.UK Classic Character 3 Merlin Magic 4-8 Missing Moniker 9 Baby Drivers 10-12 BMH News 13 Harrington’s Rich Heritage 14-17 Classic Motorsport 18-19 Above: what might have been - the second of two Jensen P66 Interceptor Motoring Classics reproduction prototypes, the first of which was a convertible. The model was intended to fill the in whole or any part of any text, gap created by the demise of the Austin-Healey 3000, for which Jensen built the photograph or illustration without bodies. The convertible was scrapped but the coupe lives on (Photo courtesy of written permission of the publisher MPL, National Motor Museum) is strictly prohibited. The publish- er makes every effort to ensure the magazine’s contents are correct but can accept no responsibility for any effects from errors 2 or omissions. Our automotive world has become one Asked to list British coach-builders of the NB Motoring Classics is the printed of crazy extremes. We nowadays have past, most enthusiasts could probably and online publication of British Motor totally legal road cars that will attain readily recall such names as H J Mulliner, Heritage and its retail trading arm. c.270mph (eg the Bugatti Veyron Super Barker, Gurney Nutting and Thrupp & Sport and Hennessey Venom GT), yet Maberly. However, there are numerous Publisher: intended legislation will automatically others who’ve contributed to our British Motor Heritage Limited, prevent all our chosen chariots inching motoring memories, but about whom Range Road, Cotswold Business a mere soupcon above the country’s there have been less column inches, Park, Witney OX29 OYB, UK speed limits, even the maximum of and in this issue we review the many and which is 200mph below what Bugatti varied products of Thomas Harrington. Tel: +44 (0)1993 707200 man could otherwise opt to travel at. Our Missing Moniker on this occasion Email: [email protected] Customising cars to taste has also is Jensen, a company arguably as become a minefield, with MOT tests successful at building vehicles for other Editorial: becoming ever more finicky and some manufacturers (Austin-Healey, Sunbeam Gordon Bruce Associates insurers even requiring prior knowledge Tiger, Volvo P1800 etc) as for itself, and Email: [email protected] of a switch from summer to winter quite a technological trailblazer in its tyres. All of which must surely be heyday. For our Classic Character we Web: www.gordonbruce.com stifling the talents of Britain’s inveterate have opted for Billy Cotton. Immortalised special builders. What better time then, by his catch phrase ‘Wakey Wakey’, he Design and production: to celebrate the wacky but wonderful was one of the great band leaders of his Lead Designer: Emma Green 27-litre V12 creations of the late Paul day, whose many other hobbies included Flipside Group Jameson, as we do on pages 4-8. motorsport. Coincidentally he was also www.flipsidegroup.com the first owner of the 1957 Porsche Of course, much of the aforementioned 356A (‘UUL 442’) that Ian Scott Watson legislation is aimed at preventing drivers subsequently fielded for Jim Clark, Printing: killing themselves or others, but while setting him on a path to motor racing Hartgraph Ltd laws may curtail the excesses of bad superstardom. www.hartgraph.co.uk drivers, they won’t make the culprits more skilled – only training will achieve Happy reading! that. How great then that bodies like Follow us on: the Under 17 Car Club exist to set youngsters on the right path from the @MotoringClassic moment they slip behind the wheel. the astonishing six-wheeled Jameson Mk.2, dominated We paid a visit to one of their meetings Motoring Classics and were very impressed by what we Gordon Bruce witnessed. Editor Cover Photo: Rolls-Royce Merlin engine by its mid-mounted, 1760bhp supercharged www.motoringclassics.co.uk www.bmh-ltd.com L to R: Sallon’s wonderful cartoon of Billy Cotton the band leader and racing driver; here Cotton and ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson celebrate a class win and 3rd place in the 1937 JCC International Trophy race at Brooklands (Photo courtesy of MPL, National Motor Museum) Classic Character 3 BILLY COTTON (1899-1969) Racing driver, footballer, pilot, boxer – oh, and one of Britain’s greatest showbusiness personalities The Cotton dynasty has bestrode the world of British light entertainment for a century. Its latest representative is popular radio and TV presenter Fearne, Billy’s great-niece. His own career began on the drums, while simultaneously holding down the job of London bus conductor. However, he was always a man in a hurry, and by 1924 was fronting his own dance orchestra, the London Savannah Band. His first solo flight as a WWI pilot Field, who allowed Cotton to compete in notable success at Brooklands, where occurred on April 1, 1918, the day the his ex-Segrave Talbot. The bug bit, which he became one of only five MG drivers Royal Flying Corps morphed into the RAF. not only resulted in Billy later driving the to lap the circuit at over 120mph, and But, a self-confessed daredevil, he had ex-Malcolm Campbell Sunbeam Blue Bird in the British Grand Prix - he and ‘Wilkie’ come a cropper by the end of hostilities. at Southport, but owning it too. “Field said Wilkinson finished 7th in 1938, while he While landing a Bristol at RAF Yatesbury, he would sell me the car for £50 if I would was no less than 4th when sharing the he attempted to startle some cadets attempt to beat its former world record driving with David Hampshire in 1949. standing between the hangars, but ended of 150.766mph. Only a burke (sic) would up hitting another aircraft and a building, have said yes, and I did, even though Cotton’s showbusiness career blossomed, breaking both legs and an arm. Unbowed, there were only two speeds on that progressing from dance halls to a Sunday he promptly invested £90 of his demob beast – fast and stop!” On September 5, lunchtime radio show, and then a BBC TV gratuity on a Norton, which he then raced 1936, in treacherous conditions, Cotton one boasting an audience of 20 million. at McGilligan’s Strand in Ireland. recorded a brave 121.570mph. This beloved entertainer suffered a stroke in 1962 and passed away seven The elevation to four-wheeled motorsport It was in 1935 that he began his short years later while watching boxing at the occurred in 1925, when the band was but meaningful spell as a circuit racer, Empire Pool, Wembley. His entertaining attached to the Southport Palais. He was progressing from a Riley Nine to an autobiography is appropriately titled ‘I Did encouraged by local sand racing hero Jack MG K3 Magnette and ERA. He enjoyed It My Way’. www.motoringclassics.co.uk www.bmh-ltd.com merlin GORDONmagic BRUCE RECOUNTS THE STORY OF THE UNFORGETTABLE JAMESON SPECIALS In seven memorable years of testing cars for Motor magazine I was lucky enough to drive pretty much everything from an invalid carriage to James Hunt’s F1 World championship-winning McLaren M23. But the maddest motor of them all was the 1760bhp Rolls-Royce Merlin-powered six-wheeled special of the late Paul Jameson. This is the story of that extraordinary machine, plus the two other 27-litre monsters for which he was responsible. Fasten your seat belts and prepare to be amazed! a derelict Centurian tank. It was while by the idea of building a fresh mount JAMESON MK.1 testing the rolling chassis at Biggin around a supercharged Merlin engine The inveterate constructor set about Hill Airport that Jameson first met – ie something with over twice the building his first car in 1966, the focus transmission guru John Dodd. At this power! Dodd’s attempt to purchase the of which was a 27-litre V12 Meteor stage, the car was immaculate and its unfinished Mk.1 therefore met with little powerplant (ie the non-supercharged 4 maker had commenced the creation resistance, opening the door to one of c.700bhp relation of the immortal of a striking aluminium body to clothe the more bizarre chapters in UK motoring Merlin) he’d salvaged from the belly of it, yet was increasingly captivated history. www.motoringclassics.co.uk www.bmh-ltd.com Far left: Paul Jameson and his younger brother Robert aboard the newly completed Jameson Mk.1 rolling chassis. Above L to R: The Jameson Mk.1 again - this time complete with the controversial body commissioned by John Dodd; the car as it looks today; Dodd and family on horseback outside the High Court of Justice. Below L to R: the Jameson Mk.2 complete with body; Robert Powell’s winning design on which the body was loosely based (Photo courtesy of LAT); the MK.2 and a model of Powell’s design at an Alexandra Palace car show (Photo courtesy of LAT) An extrovert to his finger-tips, Dodd What of the car? The original body burnt exhaust gases exited through a pair of commissioned Fibreglass Repairs of to a crisp in Sweden, to be replaced ginormous horizontally-mounted funnels. Santa Pod fame to envelop the car in by one in the vein of a Reliant Scimitar When I first met the car in 1976 it was a gargantuan two-door coupe body akin GTE, also on steroids.