| |
This report follows
on my inspection of Julian Walter’s
car in Australia in January 2010,
and my inspection of Martin Perels’
car in Holland on 12 July 2010.
On the next page is a copy of the
Bentley Motors Service Record for
chassis MS3934. It was built as a
1931 model 4½ Litre Supercharged
chassis, with engine no. MS3937 and
“D” type box no.7246. The
supercharger number is not listed;
it is not recorded for all Blower
chassis, but is usually close to the
chassis number so it would have been
around no. 134. The date the chassis
was completed and despatched to Vanden
Plas for bodying is not recorded,
but the VdP invoice gives an order
date of 11 February 1931, to be completed
by 30 April 1931. The completed car
was returned to Bentley’s works
at Cricklewood and passed off Final
Test on 13 May 1931, shortly before
Bentley Motors went into receivership
on 11 July 1931. MS3934 was clearly
unsold at this date, and was sold
along with a number of other cars
by J.K. Carruth, formerly Bentley’s
MD and an employee of Woolf Barnato,
on 28 June 1932 to Jack Barclay.
The original Vanden Plas body was
no. 1727, as per VdP record below.
This was a new design of open two-door
four-seater body developed by Vanden
Plas to supersede the earlier four-seater
sports body, by 1930 passing out of
fashion. A sister car to MS3934, chassis
SM3920, was exhibited on Bentley’s
stand at the 1930 Olympia Motor Show.
Both cars were finished in apple green
with black wings, wheels, and body
mouldings, with green leather interior.
MS3934 was sold by Barclay to Brown
& Mallalieu in June 1932, for
£900, presumably as agents for
the first recorded owner, W.R. Handley.
MS3934 was allocated the London registration
number GY 3904. Unfortunately the
London records were destroyed by the
GLC in 1979.
The Service Record notes later owners
as F. Coxhill in 1933, W.J. Wise in
1935, and W.T. Barnicot in 1938. No
major work is listed in the Service
Record, which is continuous through
to May 1939. Turning to the BDC card
index, Barnicot is listed as the owner
in January 1948 and again in October
1950. Barnicot wrote up MS3934 in
BDC Review no. 2, in 1946,
as reproduced below. At the start
of his ownership the car was still
in very original order. He fitted
a 3 Litre engine no. 437 from chassis
439 temporarily, probably during the
war for fuel economy reasons. He later
dismantled this car and sold the chassis
and other parts to David Llewellyn.
Sometime around 1950, I think, Barnicot
dismantled MS3934, selling it in parts.
A write-up by his son David in Review
no. 59 January 1961 says that David
Llewellyn bought the chassis frame
and some other parts, the chassis
going to C.G. Punter who had fitted
a 6½ Litre engine and was in
the process of building a body. This,
though, will be set aside for the
moment, as this is a distraction,
as will become clear. Sticking with
the genuine frame of MS3934, there
is a note in the BDC Card Index that
it was owned by Mr Shellcock circa
1970. Mr Shellcock had some involvement
in car building and Tim Houlding recalls
him having a damaged Blower engine,
possibly SM3905. It was then bought
by Stanley Mann circa 1971/72, possibly
through Ulf Smith. Stanley collected
the parts to build a Blower car on
this frame, and had Townshend build
a four-seater VdP style open body
on it.
From my inspection of this car in
Perth in 2010, it is likely that the
frame bought by Stanley Mann was still
fitted with its pedal shaft, compensating
shaft and brake frogs (reversing levers
for the front brakes). From circumstantial
evidence I suspect the chassis was
bought from Barnicot in this partially
stripped state by Llewellyn, and wasn’t
used by C.G. Punter as the basis for
his car at all. Rather it remained
in this form until it was bought by
Mann. When cars were stripped for
parts through to the 1960s the chassis
frame and ancillary parts were worthless,
as people were breaking cars for useful
parts rather than building cars from
parts. In this environment engines,
gearboxes, back axles and radiators,
and steering columns and front axles,
were of value. Mechanical braking
system parts were of little value
as many cars were converted to hydraulic
brakes. Similarly pedal shafts were
of no value. Hence it would be no
surprise if these parts weren’t
removed from the chassis frame. Curiously
the nearside front dumbiron knuckle
is from chassis MS3949.
As built up by Mann the car is otherwise
a “bitsa”, made up of original
Bentley components from a number of
different cars; front axle PM3270,
steering column UK3298, “D”
box 7150 (ex chassis NT3140) with
lid 7088 (ex chassis TX3235), 6½
Litre diff unit BX2423, banjo SR1422,
supercharger no. 124 (originally fitted
to SM3922), bonnet no. MS3949. Considering
this car has both the bonnet and the
dumbiron knuckle from MS3949, it is
possible that Townshend is involved
somewhere along the line, as he rebuilt
MS3949 as a Birkin short-chassis replica
in the early 1970s, and he sold a
lot of parts to Stanley Mann. As first
built the engine was no. SM3905, originally
fitted to chassis SM3902, a car broken
up for parts in 1949. Ulf Smith bought
this engine sometime around the middle
of 1970, with “an almost complete
chassis” (BDC Review no.
104 May 1972 p.150). This frame was,
we are told, probably from a supercharged
car but no number was visible on it.
Smith sold the engine to Stanley Mann
but not, it seems, the chassis frame
(see letters exchanged between Stanley
Mann and Stanley Sedgwick, reproduced
below). Since this was written the
original front axle MS3934 has been
recovered and refitted. It also turns
out the engine has the magneto turret
from an experimental 4½ Litre
engine, Exp6.
| 1931
- 1939 |
Click
on thumbnail for larger view
Bentley
Motors’ Service Record for
chassis MS3934. |
In the usual way
of things, Stanley Mann would have
registered this car as GY 3904, using
the chassis number, MS3934. This wasn’t
readily possible because this identity
had already been claimed by Cyril
Wadsworth, for a Blower car that he
was building up from parts. Cyril
Wadsworth was a prominent BDC member
and, given that someone else had claimed
this identity, rather than get into
a confrontation Stanley the pragmatic
car dealer chose to register his car
as PO3265, the number originally allocated
to chassis SM3902 (presumably on the
basis that Mann had engine SM3905,
originally fitted to SM3902). This
car was later sold by Christies at
their sale of 11 July 1974, to P.
Clapham. It was later owned by T.L
Roberts before being bought by Peter
Briggs around 1981 through the Clarendon
Carriage Co., and is now owned by
Julian Walter. It was sold by Christies
as chassis SM3902 and was recorded
as such until the 1990s when Peter
Briggs’ people scraped the paint
off the front cross-member to reveal
the number MS3934.
It is worth emphasising that if Cyril
Wadsworth hadn’t claimed this
identity, which was then possible
because the regulations managed by
the relevant government agencies were
pretty lax — far more so than
now — this car would have been
registered as GY 3904 chassis MS3934
without question, and there would
be no need for this report. Many other
cars have been rebuilt on chassis
frames kept from cars broken up for
spares, with no problems. The remainder
of this report documents how this
situation came about.
Click
on thumbnail for larger view
Vanden Plas
publicity photograph of their
new two-door 4-seater sports design
for the Blower chassis, intended
to replace the dated, primitive
sports four-seater body fitted
to earlier chassis. Seven of these
bodies were built, on chassis
SM3920, SM3924, MS3932, MS3933,
MS3934, MS3941, and MS3942. The
first of these (SM3920) was exhibited
at the Olympia Motor Show by Vanden
Plas in 1930. The second is SM3924,
illustrated here. Of these seven,
four are still fitted to their
original chassis (SM3920, MS3933,
MS3941, and MS3942). Two exist
but aren’t on a chassis at
present (SM3924 and MS3932). This
leaves just the body for MS3934,
originally finished in apple green
and black, as SM3924 illustrated
above, unaccounted for. It is
likely that the body built by
Mayfair on MS3938 is a copy of
this style, when sold new by Jack
Barclay the colour is given as
black. |
Click
on thumbnail for larger view
Vanden Plas
body record no. 1727, built on
chassis MS3934, and Barclay invoice
for sale of MS3934 new via Brown
& Mallalieu.
The body record refers to body
no. 1725, built on chassis MS3932,
similar to SM3924 illustrated
above (body no. 1709). |
| 1946 |
| Click
on thumbnail for larger view |
 |
 |
 |
| Barnicot’s
article in BDC Review no.
2, in 1946. MS3934 also appeared
earlier in Review 2, as
below (second from the right).
(Scanned from a bound copy, hence
problems with p. 17, above) |
| 1946/48 |
Click on thumbnail for larger
view
 
From Tony
Charnock’s photo album, showing
MS3934 at events circa 1946/48.
The photo above is the one printed
in Review 2, previous page,
showing MS3934 next to Charnock’s
4½ Litre YU4517, now owned
by Peter Graham. There is some
damage to the offside front wing
but it looks otherwise sound. |
| |
The photo
to the right is at Cheddar Gorge,
showing MS3934 sixth from the
right. |
| |
A BDC event
in Gloucester circa 1946/48, with
MS3934 to the back right. The
damage to the offside front wing
can be seen.
These three photos all show the
distinctive apple green and black
two-tone colour scheme. |
Because the story
is messy, the best place to start
is perhaps with a letter written by
Cyril Wadsworth to Stanley Sedgwick
in 1974, when Sedgwick was doing the
research for his monograph Where
Have All the Blowers Gone? As
mentioned above, MS3934 was bought
by W.T. Barnicot in 1938, and kept
by him until circa 1950, as a complete,
running car. According to David Llewellyn
MS3934 was dismantled by Barnicot.
Llewellyn knew Barnicot, as he had
previously bought the remains of 3
Litre chassis 439 from him. Barnicot
bought this car as a complete, running
long chassis saloon, and dismantled
it for spares, selling the frame to
Llewellyn stripped of all its major
components except gearbox. However
Wadsworth attributes the dismantling
to Jack Bailey, well-known for dismembering
Bentleys and building specials out
of the parts. Wadsworth claims that,
as with virtually every other Bentley
that went through his hands, Bailey
butchered the car. Bailey may have
had parts from MS3934 but I have no
evidence for this. This letter muddied
the waters right from the start, and
it is striking that Sedgwick reproduced
it in his Blower monograph with the
caveat that “names mentioned
have been transcribed into symbols
to avoid stimulating correspondence
as to the detailed accuracy of the
happenings or otherwise”. If
Sedgwick believed it all to be true
there would be little prospect for
“stimulating correspondence”.
Stanley Sedgwick was an accountant
by training and meticulous by nature
and I suspect that he had grave reservations
about the accuracy of the Wadsworth
letter. Nevertheless I am sure that
there are grains of truth in it, as
well as fabrications, so it is worth
following it through.
According to Wadsworth
the engine, number MS3937, went to
Taylor. By 1972 it was in a well-known
racing 4½ Litre known as Bluebelle
(chassis RL3439), later removed and
fitted to a Blower 4½ Litre
built up from parts by Ulf Smith (chassis
SM3919). The “D” box and
back axle went “to someone in
Scandinavia”, it isn’t known
who this is or which car they went
into. This strikes me as somewhat
improbable as I can’t think who
in Scandinavia would have been buying
such parts in the early/mid 1950s.
However Ulf Smith bought a Blower
radiator in Sweden which had been
imported in 1958, so it is not impossible
(ref BDC Review no. 104 May
1972 p.150), but if these parts had
been exported to Sweden I’m sure
Ulf would have followed them up. These
parts are most likely in another car
but there is no trace at present.
The rest apparently
went to David Llewellyn, with the
front axle and steering column going
to Don McKenzie, although David Llewellyn
didn’t confirm this in his correspondence
with me. Again I suspect there is
more to this than is admitted, although
with the passage of time it is possible
that his memory is hazy. It is now
known that the front axle stayed with
David Llewellyn, as discussed below,
and didn’t go to McKenzie at
all. Wadsworth claims that the rest
then went to a Mr Punter, who turned
it into a 6½ Litre special.
Unfortunately there are no known photographs
of this car. The BDC card index lists
C.G. Punter as the owner of MS3934
in January 1959, and then B. Petch
in March 1965, but here the story
wavers a bit. First of all, Punter
lists his car as a 6½, not
as a 4½/6½ (bearing
in mind that he supposedly built the
car up, he would have known what it
was). Here is the card for him:
| 1959 |
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on thumbnail for larger view
 |
| 1974 |
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on thumbnail for larger view
The original
of Cyril Wadsworth’s 1974
letter to Stanley Sedgwick, published
by Sedgwick in his monograph on
the Blowers with the names changed
to letters. |
Next, we have B.
Petch in 1965. His membership application
form is reproduced overleaf. Again,
the car is listed as a 6½ Litre,
not as a 4½/6½. The
change to the application form (the
addition of the circled 4½/6)
was made by the BDC staff. If the
chassis frame had really been that
of MS3934, then the wheelbase would
be recorded as 10'10", not 12'7¼".
This latter wheelbase is correct for
a long chassis Standard Six circa
1927/1928, nominally 12'6", not
for a Blower 4½ Litre. (The
wheelbases of Standard and Speed Sixes
vary from the nominal wheelbase for
all but the very early chassis due
to changes to the position of the
front axle on the road springs.) It
follows that, beyond any reasonable
doubt, the car owned by Punter and
Petch never had the chassis frame
from MS3934 at all. So at this point
effectively the logbook for chassis
MS3934, registration GY3904, had been
transferred to a 6½ Litre “bitsa”.
It is possible that some parts of
MS3934 went into this car, including
the radiator, but I can’t find
any evidence to support this (see
later comments on Norman Smith’s
6½ Litre “bitsa”
chassis FA2518).
To go back to Cyril Wadsworth’s
letter, he notes that the Punter/Petch
car was then bought by Norman Smith.
We are told that Mr Smith already
had a 6½ Litre chassis frame,
so he transferred the 6½ Litre
engine and all the 6½ Litre
parts to this chassis frame (chassis
number FA2518) and sold the remains
to Cyril Wadsworth. Note, first, that
the engine number listed by Mr Petch
on his application form is HM2856,
a very late Speed Six engine. Turning
to the BDC card index again, the card
for Mr Smith is reproduced opposite.
This shows that the car Norman Smith
bought in July 1967 and then “sold”
in October 1967 wasn’t MS3934
at all, it was a 6½ Litre chassis
KD2112 with Speed Six engine HM2856;
the engine fitted to the car Smith
bought from Petch, registered GY3904
and supposedly chassis MS3934. KD2112
was built new as a 1927 Standard Six
on the 12'6" chassis, resulting
in a wheelbase of 12'7¼"
allowing for the “B” type
front springs (these add about 1¼"
to the nominal wheelbase). The Punter/
Petch/Smith car, consequently, was
a 6½ Litre all along, with
chassis KD2112 and engine HM2856.
| 1965 |
Click
on thumbnail for larger view
Brian Petch’s
application form to join the BDC
in 1965. Although the chassis
number is listed as MS3934, the
engine number is a Speed Six (HM2856)
and the model is given as a 1932
Speed Six, more or less in line
with the engine (HM2856 is a very
late Speed Six engine). The wheelbase
is given as 12'7¼",
correct for a Standard Six with
a nominal wheelbase of 12'6"
and wholly inconsistent with a
Blower chassis, which has a wheelbase
of 10'10". The circled “4½/6”
has been added by the staff at
the BDC, in trying to make sense
of the numbers given. |
Click
on thumbnail for larger view
 |
Norman Smith dismantled
this car and sold the registration
plates, and possibly the original
radiator from MS3934, to Cyril Wadsworth.
There is no evidence that Smith sold
any further parts of MS3934 to Wadsworth.
Smith fitted engine HM2856 to the
6½ Litre he was building up,
chassis FA2518 registered XV930. He
then informed the BDC in October 1967
that he owned this car, as per the
card index. Mr Smith then hung the
chassis frame no. KD2112 on the wall
in his garage, where it remained until
the mid 1980s when he sold it to George
Dodds, who rebuilt it as a 6½
Litre “bitsa”. I have spoken
to Mr Smith but he claims to be very
old and not to remember anything at
all. Coincidentally FA2518 came up
for sale in 2011, entered for an RM
auction. I went to see this car at
RM’s facility at Southend on
31 May 2011 and confirmed that no
parts of MS3934 ended up in this car.
This is consistent with just the logbook
and perhaps the radiator of MS3934
going into the Punter/Petch car and
from thence to Wadsworth, via Smith.
With the log book for a Blower 4½
Litre, Cyril Wadsworth then collected
the parts he needed to build a car.
He managed to buy the original steering
column, no. MS3934, to go with the
logbook. At the risk of labouring
the point, this is the ONLY part of
MS3934 that Cyril Wadsworth ever owned.
The front axle fitted by Don McKenzie
to Philip Mann’s 4½ Litre
chassis MF3169 is not MS3934, as this
axle was still owned by Llewellyn.
I saw MF3169 in 1992 and the notes
I made at the time say front axle
looks to be MS3931 (a car that was
also dismantled for parts). As for
the chassis frame, the BDC card index
for Wadsworth’s car notes “Has
front cross-member from another chassis
(no chassis no. on it)” (card
reproduced below). When I went to
see Martin Perels’ car, the car
built up by Cyril Wadsworth, we scraped
the front chassis cross-member thoroughly
and couldn’t find a number on
it. The cross-member certainly looks
to be an original item but it shows
considerable corrosion pitting and
no evidence of a number at all. The
chassis is of course heavily painted
but the cross-member looks to be in
worse condition than the rest of the
chassis frame.
What seems most likely is this. The
6½ Litre car bought by C.G.
Punter in 1959, possibly from Jack
Bailey, wasn’t chassis MS3934.
It might have had some parts from
MS3934, but I can’t find any
evidence for this. Effectively it
was a 6½ Litre with chassis
frame KD2112 and engine HM2856. The
registration plates from GY3904 were,
it would seem, “borrowed”
for this car. Put differently, we
have an instance of log book fraud.
Since MS3934 was dismantled for spares
the log book should have been surrendered
to the licensing authorities. As far
as I can tell the Punter/Petch/Smith
car is not MS3934 at all, it is (a
reconstruction of) 6½ Litre
chassis KD2112.
This makes entire sense of the Punter/Petch/Smith/Wadsworth
scenario. This being so, irrespective
of previous logbook dealings, when
Norman Smith dismantled this car in
1967, hanging the chassis frame KD2112
on the wall of his garage and putting
the engine no. HM2856 and other parts
into his 6½ Litre chassis FA2518,
he should have surrendered the logbook
(i.e. the logbook for registration
mark GY3904) and listed the car (i.e.
the 6½ Litre bitsa chassis
KD2112 engine HM2856) as broken up
for spares. So we have two instances
of at best log book irregularities
in the 1950s and 1960s. I saw Norman
Smith’s car recently when it
was sold by RM Auctions, and confirmed
that no part of the car comes from
MS3934. Even more recently front axle
MS3934 came to light, owned by David
Llewellyn. This axle was obtained
by Julian Walter and is now reunited
with chassis MS3934. I spoke to Tim
Llewellyn about the origins of this
axle, but didn’t get anything
out of him except that it had been
in his father’s spares collection
for about 50 years. It seems most
likely to me that David Llewellyn
also had the gearbox and the back
axle out of MS3934, but I haven’t
been able to confirm this. David Llewellyn
also built up a 6½ Litre from
parts in the 1980s, chassis FA2510.
I saw this car recently at Graham
Moss’s and confirmed that it
doesn’t have either the back
axle or the gearbox from MS3934. It
is likely that one day these parts
will turn up in other cars.
The car built up by Cyril Wadsworth
was sold to Stanley Mann in the mid
1980s, built up on a 9'9½"
chassis frame with a red fabric four-seater
VdP replica body. It had an unsupercharged
4½ Litre engine and lacked
a supercharger unit. I saw this car
in Stanley Mann’s workshop around
1985, and made a note of the component
numbers: engine XR3335 (number damaged,
could have been XR3338, but I am pretty
sure it is XR3335 originally fitted
to chassis XR3335), “D”
type gearbox 7204 (ex chassis SM3905),
differential unit WB2553, banjo XR3335,
steering column MS3934. There was
no visible chassis number. This car
was registered by Cyril Wadsworth
as GY3904 chassis MS3934 and was sold
to Stanley Mann as such. Two photos
I took at the time are reproduced
below, along with a photo taken by
me in Stanley Mann’s showroom
after the rebuild was complete, circa
1989.
Turning to 4½ Litre XR3335,
this car was last listed with the
BDC in 1962. It has since been reconstructed
around a mostly new chassis frame,
using the original front cross-member
XR3335. This leads me to think that
Cyril Wadsworth bought chassis XR3335
in a dismantled state and used it
as a donor car for his Blower project.
Hence the chassis frame under Martin
Perels’ car (the car built up
by Cyril) is possibly that from XR3335
with an unnumbered Blower front crossmember
and dumbiron knuckles, origin unknown.
When bought by Stanley Mann from Cyril
it was, as far as I am aware, a non-runner
and not fitted with a supercharger.
Stanley removed the engine XR3335
and fitted it to another car (4½
Litre chassis XF3525), and sold the
open body then fitted to the chassis.
He fitted a Blower-pattern engine
built up on an original Blower crankcase
SM3920 ex chassis SM3918, and fitted
an original supercharger unit no.
120 ex chassis SM3924. The chassis
was cut to 9'9½" wheelbase
and fitted with a Birkin-replica body
by H&H. I am not sure who owned
this car until it was sold to Martin
Perels, I gather around 1993. It is
still owned by him, as far as I am
aware, at the time of writing.
| Click
on thumbnail for larger view |
BDC index
card for chassis MS3934, traced
through Barnicot, Punter, Petch
and Wadsworth.
This follows the logbook and not
the chassis frame. This is the
car now owned by Martin Perels. |
BDC index
card for chassis SM3902, stating
clearly that it was broken up
for parts in 1949. The engine
reappeared in 1970 in chassis
MS3950, this refers to Ulf Smith.
I am not aware that any parts
of chassis SM3902 ended up in
the car Ulf Smith was building
up (chassis MS3950). Given that
Wadsworth had claimed the identity
for MS3934, Mann opportunistically
claimed that for SM3902. The card
follows this car through Mann,
Clapham, Roberts, and Peter Briggs
(York Motor Museum). |
Given Brian Fenn’s
emphasis on the importance of the
chassis frame in the recent court
case over the Speed Six built by Stanley
Mann, it would seem proper that the
identity MS3934 and registration number
GY3904 be restored to the car built
by Stanley Mann circa 1971/72 using
the chassis frame MS3934, with this
number stamped to the chassis front
cross-member. The Speed Six at the
centre of the court case had, it should
be remembered, only the nearside front
dumbiron knuckle SB2770, and this
is, we are told, sufficient for identity
purposes. The other claimant to the
identity MS3934, the car owned by
Martin Perels in Holland, has only
the steering column MS3934 and as
far as I am aware no-one has ever
seriously argued that a car built
from bits around a steering column
is entitled to the chassis identity
and registration number associated
with the number stamped on the steering
box.
Clare Hay 1 September 2013
| 1974 |
Click
on thumbnail for larger view
An exchange
of letters between Stanley Mann
and Stanley Sedgwick when the
latter was writing his monograph
on the Blowers. Stanley states
that the chassis, or at least
parts thereof, came from Ulf Smith.
Stanley Sedgwick’s letter
is very carefully worded, stating
only that Ulf didn’t own
chassis SM3902. The chassis frame
from this car was almost certainly
scrapped in 1949. Whether Stanley
Mann bought chassis frame MS3934
from Ulf Smith is not at all clear
and I have not been able to ascertain
the full facts. |
| 1972 |
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on thumbnail for larger view
Ulf Smith’s
write up from BDC Review
no. 104, May 1972, of his adventures
with Blowers. The photograph shows,
I think, MS3950 as bought (see
advert below), with engine SM3905
put in for show purposes. I do
not know what became of the unnumbered
chassis frame, but it is possible
that this was MS3934 and that
Ulf sold it to Stanley Mann.
Crankcase SM3905 was later removed
from this car by Peter Briggs
and sold, because it was in poor
condition. |
| |
| July
1970 |
From the
BDC Advertiser for July
1970, for chassis MS3950 bought
by Ulf Smith. I think the seller
was Horsefields of Halifax. |
| July
1974 |
Click
on thumbnail for larger view
The Mann/Briggs
car as built up by Stanley Mann
on chassis MS3934 using engine
SM3905, originally fitted to chassis
SM3902 and registered as that
car. This is from Christies’
sale catalogue for 11 July 1974. |
Click
on thumbnail for larger view
This is
from BDC Review no. 264,
August 2009, and is of interest
because the open sports body fitted
to this chassis is most likely
the original body from MS3934.
It is a high-sided sports body
with long bonnet, finished in
a two-tone colour scheme; as far
as is known this body style was
made by Vanden Plas only for Blower
chassis, and all the bodies are
accounted for apart from that
on MS3934. The date (circa 1947/50)
is consistent with Barnicot’s
dismantling of MS3934, although
I don’t think he is the vicar
in The Lizard. Vanden Plas built
similar bodies on a few late 4½
Litre chassis but as far as I
am aware these all had standard
bonnets, and an example possibly
built by Mayfair on a Blower chassis
(MS3938) was finished in black. |
| Click
on thumbnail for larger view |
Chassis
MS3934 as rebuilt by Stanley Mann
in the early 1970s, as now in
Australia. It was bought by Peter
Briggs, owner of the West Australia
Motor Museum,
from The Clarendon Carriage Co
in 1981 and exported to Australia.
Apart from a change of crankcase
it is still as built by Stanley
Mann with VdP replica body by
Townshend. |
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(Left) The
front crossmember showing clearly
the chassis number MS3934. This
is stamped in the correct place
in the correct orientation, with
the letters above the numbers.
(Right) Underside of the nearside
front dumbiron knuckle showing
the number MS3949 (see text). |
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(Left) Midships
view of the chassis frame showing
the correct 1930 pattern internal
reinforcing bracket used with
bolted strutgear. Three out of
four of these brackets
are still fitted, along with all
the original correct pattern bolted
strut gear. (Right) The steering
column is from a 4½ Litre
chassis UK3298. |
| |
 
(Above)
With bolted strut gear, the steering
column is bolted to the top flange
of the chassis only, with a special
internal reinforcing plate. Fitting
this involves cutting into the
sidemember
reinforcing plate and the engine
bearer. The bracket is fitted
with two 3/8" bolts, peened
over. These bolts can be seen
to the outer face of the sidemember
behind the droparm (right).
The installation to MS3934 is
complete and correct, apart from
spacers to the bolts (double nuts
have been used here). |
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(Above)
The diff unit is from a Standard
Six, chassis no.BX2423 (left),
while the banjo is from a 3 Litre,
chassis SR1422 (right). |
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(Left) The
bonnet is from MS3949, a Blower
rebuilt by Townshend as a Birkin
replica in the early 1970s, around
the time Stanley Mann was building
up MS3934. The switchplate (right)
is from chassis SM3905, another
car rebuilt by Townshend as a
Le Mans replica in the 1960s.
These parts are both consistent
with Stanley Mann buying many
of the parts for this car from
Townshend. |
| |
 
(Left) The
supercharger is an original early
plain case unit, no.124 (the number
can be seen below the starting
handle cap to the front casing).
This is from chassis SM3922
which now has a ribbed casing
blower with an unclear number
that looks to be 133. (Right)
The front axle is from 4½
Litre PM3270. |
| |
 
(Left) “D”
type box fitted to chassis MS3934,
with lid no.7088 and casing no.7150.
(Below) D box 7150 was fitted
to chassis NT3140 in June 1928,
presumably as a new box (the entry
is partially obscured by a pasted-in
slip dated September 1928). (Right)
The magneto turret is from Exp6,
the second known experimental
4½ Litre engine (Exp5 was
a pre-production engine used in
a 3 Litre chassis and later in
a special car raced at Brooklands
by Froy). Unfortunately there
are virtually no records from
inside Bentley Motors about experimental
work. |
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Front axle
beam MS3934 as recovered from
Tim Llewellyn and refitted to
chassis MS3934. The beam is the
correct late pattern heavy beam
with jacking pads,
as fitted to the second series
of chassis (MS3926–MS3950).
The jacking pad can be seen (right)
to the right of the shock absorber. |
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(Left) The
chassis frame of the Wadsworth
car photographed in 1981, showing
a standard 4½ Litre chassis
frame fitted with Blower-pattern
bolted strut gear. The ½"
hole for the standard
4½ Litre steering column
mounting can be seen in the bottom
flange masked by the strut gear
bracket, with no reinforcing inside
the chassis channel for the steering
column bolts.
The photograph to the right shows
a correct Blower chassis frame
with no hole to the bottom flange
above the strut gear bracket as
the Blower has the steering box
bolted to the top flange only,
with a reinforcing bracket fitted
to the frame with the engine bearer
and reinforcing plate cut away
to clear this. This arrangement
is all missing from the Wadsworth
frame. |
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(Above)
These photos were taken by me
in Stanley Mann’s workshop
circa 1986, showing the car built
by Cyril Wadsworth around steering
column MS3934 and registered as
GY3904.
At this date Stanley Mann was
rebuilding it as a Birkin short
chassis replica. The engine is
a standard 4½ Litre unit
no. XR3335, with SU H6 carburettors.
No supercharger was fitted as
Cyril Wadsworth couldn’t
locate one. My contemporary notes
list the component numbers for
this car, none of them from MS3934,
apart from the steering column,
and that the chassis
frame was to standard 4½
Litre specification apart from
the front cross-member. No chassis
number could be seen to the latter. |
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A further
photograph taken by me of the
Wadsworth car as rebuilt by Stanley
Mann, in his showroom circa 1989.
Stanley Mann fitted a “bitsa”
blower specification engine
based on crankcase SM3920 from
chassis SM3918 after the latter
was fitted with a new crankcase
by Elmdown Engineering. Initially
a new John Bentley-made supercharger
was fitted,
then an original unit no. 120
from chassis SM3924 with a new
finned centre section. |
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Underbonnet
view of the Wadsworth car in 2010,
during my inspection, with the
deckboard removed and paint stripped
from the front crossmember.
No chassis number could be found
on the crossmember. I did not
check the nearside front dumbiron
knuckle as at that time I didn’t
know these are numbered. |
| |
 
(Left) The
Wadsworth chassis from below,
showing that the front crossmember
is more heavily corroded than
the rest of the chassis. (The
rest of the frame is in very good
condition.)
This looks to me to be an original
Bentley part, and not a modern
replica. (Right) Steering column
MS3934 in the Wadsworth car, as
seen in 2010. |
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(Above)
The steering column mounting to
the Wadsworth car. This is standard
4½ Litre, with the rivet
pattern for a standard 4½
Litre chassis visible behind the
droparm.
The left-hand photo shows that
the rear steering box bolt has
been retained from the standard
4½ Litre mounting, with
the bolted pattern strut gear
modified to suit.
The front bolt goes through the
top flange only. |
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Rear gearbox
crossmember of the Wadsworth car,
showing the drilling (partly covered
by the spacer washer) for a “C”
type gearbox. Blower frames were
drilled as standard only
for the “D” type box
which has, as seen here, the offside
mounting lug offset further to
the right. This is consistent
with Wadsworth building the car
on a standard 4½ Litre
chassis frame with Blower-pattern
front crossmember and knuckles
added. |
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