Ecurie Ecosse - World Cup

Describing Ecurie Ecosse as a, “two-time Le Mans 24 Hours-winning squad” is as disingenuous as calling England FIFA World Cup winners. Ecurie Ecosse won Le Mans in 1956 and 1957, England the World Cup in 1966. I suppose stretching credulity is what publicists do. It’s nice to see Ecurie Ecosse racing again and I’m delighted it managed a “… solid finish” in the “challenging Blancpain Endurance race at Silverstone.” It races Barwell BMW Z4 GT3s and while 34th overall can’t match two Le Mans wins on the trot, it was probably quite hard work, “after battling tricky weather conditions at the British Grand Prix venue.” Not quite the debut win by Alasdair McCaig and Roger Bryant at Oulton Park, but satisfactory.

This is not the Ecurie Ecosse BMW. This is another BMW winning the 2010 24 Hours race at the Nurburgring

I don’t much envy Andrew Smith, Ecurie Ecosse’s publicist. Roy Hodgson, England manager, had a similar problem at the Donbass Arena when a French journalist quipped that England was no longer a major football power. “Of course we feel the weight of history," Hodgson said. "It was a facetious question but there was an element of truth in what he was saying. As a top nation we haven't won as many tournaments as we should or done as well as we should."

It was the same with Ecurie Ecosse. Founded in 1952 it was well presented, highly competitive and successful. Winning Le Mans barely four years later, almost the only private team that ever managed it, was astonishing even with covert support from Jaguar. It was, alas, downhill from then, except for a few minor triumphs such as almost inventing (with John Tojeiro) the mid-engined coupe and spotting the potential of both the Buick V8 and Jackie Stewart.

Nearly all that 1950s “squad” are gone; David Murray the team patron, Wilkie Wilkinson, all the drivers Ron Flockhart, Ninian Sanderson and Ivor Bueb, although happily mechanics survive, Stan Sproat and Ron Gaudion, from whom I heard only the other week. He lives in Australia and endorsed some of the views I took in Ecurie Ecosse, David Murray and the Legendary Scottish Motor Racing Team (PJ Publishing 2007), about Wilkie, whose role as an engineering expert I thought much exaggerated.

Ron confirmed that Wilkie’s Snetterton crash in XKD 501 (MWS 301)was entirely his own fault and XKD 603 (RSF 303 second Le Mans 1957 was prepared by Ron and Stan Sproat, while 606 (RSF 301) the fuel injected 1957 winner, was rebuilt at the works. Lofty England would not countenance it returning to Edinburgh because he had no confidence in Wilkie. Likeable enough but self-serving, it was all very well Wilkie tuning MG carburettors with a stethoscope at the Evans’s Bellevue Garage in the 1930s. Twenty years later he was well out of his depth.

What a tangled web they wove.

Hooray for Hydrogen

Abandon wind farms and subsidise hydrogen. Sages in the Guild of Motoring Writers volunteered the view that subsidies to energy available only when the wind blew, should be redirected. They were watching a fuel cell Honda topping up at a hydrogen filling station. There were no illusions that setting up a national hydrogen network will take years, but somebody needs to calculate its benefits.

Some are self-evident. More hydrogen cars would mean less dependence on oil, and clean up the air. Fuel cell cars are as smooth and silent as any conceived by Lanchester or Royce. Spending billions encouraging them would surely gain approval from both environmentalists and left-wing subsidy junkies.

This open access hydrogen filling station was opened last September inside the Honda factory.Built and operated by industrial gases company BOC, it was a partnership of Honda, BOC and Forward Swindon the local economic development company. Open to anyone developing hydrogen-powered cars, it can fill at both the 350 bar and 700 bar pressures agreed by industry. Its aim is to encourage development of hydrogen-powered vehicles, such as the Honda FCX, and supporting infrastructure.

It still works on a ‘back-to-back’ system from a bank of hydrogen cylinders, which means filling takes place without waiting for hydrogen to be generated.

The occasion was the Guild AGM, and was a convincing demonstration that given the will, fuel cell cars must be the goal. Hybrid electrics, even good ones like the Chevrolet Volt/Vauxhall Ampera with a realistic range, are at best a stop-gap. The rest, like the Nissan Leaf, cannot be taken seriously as practical alternatives to petrol or diesel.

The Guild worthies were right. Switch to fuel cells and stop polluting the countryside with grotesque, wasteful and inefficient wind farms.

The Queen's Bentley

Self-important presenters, celebrity-obsession, unforgivable technical errors and corporate pomposity put me off BBC coverage of the Diamond Jubilee. I turned to Sky (as so often nowadays when the BBC is like listening to The Guardian) only to hear commentary on the Queen’s Rolls-Royce. In full frontal view they called the Queen’s Bentley a Rolls-Royce. It was almost as bad as calling the Queen HRH instead of Her Majesty. Somebody even told viewers the admiral on the Thames pageant was wearing a hat by the same maker as the one Nelson wore at Waterloo. THE COMPLETE BENTLEY ebook

Would that be when he was catching the train to Portsmouth?

Aide memoire to TV presenters from The Complete Bentley (Dove Publishing Ltd, 2008)

2002 The Queen’s State Bentley

In 1952 Royalty changed to Rolls-Royces for state occasions. Daimlers, some of them grand tall smoky sleeve-valved Edwardians had been employed for generations, until devalued by the controversial Dockers. Half a century later on May 29, Bentley joined the ranks of formal limousines, when chairman and chief executive Franz-Josef Paefgen presented one to the Queen at Windsor Castle. He was representing a consortium of British based companies recognising Her Majesty’s Golden Jubilee. The Queen’s father owned a Bentley when he was Duke of York, her uncles Prince George later Duke of Kent, and the Prince of Wales later King Edward VIII despite a liking for Empire-made Buicks, had been Bentley owners, but the new limousine was for state processions. Although unique, its basis was a Red Label Arnage, stretched lengthwise and upwards, with rear-hinged back doors that opened to 81 deg so that Her Majesty could alight walking upright. It was presented in time for official duties on June 4. Designed for a lifespan of 25 years and 125,000 miles, it was to be the Queen's principal transport for ceremonial occasions, but the greenhouse effect in the rear posed problems. Darkened glass could have been fitted to keep the temperature in check on warm days, but the Royal Mews pointed out that the Queen wanted to be seen. Not only that, one wanted to see out. The solution was laminated glass with a reflective layer, tinted only 15 per cent, which would be scarcely noticeable. The roof panels were dimmed by 40 per cent and extra air-conditioning ensured the rear cabin remained cool in hot weather. The design team had to bear in mind that on ceremonial duty the car could be going as slowly as 5 or 10mph so there would be no cooling airflow. The rear seats were adjustable for height so that the occupants could be seen at the same level squarely through the rear side window. Computer modelling, and testing at the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), helped devise a system that distributed a large slow-moving mass of cool air silently about the car. Security arrangements that might have been responsible for the substantial increase in weight over the standard Arnage were not revealed.

INTRODUCTION 2002. BODY Limousine; 4-doors, 4 or 6-seats; weight 3390kg (7474lb). ENGINE V8-cylinders 90deg, in-line; front; 104.14mm x 99.06mm, 6750cc; compr 8:1; 298kW (399.62bhp) @ 4000rpm; 44.1kW (59.14bhp)/l; 830Nm (612.2lbft) @ 2100rpm. ENGINE STRUCTURE L410IT; pushrod overhead valves; central gear-driven camshaft, aluminium block and cylinder heads; Bosch electronic fuel injection and engine management; Garrett T048 turbocharger 0.75bar (10.88psi), intercooler; 5-bearing crankshaft. TRANSMISSION rear wheel drive; GM 4L80E Turbo-Hydramatic 4-speed automatic; final drive 2.69:1. CHASSIS steel monocoque with sub-frames; independent suspension by coil springs and wishbones; anti roll bars; adaptive electro-hydraulic telescopic dampers with self-levelling; hydraulic vacuum servo ventilated disc brakes, front 34.8cm (13.7in) dia, rear 34.5cm (13.58in) dia, dual circuit, ABS; rack and pinion PAS; 94l (20.67gal) fuel tank; 255/50 ZR 18 tyres 7.5J rims. DIMENSIONS wheelbase 384.3cm (151.3in); track 160.78cm (63.3in); length 622cm (244.9in) width 214.88cm (84.6in); height 177cm (69.7in). EQUIPMENT Glass division between front and rear, lowered from a console between the seats; intercom; security equipment. PERFORMANCE maximum speed electronically limited, 193kph (120mph); 64.5kph (40.18mph) @ 1000rpm.

Sir Frank Williams

When Bernie was asked on the starting grid who he’d like to see win the Spanish Grand Prix, the hard-bitten old impresario said “Williams.” Winning for Sir Frank’s 70^th birthday party seemed a long shot. It had not won since 2004. Like Manchester City’s last-minute triumph you couldn’t make it up.

I thought the bubbly, slightly devious but thoroughly likeable keep-fit fanatic we used to call W**k*r (rhyme it with Franker) Williams older than that. He had been in grand prix racing, it seemed, for ever and certainly most of the 1960s to the 1980s, when it was my job to cover it. I knew him as a hustler, a bustler always seemingly on the brink of financial disaster, who could sell sponsorship from a red kiosk owing, it was said, to a temporary anomaly over his domestic phone bill.

What a hero. Fidgety, mercurial, wiry, wide-eyed; we followed him from crisis to crisis, with unlikely sponsors and unlikely cars. You had to admire his cheek. He was up against the engineering genius of Colin Chapman, the cunning of Enzo Ferrari, the pragmatism of John and Charles Cooper and the stolid practicality of Jack Brabham. Well funded and well organised grand prix teams had come, with smooth-talking PROs - yes even then – and ignominiously gone.

Frank Williams didn’t need a PRO. He was available, loquacious even, in the paddock winning or, as often as not, losing. He once stopped me in my tracks with: “That was a nice piece you wrote about us in The Guardian.” Hardly anybody else ever did that. Graham Hill was one. None of the others read, registered or understood.

Williams’ setbacks were cruel and colossal. He had to come back after the bright star of Piers Courage was snuffed out at Zandvoort in 1970. He endured Ayrton Senna’s accident at Imola in 1994 to say nothing of the Italian police scapegoating afterwards. Frank’s own accident in 1986 one felt sure would paralyse his career, as well as him.

Well, it didn’t. Awards, such as the well deserved Helen Rollason for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity, and national recognition acknowledge as much. Congratulations Sir Franker; one of the motor racing greats along with Chapman and Ferrari. And if, who knows, Bernie does manipulate Formula 1 like some super telemetry Scalextric set, he couldn’t have written a better scene than this one.

Except maybe for the fire.

Duncan Hamilton

Duncan Hamilton was not so much economical with the truth as reckless with it. Jaguar historians don’t believe his story of how he and Tony Rolt won Le Mans in 1953. It is always a shame to let the facts stand in the way of a good story, but it seems the infraction that caused all the trouble was during Thursday practice not, as Hamilton tells it, the day before the race.

The ever-trustworthy Andrew Whyte noted that Lofty England “doesn’t go along with Hamilton’s version … of the incident,” and published a photograph showing that there were indeed two Number 18s in front of the pits during practice, - no big deal but against the rules. Sir William Lyons had to pay a fine for the infringement.

Norman Dewis, the Jaguar test driver told biographer Paul Skilleter how Lyons summoned Jaguar public relations executive Bob Berry in the small hours after Thursday practice, to compose an apology to the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. Lofty spent Friday sorting things out. So whatever prompted Hamilton and Rolt to “go on a bender” the night before the race, it wasn’t the threat of disqualification, which had been lifted.

Nevertheless Hamilton’s version prompted a review of the reissued book, which I have included in the new ebook Eric Dymock on Cars 1991, available to purchase on Amazon at an introductory £1.27.

The Sunday Times 20 January 1991

Racer who lived in the fast lane

DUNCAN HAMILTON is not so much economical with the truth as reckless with it. In an introduction to Touch Wood, his father’s reissued autobiography, Adrian Hamilton cheerfully acknowledges that when first published in 1960, “it just didn’t matter if in places it might be less than nitpickingly accurate — it captured the flavour of a bygone age in which sporting achievement alone was never enough without fun along the way”.

Duncan Hamilton’s idea of fun might not have been everybody else’s even in 1960. Boisterous to the point of delinquency on his own admission during service in the Fleet Air Arm, his high-spirited, perilous career continued after the war in motor racing.

He drove Talbots, ERAs and HWMs with great vigour and his victory at Le Mans in 1953 became the stuff of legend. Partnered by Major A P R Rolt* in the official Jaguar team, his car was disqualified the night before the race on a technicality and, in Hamilton’s own words, they “went on a bender”.

Reinstated the next morning, their only cure for a substantial hangover was the “hair of the dog”. They not only survived one of the world’s most arduous motor races, but won at a record speed, nearly 10mph faster than the winning Mercedes- Benz the year before and for the first time more than 100mph.

On a more practical note, the AA’s books on guiding motorists around Britain have set their own high standards. The latest series, Britain on Country Roads, includes one that helps drivers avoid main roads and encourages them to explore places bypassed by motorways and trunk routes. It describes 96 mini-tours of 50 to 90 miles, illustrating places of interest, and includes careful route directions. The maps are clear and the quality of production is exemplary.

*Anthony Peter Roylance "Tony" Rolt, MC and Bar (1918 – 2008) was more than a motor racing hero. Awarded the MC as a Lieutenant in the Rifle Corps in the defence of Calais, he was taken prisoner and after a number of escape attempts was sent to Colditz, where he planned to escape by glider. Hamilton’s book gained collectors’ status, the AA books have not. Some second-hand bookshops refuse to stock them; they take up so much space. So many were sold and then languished, mostly unread, on bookshelves throughout the land to accumulate on house clearances

Daddy's Rolls-Royce

DADDY'S ROLLS-ROYCE

Number one daughter on left waves a toffee-wrapper. Number two has missed out what number one is chewing. Neither is impressed with the Rolls-Royce Silver Spur.

RRM1 is a cherished registration Rolls-Royce Motors keeps for press demonstrators, sold afterwards, no doubt, to customers who wouldn’t like to think they’d been handled by mere hacks. Or ignored by toffee-chewing daughters.

Relaunching the Blog I have spent two months working on a series of four ebooks, a Vintage Archive Tetrology, Quadrology Quadrille even, Eric Dymock on Cars 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992. They are collections of road tests, features, my choice of 100 best cars, in short the entire year’s output, save for the major books, TV and radio scripts, and some other items that did not seem very interesting. Watch this space. One is already in the public domain, Eric Dymock on Cars 1990 is available from Amazon at an introductory price.

What did I write about the Rolls-Royce in a business magazine?

If you have to ask the price, they say, you probably can’t afford it. But so that the company accountant can send off the cheque, a Silver Spur, is £62,778, give or take a personal foible or two such as special body colours or fancy figured leather. A more modest executive might go for a Silver Spirit at £55,240, four inches shorter, which means less room in the back but otherwise not a lot different. There is an up-market Silver Spur at £68,278 for captains of industry, or one of the better-off aristocrats who may not want a hand-built Phantom, or company chairman who wants a glass division to keep the chauffeur from overhearing. This has a small, well-equipped but discreet drinks cupboard; Rolls-Royce prefers the term cocktail cabinet, perhaps nostalgic of an era when all cars had leather seats, and nobody thought of a facia in anything other than figured veneer.

Without being unkind, other aspects of the Rolls-Royce are just as old-fashioned. Frederick Henry Royce began his working life in the Great Northern Railway Works at Peterborough; locomotive engineering dies hard at Crewe. Silver Spur doors clunk shut like those of railway carriages and locknuts hold things together in impressive engineering orthodoxy.

Well, it was 1984. Daughters have grown. Search Velocette on the blog for number one, Charlotte. Here she is at Goodwood Revival, suitably Vintage-clad.

Number two Joanna now has to share toffees with number two grandson Jasper.

To see other grandson Teddy: - search blog:- Number One Grandson.

Silver Spur continued:

More modern cars go faster and handle better. Some are more comfortable and soak up road bumps more smoothly. Yet there is no car in which it is better to be a passenger. Keen drivers  can by-pass Rolls-Royces; they would be better with a Daimler Double-Six at less than half the price, or even a decent Mercedes-Benz and spend the change on something else - high living, or a Porsche for a favourite secretary.

Yet if you want a badge of success or a symbol of prestige nothing else will do. Even cars of the same price but lesser merit won't do - they merely mark you down as eccentric, flashy or, perhaps worse, both. Rolls-Royce merits of longevity, build quality, luxury and finish barely require repetition. They are the justification for the price tag and a judgement on their value depends on the circumstances of the buyer.

A more fundamental question, perhaps, is whether the maker is serving its own interests by a policy of engineering extravagance in the face of increasingly formidable opposition. It is all very well having the world’s most valuable prestige symbol, but are there enough customers left who simply want to ride around in the back? Their numbers have been diminishing and the trend seems likely to continue. It is not as though the Rolls-Royce is wholly dull. It has a top speed getting on for 120mph and will reach 60mph in ten seconds, a reasonably lively performance.

Its best achievement is probably the way it insulates, almost isolates the occupants from road rumble and traffic noise, difficult without building an immensely big and heavy car. Success in this even seems to elude Mercedes-Benz although the Daimler Jaguars manage to be at least as quiet as the Rolls-Royce. Yet it is a car that imposes its own driving regime. It is big and heavy, and it is difficult to disguise its own momentum if you drive it fast. It is better to slow down and opt for grace and style. Rolls-Royce will argue they build cars to be driven that way because that is how the customers want them. But the fact remains that you can drive a Mercedes or a Jaguar slowly if you want to, the comfort is undiminished, and most drivers enjoy the choice. I doubt if Rolls-Royce would know how to make a car that handles well, such are the conflicting requirements of the great weight of railway engineering. Such luxury and refinement might simply be unattainable.

“Porsche for a favourite secretary” sounds patronising. It was 1984. I wouldn’t write that now.

Royce, railway engineer, a vocation shared with WO Bentley.