The Motorists' Bedside Blook

New for Christmas reading, the Motorists' Bedside Blook by Eric Dymock, available for Kindle.

This book by Eric Dymock is for those who like dipping idly into the past days of motoring, who have an interest in classic cars and motor racing. It will remind enthusiasts of the cherished Motorists’ Bedside books that included contributors such as John Bolster, Steady Barker and William Boddy. “I used to love picking up those books and lose myself for a while in the halcyon days of motoring and its personalities”, sighs Eric. This is for readers who motor, who like cars, and probably have more than a passing interest in classic cars and motor racing.

To bring Eric’s motoring bedside miscellany up to date, this electronic blook is designed for tablet easy reading. Excerpts are chosen from his lifetime experiences of cars and car people, and have been influenced by friends, family and car enthusiasts. The author sees it as the result of having parents who bequeathed a fortune in good sound common sense, and a profound scepticism of political and environmental activists.

Priced £4.90, The Motorists' Bedside Blook goes on Amazon today with over 70 pictures, mostly in colour, like this one of the prescient Lohner Porsche with hub-mounted motors.

More digitised photographs

Goodwood Easter Monday April 2 1956, and the Richmond Formula 1 race for the Glover Trophy was extended to 32 laps (76miles). BRM was getting over its dog days with two of the cars introduced the year before, driven by Tony Brooks and, looking a bit as though he had anticipated the starter’s flag’s first twitch in Bill Henderson’s photograph, Mike Hawthorn. The first lap was Hawthorn’s but on the second was overtaken by Archie Scott-Brown in number 6, the Syracuse Connaught. In October 1955 Brooks had covered Connaught in glory by beating nine Maseratis and two Ferraris to win the Syracuse Grand Prix. It was applauded as the first grand prix win by a British car since Segrave’s Sunbeam in 1924. Not quite a championship race but it was the best all-British win in a big race for a long time.

In the Glover Trophy Brooks was in a second BRM starting from the second row, but went out after 10 laps with low oil pressure. Hawthorn disputed the lead with Scott-Brown and Moss, whose Maserati No 1 was now fuel-injected. Les Leston and Bob Gerard (Connaughts) were in the running until by half distance Moss was in the lead and drew away by 2sec a lap. The Maserati gained on acceleration, the Connaughts drawing away on the straights. On lap 22, according to a contemporary account, “something went wrong with the BRM suspension and the car slid off the road upside down. Hawthorn escaped with a shaking. Moss was now without a rival, leading by half a lap, the steady Gerard third a lap behind Salvadori. Moss averaged 94.35mph, the fastest race yet seen at the circuit.”

Result: 1. Stirling Moss (Maserati) 48:50.4; 2 Roy Salvadori (Maserati) 49.53.6; Les Leston (Connaught) 50.25.8; FR Gerard (Connaught) 31 laps; Reg Parnell (Connaught) 31 laps; Robert Manzon (Gordini) 30 laps. Fastest lap Moss 1min30.2sec (new record).
The 8-cylinder Gordini No 2 is the pretty one with the cowled front on the left of the picture. Among the other starters were Le Mans winner Louis Rosier (Maserati) and Ken Wharton driving Rosier’s Ferrari. WK Henderson had an outstanding career as Scotland’s photographer for Autosport and his great archive is available on http://www.thebillhendersoncollection.co.uk.

Hawthorn “escaping with a shaking” was not the only mishap of the afternoon. Compare race reporting then with now. “Two fatal accidents marred the day. APO Rogers (Sun-pat Special) and AFF Dennis, driving Hamilton’s D-type Jaguar, both sustained fatal injuries.”

Aston Martin to downgrade?

It is hardly surprising that Moody's Investors Service has things under review as Aston runs through cash reserves. Moody's analyst Falk Frey: "The review was prompted by a significant deterioration in Aston Martin's liquidity profile as per end September 2012, caused by a much weaker cash generation and operating performance in the third quarter."

Aston has been on the brink of failure before. Its founders of 1914, Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford set up in 1922, yet were forced to wind it up in 1925. It was only Aston’s racing that sustained it under AC Bertelli and then RG Sutherland, until 1948 when it was taken over by David Brown. He had just bought Lagonda, which made available a twin overhead cam 2.5litre engine designed by WO Bentley.

Once again racing was a key and the Claud Hill-designed, essentially pre-war 2litre, driven by St John Horsfall won its class in the 1946 Belgian Grand Prix. A new car with independent front suspension and open bodywork with separate wings was built quickly for Horsfall and Leslie Johnson to win the Spa 24 hours’ race. Encouraged, the new owner embarked on a programme of racing and a range of great sports and GT cars.

In 1972 the David Brown Group sold Aston Martin to Company Developments Ltd., a Birmingham-based consortium, under accountant William Willson MBE, but following another bankruptcy the receiver sold Aston in 1975 to American Peter Sprague and George Minden for £1.05 million. They returned it to a trading profit in 1977, and William Towns styled a Lagonda saloon with advanced and extremely complicated electronic systems, which turned out to be a mistake. The firm was hit by the economic slowdown of the 1980s, sales collapsing to three cars a week and chairman Alan Curtis nearly closed it. In the nick of time he attended a Stirling Moss benefit day at Brands Hatch sponsored by Pace Petroleum, and met its proprietor Victor Gauntlett.
Curtis had plans to buy MG, and a prototype Aston-MG was built, but MG Rover would not relinquish the title.

Victor Gauntlett bought a 12.5 per cent stake in Aston Martin for £500,000. Tim Hearley of CH Industrials did he same, and Pace and CHI became joint owners in 1981. Robust, patriotic Gauntlett was executive chairman and effectively head of sales. Pace Petroleum sponsored racing and the Nimrod Group C car, owned by Aston Martin Owners’ Club president Viscount Downe, came third in the Manufacturers Championship in 1982 and 1983, finishing seventh at Le Mans. Once again, however, annual sales collapsed to an all time low of 30.

Gauntlett had to sell out to the Kuwait Investment Office in September 1983. Then, as Aston Martin needed cash, he also agreed to sell his share to American importer and Greek shipping tycoon Peter Livanos, who invested via his joint venture company ALL Inc, with Nick and John Papanicalou. Gauntlett remained chairman with 55 per cent owned by ALL, with Tickford a 50/50 venture between ALL and CHI. This ended when ALL exercised options to buy a larger share. CHI's residual shares were exchanged for CHI's complete ownership of Tickford.

In 1984 Titan, the Papanicolaou’s shipping company was in trouble, so Livanos's father George bought their shares in ALL, leaving Gauntlett once again a shareholder in Aston with 25 per cent. The company was valued at £2 million the year it built its 10,000th car.

The irrepressible Gauntlett bought a stake in Zagato, resurrecting its collaboration with Aston Martin while negotiating a return to the James Bond films. Producer Cubby Broccoli had recast Bond with actor Timothy Dalton, intending to bring Bond back closer to the original of Sean Connery. The great Gauntlett narrowly turned down the role of a KGB colonel in the film.

Sales prospered until a pressing need for investment in new models. It was time for another of the chance meetings of minds that punctuated Aston Martin history. In May 1987, Gauntlett and Prince Michael of Kent were guests of Contessa Maggi, wife of the founder of the Mille Miglia, revived as a classic event. Walter Hayes, vice-President of Ford of Europe was also a guest and although still smarting over Ford’s aborted negotiations to take over Brian Angliss’s AC Cars, Hayes knew the potential in a premium brand.

Ford took a shareholding in September 1987. After producing 5,000 cars in 20 years, the economy was improving, sales of limited edition Vantage, and £86,000 Volante Zagato coupes rose, the venerable V8 ceased and the Virage was introduced. Gauntlett remained chairman for two years while Hayes took stock, contriving an engineering rationale for a new, smaller Aston Martin. Ford took full control, Gauntlett handing over the chairmanship in 1991.

Ford put Aston into the Premier Automotive Group, opened a new factory in 1994 at Banbury Road in Bloxham. There was investment in manufacturing, production quickly increased to a record 700 in 1995; the 2,000th DB7 came in 1998 and in 2002 the 6,000th. Aston Martin now made more cars in a year than it had made in all its history. The DB7 was enhanced by the V12 Vantage in 1999, and in 2001 the V12 Vanquish.

In 2003 Aston Martin moved to Gaydon and in 2004, set up a 12,500 sq m (135,000 sq ft) AMEP engine production plant within Ford Germany at Niehl, Cologne. This could produce 5000 engines a year but under pressure from America, Ford divested itself of the Premier Automotive Group, selling first Aston Martin, then Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo. UBS AG was appointed in August 2006 to sell Aston Martin by auction and on 12 March 2007 a consortium led by Prodrive chairman David Richards and co-owned by Investment Dar and businessman John Sinders, purchased it for £475m ($848m). Prodrive had no financial involvement and Ford kept a stake, valued at £40 million ($70 million).

Now there have been bids from Investindustrial and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Investindustrial, a European private-equity fund based in London, offered just under £250 million, Indian Mahindra then making a higher bid. The winner would get 50 percent of voting rights and a 40 percent equity stake. Investindustrial plans to use technology and car parts from AMG Mercedes-Benz. Aston Martin still gets engines from Ford but lost access to other resources after Ford sold it.

Dramatic V16 BRM

I have been digitising.

I have no pictures of the first time I saw it winning a race at Turnberry, Ayrshire. But I took some in 1967 at a Formula 2 race at Oulton Park when Jackie Stewart demonstrated it. What a sensational noise the supercharged V16 made. Stewart fairly lit up the back wheels on the Oulton Park start line

Up to the 1970s BRM competed in grands prix longer than anybody except Ferrari. They had watched the passing of Alfa Romeo, Alta, Gordini, Talbot, Cooper, Vanwall, Maserati, Connaught, Aston Martin, Porsche, Honda, Eagle and more. Yet it was a hangover from a bygone age. BRM arrived in racing about the same time as Fangio. Graham Hill had barely got behind a wheel; Jackie Stewart was ten. British Racing Motors was conceived by Raymond Mays out of the ashes of the pre-war English Racing Automobiles (ERA). The British motor industry, Mays reasoned, ought to be concerned with racing, if not individually then collectively. The old inspiration of racing for national prestige persisted.

If only it had been that simple. The resources of BRM would have been barely sufficient to run a team of ordinary cars, far less design, build and develop anything so monumentally complicated like the BRM V16, even if it was a copy of something Germany had been going to produce in the 1940s. The engine, a supercharged 1½ litre of astonishing complexity, would have been more than a new team could cope with.

Mays had miscalculated. He was out of tune with a new age and the entire British Motor Racing Research Trust that he had created eventually had to be sold. It was bought by industrialist Sir Alfred Owen, one of its earliest supporters. BRM was never forgiven its opening debacle at the Silverstone International Trophy race in 1951. Over-publicised and under-developed, the long-awaited V16 lurched forward a yard or two and stopped with a broken transmission.

It raced on after the formula for which it was built had been superseded, usually in British national races of little significance like the one I saw at Turnberry. In the first seasons of the 2½ litre formula BRM bought a Maserati to gain experience, then at the end of 1955 brought out its own car. Where the V16 had been complex and difficult to manage, the new car was simple, reliable and competitive. It failed to make the grade at first but by 1959 BRM had won a championship grand prix, although rival Vanwall had overtaken it and won the constructor's championship. It was only after Sir Alfred Owen had issued an ultimatum that unless it won races BRM would be shut down, that it gained the drivers' and constructors' world championships. In 1962 the 1½ litre V8 BRM gave the team, led by Graham Hill, its most successful season ever.

Quiet day at Silverstone

Two hundred and twenty five Nissan Leafs driving round the grand prix circuit doesn’t sound much of a spectacle. It’s apparently a Guinness World Record for the largest parade of electric vehicles. I would have thought a good morning at Unigate could match that. Or a biggish club with golf trolleys. Chrysler held the record until now. 218. Nissan Leaf owners travelled from around the UK from, “as far afield as Aberdeen and Belfast, to meet up at the world-famous circuit on Saturday 24th November.”

The stunt was organised by Nissan, “to bring together owners of the world’s best selling electric vehicle to share their ownership experiences and to gather information about how they use their cars.” Brave. Especially keeping all those lights on. How long did it take to drive a Leaf from Aberdeen to Northants? How many times did they charge the batteries? How long did it take in ampere-hours? They have only sold 499 Nissan Leafs so far this year, so 225 looks like getting on for half. Silverstone couldn’t accommodate half this year’s sales of, say, Minis. Nobody grudges the electric car industry some publicity, but “The multi-award winning Nissan LEAF has entered the record books again,” sounds like desperation. The Society of Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) says only 812 battery cars of all makes have been bought this year, notwithstanding the government largesse of £5,000 each. The Leaf is the most popular. None of the other five has sold a quarter as many. Citroën has managed only 21 C-Zeros. There’s one for the record books.

Alfa Romeo

The Società Anonima Italiana Darracq (SAID) was founded in 1906, with Italian investment, by French car maker Pierre Alexandre Darracq (1855-1931). Its Darracq cars and taxis did not sell well, so in 1909 it was reformed as the Società Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili (ALFA) or Lombard Automobile Factory Ltd, still in partnership with Darracq, commissioning Giuseppe Merosi to design a home-grown 24 HP for 1910. ALFA raced two of these in a works team, driven by Franchini and Ronzoni, in the 1911 Targa Florio. Under pressure to produce military hardware for the Italian and Allied war efforts, in August 1915 the company reorganised under Neapolitan entrepreneur Nicola Romeo, who changed the name to Alfa Romeo. It restarted car production in 1920 with the Torpedo 20-30 HP, with industrialist Romeo adding his name to ALFA along with the Milan coat of arms, the red Crusader cross of the Dukes of Milan, on the left of its badge. On the right a serpent devours either a child, or a defeated Saracen, there is some dispute over which.

Romeo left in 1928, the company facing ruin after defence contracts ended, and bleak years until it was nationalised by Mussolini's government in 1932. It was producing some memorable cars, even though once again obliged to turn over its best efforts to aero engines and armaments supporting Italy’s war aims. The racing team was deputed to Enzo Ferrari’s Scuderia Ferrari; however the skill and daring of the best drivers of the day were unequal to the task of beating the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union teams from Germany.

Alfa Romeo struggled back to profitability after the Second World War, mass-producing small vehicles rather than hand-building luxury models until the 1960s and 1970s, when it managed a return to sporty cars. Its Italian government parent company, Finmeccanica obliged to make a profit, sold the brand to Fiat in 1986.

Alfa Romeo's position in Italy’s social structure was emphasised in 1971, when it was instructed to set up a new factory making a small car in the south of Italy, an area of chronic unemployment. Giugiaro had a hand in the new model, known, because of the location of the new plant, as the Alfasud.

It was no ordinary economy car. Like almost every Alfa, it maintained the make's tradition for roadworthiness, remaining probably the best-handling small car in the world. Its flat-four engine and front wheel drive lent themselves to a sporting application, putting the Alfasud Sprint and certain Lancia models in an unusual position amongst sporting classics, with front wheel drive.

Alfasuds began life with a modest 1186cc, but the engine was enlarged to provide the Sprint Veloce with 1490cc, giving up to 105mph (169kph) and the best part of 28mpg (10l/100km). The Alfasud scored well, not so much through being fast - compared with many sports cars it was not, but it could be steered with great precision, placed on the road exactly where the driver wanted to go, with little body roll and a flat, even ride that went a long way to make up for the rather mean-looking interior. Even the admired Alfa Romeo mechanically musical noises remained -the Sud's little 'Boxer' engine produced a delightfully discreet rasping exhaust note.

TEXT from Sports Car Classics, Vol1, Dove Digital. Pictures Alfa Romeo 158 of he 1940s and 6C of the 1930s at Goodwood. Alfasud and modern reinterpretation of Alfa Romeo Disco Volante.