Ford Focus RS, Bo'ness and Queen Mary

Critical feature of the Ford Focus RS (above) is probably the body shell redesign that stiffens it beautifully. It provides assured handling yet a surprisingly compliant ride. Magazine track testers (as opposed to road testers) were lyrical. Not quite sure what they meant by “barmy and tremendously engaging” but I was astonished to find that on the road it was perfectly civilised, tractable and even comfortable. The tyre-smoking adventurers who seem to inhabit car magazines these days probably had Drive Mode turned to the curious “Drift” setting, giving what Ford calls “controlled oversteer” on corners. That is to say you can, in the old jargon of Jack Brabham in about 1960, “hang the tail out”, a cornering technique that hasn’t been seen in Formula 1 much from that day to this.

I suppose it’s spectacular but in terms of ftds I can’t see it being swifter. More Top Gear than Real World. The Focus’s four wheel drive biases the torque to achieve the effect rather than enhance the driving. Drive Mode backed off to Normal does a perfectly good job thank you with commendable grip enabling 350PS from the 2.3litre turbocharged 4-cylinder to propel you with equanimity You get to 60 in less than 5sec and I’m sure onwards to 165mph if pressed. The RS turns out to be astonishingly refined and even acceptably quiet for a car so fast. You could pay twice the price (£35,125 for the all-bells-and-whistles nitrous blue one I had) for something with a far fancier name than Ford.

You might argue that the Launch Control and Drive Mode stuff confers driving skill to the electronics but it makes going fast a whole lot safer for wistful Jack Brabhams. Superb seats hold you in place; you’re fitted-in to an RS so you are both-all-of-a-piece and in full control. Autocar was right. Five Star and Tremendously Engaging. Maybe “barmy” on track days but with engineering that flatters drivers so they can show off quite securely.

Used the RS at the Association of Scottish Motoring Writers’ presentation of the Jim Clark Memorial Award to the Bo’ness Hill Climb Revival. Bill Drysdale and Kenny Baird collected the trophy for the committee that re-established the venue as a sort of mini-Goodwood for a series now in its ninth year.

Bo’ness hill-climbs started in 1932 with the West Lothian Motorcycle Club and later the Scottish Sporting Car Club. The first combined car and motorcycle meeting was in June 1934 and the RAC gave it an International License in 1947 for the inaugural British Hill Climb Championship. It was the first motoring competition I ever went to. Aged about 13 I took a bus from Motherwell.

To mark the 60th anniversary of Bo’ness in 2007, enthusiasts drove historic cars on what was left of the course. Bo’ness Hill Climb Revival Ltd, now with over 200 members and a restored track, is a worthy recipient. Stephen Park, president of the ASMW told us, “Bo’ness is the oldest permanent motorsport venue in Scotland and the committee has ensured that classic car enthusiasts can continue to enjoy this special track for years to come.”

The next meeting takes place on 3rd and 4th September.

Drove the RS to the Clyde steamer Queen Mary II (picture from splendid Hart Maclagen & Will Steamers of the Clyde) now berthed in Greenock. It’s a year older than both me and the Bo’ness hill-climb and, a bit like both, has been saved from the breaker’s yard. But, still a bit like both, needs repair and refurbishment. Known as Queen Mary II in my time it acquired the Roman numeral on the launch of Job Number 534 from John Brown’s yard on 27 September 1934 by Her Majesty Queen Mary. Cunard wanted the name for itself and Williamson-Buchanan gallantly altered its 18-month old turbine-powered Clyde steamer on the 10 o’clock service from Bridge Wharf to Dunoon and Rothesay. In due course it relinquished the II when the big Queen Mary retired to be a hotel at Long Beach. Stayed on it for the Long Beach Grand Prix. Booked in at the desk with Rob Walker old-school racing driver and team owner so well-connected the receptionist proffered him a hand-written note: “it’s from Miss Ginger Rogers sir.”

Picture an excited 7 or 8 year old just tall enough to peer over the bulwark of Queen Mary II at wartime shipping anchored by the Tail of the Bank, Queen Elizabeth painted grey as a troopship (above). Queen Mary II was grey then as well but still took us on holiday to Dunoon. It was retired in 1977 and moored by the Thames Embankment in the 1980s as a restaurant, its smooth-running turbines alas removed. One’s in a museum somewhere. What a treat to see it towed back to the Clyde by trustees@tsqueenmary.org.uk, which has launched a £2m restoration programme with patron Robbie Coltrane. Look what a success the dear Waverley has been. It would cost a bit more to have that turbine brought out of the museum but heritage like this is priceless.

Waverley passing Queen Mary II in Greenock's James Watt Dock

Stuart Turner

I have review books, complete with press handouts on my shelves, but this is about one that’s been bought. Somebody gave Ruth the Stuart Turner Haynes Retirement Manual when she stopped work and it’s great. More than a brilliant after-dinner speaker, Stuart is a natural writer. Prose flows fresh and sparkling from his keyboard. Wish mine would. 

In 1961, as Verglas of Motoring News, he navigated heroic Erik Carlsson to victory in the RAC Rally. I watched them pass in a rasping welter of Saab 96 two-stroke crackling exhaust on, as I remember, the Rest-and-Be-Thankful special stage. Stuart went on to be the most successful BMC Competitions Manager with Monte Carlo and Spa-Sofia-Liege rallies to his credit, before joining Castrol as publicity executive in 1967-1969. He ran Ford’s competitions department before taking charge of its Public Affairs. 

It wasn’t his best move. I guess glad-handing motoring journalists was unrewarding except perhaps in salary terms. Now he’s gone back to writing and in his Retirement Manual inserts a “Disclaimer”.

Although I have survived over 20 years of retirement and staggered to my 83rd year with all parts still in working order, and although I have invested in property, spoken at more funerals than I care to count, celebrated a golden wedding, and still help run a charity, and although I have consulted widely for the book, I am not a medical or financial expert, so if, for instance, you are planning self-surgery with a Swiss Army knife or intending to accept the share of the 40 million dollars being offered online by your new friend in Nigeria, well, do please get expert advice first.

Finally, in these health and safety conscious times I would like to stress that no pensioners were harmed during the making of this book.

Brilliant. Says it all. There are chapters here on making the most of middle years, money, modern technology, health, mobility and much else compiled with style, humour and the dry wit for which Stuart is notable.

Together with Marcus Chambers and Peter Browning Stuart has gone into detail in a 2015 hardback, out now as an ebook by Veloce Publishing, BMC Competitions Department Secrets. This is another publication I highly recommend and another I’ve actually bought. Stuart reveals that, “going to work at the MG factory at Abingdon where the famous octagon featured everywhere, was like a dream. I was 28, and suddenly found myself working with industry legends, including Alec Hounslow who had been a riding mechanic with Nuvolari. And they were going to pay me £1250 a year to do so.” I have quoted from this book, with due acknowledgement, in a forthcoming revision of my MG File.

There is copious detail about MG, Austin-Healey and Mini in racing and rallying, some of which you could only guess at the time, such as why the French organisers were so amazed at the performance of the Minis winning the Monte Carlo Rally. Remember how they made a weak excuse to exclude the Minis of Timo Makinen, Rauno Aaltonen and Paddy Hopkirk from the first three places. How satisfying, as Stuart put it once in Motor Sport, nobody remembers now it was a Citroën that “won”.

Stuart Turner is not only a legend in his own lifetime, he wears his success lightly. If he’d been greedy he could have become President of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, like another famous rally-co-driver Jean Todt, and made $18million. I guess he has done quite well thank you since starting with BMC. By coincidence it was about the same time as I got my dream job on the road test staff of The Motor. And the salary was the same. I expect that although he poses as “not a financial expert” (see above) he has probably now got a bit ahead.

Retirement Manual: Mid-life Onwards Stuart Turner Haynes Publishing, Sparkford, Yeovil, Somerset BA22 7JJ ISBN 978 0 85733 335 8 £12.99. Browning, Peter; Chambers, Marcus; Turner, Stuart. BMC Competitions Department Secrets (Kindle Location 4). Veloce Publishing Ltd.. Kindle Edition. First printed in hardback 2005. First published in ebook 2015 by Veloce Publishing Limited, Veloce House, Parkway Farm Business Park, Middle Farm Way, Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 3AR. Ebook ISBN: 978-1-845845-75-9 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-904788-68-3

Aston Martin DB4GT

The Bertone-bodied Geneva Motor Show Aston Martin DB4GT (above) was sold recently by Bonhams for £3,249,500. The one that put Jackie Stewart on the racetrack to fame probably cost Barry Filer £4,500. Even with its Stewart connections it would be hard pushed to get half as much. Still, not a bad investment if you had the money in 1962. Barry had a couple of other hobby cars, an AC Ace and the original plywood Marcos.

Jackie took the Aston (above) and Marcos to Oulton Park together with the Dumbuck Jaguar E-type FSN1. The task was to see if he was as fast as his brother Jimmy, now retired from racing but well enough regarded by Lofty England to offer a works Jaguar at Le Mans with Mike Hawthorn.

Jackie, Gordon Hunter, Jimmy Pirie and I drove to The Rising Sun at Tarporley in a used Mark IX Jaguar from Dumbuck’s stock. Jimmy drove from Scotland in the E-type with singer Dorothy Paul. Barry and a mechanic brought the Aston and the Marcos on a trailer. It never crossed our minds that we were making motor racing history although it may have crossed Jackie’s. He had been around motor racing long enough to know. He had been to Oulton before and done enough warm-up laps to feel confident. He admired Bob McIntyre from Scotstoun, world championship-class motorcyclist who died at Oulton that August; he had talked about a career driving.

Jackie had been dropped from the British shooting team at the Tokyo Olympics but he was competitive. He knew he could pick up paid drives if he shared Jimmy’s genes. Half a century, three world championships and a distinguished career later we know that he did. Yet he also inherited qualities from their father Bob who was, kind and generous, astute and determined. Jimmy had the first two, Jackie the rest, which was why Jimmy gave up racing under pressure from their mother and Jackie didn’t.

The Bonhams Aston? It was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro when he was only 22 and working for Nuccio Bertone. Giugiaro created his own couture house, Italdesign in 1968 with trend setting designs from the Alfasud to the Volkswagen Golf by way of BMW M1 and Bugatti. The Aston Martin ‘Jet’ Coupé was unique, the last DB4GT built (save six ‘sanction’ Zagatos later) and shown at Geneva in 1961. (Below, Barry Filer with the Aston at Oulton, Jackie in the driving seat. Primitive pits with names of former occupiers, John Surtees, Roy Salvadori)

Scottish Motor Sport 1952

Alistair Ford covered Scottish motor sport. The archetypal reporter, trained on the Greenock Telegraph, he was affable, popular, fair-minded and fun as in my picture of him with Anne Brown on some rally in the 1950s. As sports editor of The Motor World (founded 1899) Alistair rode round routes in the backs of rally cars, enlivening many miles sometimes uncomfortably squeezed into the boots of 2-seaters. He summed up the 1952 season The Autocar of February 20 1953. I’ve added some comments.  https://dovepublishing.co.uk/titles

MY FILL OF DAYS by A.N. FORD

IT is my fortune to be one of the scribes of motoring sport with Scotland as my territory. At this time of year the hurry and scurry of press dates are forgotten, there is time to become re-acquainted with my family, and there are hours when I can put my feet on the mantelpiece and muse on a sporting season that has flown all too swiftly beneath my pen. Memory of the first big event of the Scottish season joins with the crackling fire to warm my bones. 

The Autocar original AN Ford feature

There is talk of making the Scottish Sporting Car Club’s Highland Three Days a much tougher rally than it was in April, 1952. I am in agreement with some of the sugges­tions but, at the actual event, I was content to savour three magnificent spring days that were ablaze with sun­shine; the landscapes of the braw shires of Perth and Stirling burgeoned fresh and green. I remember walking the quiet and well-kept gardens of Gleneagles Hotel early on Sunday morning with never a word written and not worrying over­much. I remember motoring with A. K. Stevenson to a driving test on Gask aerodrome and discussing what a won­derful speed hill-climb the road up to Findo Gask would make were it not for the fact that it is a public highway. And from Gask to a regularity test at Yetts o’ Muckhart, with the sun beating in through the opened roof of the Sunbeam-Talbot and nothing for it but to stop at one of A.K.’s howfts, the Rumbling Bridge Hotel, before the pair of us went off to sleep. 

We were fortunate with weather throughout the Scottish season, and the Scottish Motor Racing Club’s first meeting for half-litre cars was blessed with the kind of Saturday that the Met boys forecast as “fair and warmer.” The sylvan surroundings of Kirkcaldy’s Beveridge Park made an ideal venue for the 500s and, but for the narrowness of the track, there is no question that this little circuit would be difficult to equal. 

Besides grand weather conditions the day also provided some very exciting sport, and I remember Ninian Sander­son’s very fast little yellow Cooper flashing round tree-lined bends like the proverbial lightning, winning two heats and the final besides clocking the day’s fastest lap. To add to the day’s excitement came the terrific performances of Charles Headland in his Kieft, which were to end in one of the season’s most spectacular crashes. While going “like the hammers,” the brake pedal snapped and the Kieft left the track at Raith Bend to bounce and overturn among the bushes. Headland was fortunate to escape with a collection of bruises.

 Exposure

On the morning of the following Saturday the wind blew with bitter persistence, chilling the very sun so that its ears shone redly in its shining morning face. And that was the morning I had chosen to go to Turnberry in Ian Hopper’s famous Hopper Special. (Ian Hopper was well-known in the Glasgow motor trade) This notable car meets most of the demands of the non-blown classes for sports cars up to 1,500 c.c., and its Lea-Francis engine, tuned to perfection by its owner, has a quite remarkable urge. The vehicle, however, offers all the protection of the sleekest and slimmest racing car you can think of. At the end of the fine Kilmar­nock road, where I had watched the speedometer rise to really great heights at least twice, I was frozen to the marrow and, as I made my rounds of pit and paddock in search of titbits of information that are the essence of my job, I could hardly make a note of the replies.

Alistair, irreverent, irrepressible with Anne Brown at a rally marshal's post. photo Eric Dymock

The day, of course, improved, and was to add to my quota of memories with the delightful and easy style of Ian Stewart’s (IMM Stewart of Ecurie Ecose) fine win in his Jaguar and an epic struggle be­tween the Coopers of Pat Prosser and Ninian Sanderson, and the Scottish-built J.P., driven by Joe Potts (of Bellshil, notable tuner of motorcycle engines) himself. This battle brought the crowd to its toes, and was resolved only on the home stretch in the very last lap, when Sander­son just pipped Prosser, with Potts a length behind. Three weeks later I was to make a delightful journey in the Frazer-Nash (a Le Mans Replica) owned by the young Glasgow driver, John Melvin. (competitor in the Monte and present at last year’s Scottish Veterans’ celebration) 

We were for Crimond. The car had stood for some fifteen minutes outside the showrooms of Melvin Motors, but, even after that brief space, the leather upholstery of the bucket seats was warm to the touch and a cake of chocolate that had fallen from John’s pocket was fit only to be poured from its wrapper. 

John idled his way through the five o’clock traffic of the city, but thereafter the miles flowed under the tireless wheels of the “Nash” in a smooth stream that was a tribute to the driver. There was a dream-like quality about that evening excursion as the golden landscapes changed unceasingly, with the buzz of Glasgow giving place to the slower tempo of Stirling and Perth, followed by the night’s gathering quiet­ness in Coupar Angus, Forfar and Brechin.

Stonehaven and the sea again, with the caller air imbued with the qualities of chilled champagne and the good red earth of Aberdeenshire taking on a new magic as the sun sank gradually to rest. The coast road to Aberdeen flashed past and we were sitting in the dining-room of the Cale­donian Hotel, with our waiter’s eyes popping as he heard when we had left Glasgow, and ever and anon taking a peep out of the window to have a look at the Frazer-Nash in the intervals between serving a meal fit for Lucullus himself. 

On again in the soft gloom by Ellon to Peterhead, to take up residence in hotels where nothing seemed too much to ask of the staff. The time that we had saved on our journey was then frittered away in gossip and chatter about the sport, making it just as well that there was no really early rise for practice. It is so often the incidentals to the sport that are remem­bered—surroundings, personalities, pleasant encounters, comfortable sojourns in good hotels; a weekend losing some of its savour because of a poor hotel. 

The hotels in Aberdeen and Peterhead that I have stayed in have always added to the fraternity that goes with the sport, and some of the meals I have eaten there have been out of this world. So it has been down in the Borders, and although it’s a far cry from Crimond to Charterhall, the following Friday night was to find me walking the streets of Berwick-on-Tweed at a late hour after a party given by the Winfield Joint Committee to welcome the drivers and their friends to the first national meeting at the Charterhall circuit. 

My map tells me that Berwick-on-Tweed is an English town but never yet, in any of my visits, have I felt that I have stepped outside my territory. As I wandered the deserted walks by the Tweed the atmosphere and the sur­rounding scene were as Scottish as any I know and, re­markably enough, at the gathering I had just left Mike Haw­thorn had reminded me irresistibly of the driver who was strolling by my side. He had been pleasant and friendly to everyone who spoke to him and seemed to have the same unassuming qualities as Jimmy Stewart—a Scots lad who, during the season, made his Healey Silverstone get round our circuits in a manner remarkably rapid. (Jimmy Stewart of Dumbuck was nominated by FRW “Lofty” England as Hawthorn’s co-driver for Le Mans, 1955) 

Jimmy Stewart (left) watches racing at Charterhall with Graham Birrell, Gordon Hunter and Jackie Stewart (on right). photo Eric Dymock

From yarning by the banks of Tweed Jimmy drove me up to the top of the town before making his way to Avton. I was staying at the Castle Hotel, and this is surely one for your notebook. The next day’s sport was highlighted bv Hawthorn’s Scottish debut when, with his shirt tails flying behind him, he drove a magnificent race to win the most important event of the day. 

For the rally enthusiast our Scottish Rally, organized by the Royal Scottish A.C., is the premier event of the year. 

Out of a jumble of recollection 1 remember Miss Sadler’s immaculate Rover, so variously described as being lilac, pale petunia or magenta, and myself wanting to write—It Was A Mauve One!—and have done with it. I remember, too, the rattle that plagued our A.40 all the way up Loch Lomondside. If we stopped once we stopped half a dozen times, but it was only after lowering the car off the jack and reaching into the door pocket for a duster that we came across the tyre gauge lying unwrapped at the bottom. I remember, too, The Autocar’s A. G. Douglas Clease finding the apt description of an Austin A.90 in the braking test on Rest-and-Be-Thankful by saying, “And now, here comes the Courtesy Car.” (Ford-ese. He means "curtsey")

Close on the heels of the Scottish Rally came the two international speed hill-climbs, Bo’ness and Rest-and-Be-Thankful. At both of these events I was tremendously interested in Ken Wharton. Here, surely, is a very worth­while British speed hill-climb champion. To watch him rounding Courtyard Bend and taking the notorious Snake on Bo’ness was to watch a craftsman at work. There is nothing easy about Wharton’s style, it is a concentrated essay in control, and always he gives the impression of a driver giving all the possible attention he can to the job in hand. (see picture in an ERA) 

Ken Wharton (ERA) at Rest and be Thankful. photo Graham Gauld

That was my impression and it was confirmed by his handling of the Cooper on Rest-and-Be-Thankful, where he followed his f.t.d. at Bo’ness by making a new record for the “Rest” on the very next Saturday. 

Intimate Bo’ness

Perhaps because they are enclosed within the boundaries of Kinneil Estate the Bo’ness meetings have a rather happy family quality about them. This was particularly obvious at the international meeting, but the tragic death of Ian Struthers took a great deal of the joy from the meeting for everyone there. The qualities of Rest-and-Be-Thankful are very different, for here is a magnificent and demanding hill-climb set amidst truly commanding scenery. And yet, one remembers such ordinary things as sitting in blazing sun­shine supping ice-cream out of a carton and listening to F. J. Findon’s rather whimsical voice commentating on the misfortunes of “Lead Foot” Martin, the Australian hill-climb expert, who bent his Cooper on the railings at Cobbler Bend and finished the hill-climb on foot. 

Amidst races, rallies and speed hill-climbs the R.S.A.C’s Veteran Car Run was a breath from another age. Just as the Emancipation Day run from London to Brighton attracts a tremendous interest in the south so the appear­ance of the veterans in Scotland is a signal for crowds to gather at every point on the route. I remember at the final rallying point in Ayr how the whole entry of vintage vehicles disappeared completely amid the throng of interested spectators. 

I remember a race meeting when it did rain. This was the August meeting at Crimond, when, before the day was out it was coming out of my ears, having seeped its wat there from the soles of my feet. But even that day had its compensations in the tremendous duel that took place between Ninian Sanderson’s Cooper and Don Parker’s Kieft. This was one of those struggles for supremacy that stay in one’s mind for a very long time and I was “crawling real crouse” – as the old Scots saying goes - when Ninian went ahead of his English counterpart. This, of course was entirely wrong but even the most impartial of sports writers are human. 

Always in memory will be that fabulously exciting sound that is the hall-mark of the B.R.M. And not only did we see them we saw them win! I know, I know; it was only a minor event, and the Daily Express Tumberry meeting was but a national one. I refuse to bandy words. Like every spectator at that meeting I wanted to see them win, and in the evening I went home with a lovely glow that owed nothing to the wine of the country. 

Jackie had an outing in a V16 BRM at Oulton Park in the 1970s. photo Eric Dymock

The Master

It was at Turnberry also that I again took delight from driving of Stirling Moss. Surely there are but to equal this amazing young man. To watch him weave his way through a bunched-up field of competitors is to see real mastery, and to watch his line in taking a comer and his superb drifting technique is to see the driving of a car as an art. (the first motor race meeting I ever went to. Picture below - signed - with Iain Carson, school-chum of many years) 

Memory drifts to a little two-day rally organized by the Falkirk and District Motor Club. This event provided one of the most attractive routes of the season, amid September landscapes heavy with harvest.

I remember sitting high up in the Campsie Hills and the loveliness of Campsie Glen in bright afternoon sunshine. I remember motoring through such little bien and snug places as Comrie, Lochearnhead and Aberfeldy. I remember roads by the side of Loch Earn and Loch Tay that wound and twisted to provide ever-changing glimpses of blue water, fields of golden grain, dark Scotch firs at the full, and the deep purple of heather staining the hills. I remember, too, the rushing waters of the Dochart at Killin that made a slight thirst seem utter parchedness. 

In the same month was the Scottish Sporting Car Club’s Heather Rally, which explored southern Scotland in weather best described as variable. With rain dripping down my neck from the trees overhanging a test section I watched a look of horrible surprise spreading over the face of Shona Kennedy, wife of an official - as a competitor came downhill to the car in which she was seated as a check point, and was just that little bit too late with the anchors; that it ended in a most unpleasant scrunch at the rear of the Kennedy Wolseley.

I remember the long final route section on the Monday, when the rain-dulled landscape was cheered only by after­noon tea in the Galloway Arms, Crocketford, where we toasted our toes at a grand fire, munched home-baked scones and cakes, and agreed with William Lithgow who, back in 1628, wrote of the same spot: “I found heare in Gallo­way in diverse rode-way innes as good cheare, hospitality and serviceable attendance, as though I had been ingrafted in Lombardy or Naples.” 

In October I was back again at Charterhall for the Daily Record International meeting—the very first international circuit event to be held in Scotland, for which great credit must go to the enthusiastic members of the Winfield Joint Committee. 

For me this meeting was the ideal climax to a grand year’s sport. I remember the arrival in the paddock; no need to ask who had made the fastest lap, for there was the good Doctor Giuseppe Farina with a feather in his hat, a huge smile on his face, and a lightness of step that showed that he was on top of the world. I remember Bira (Birabongse, the Prince of Siam) looking very dapper in sky-blue overalls and tartan socks above his suede shoes. 

I remember being slightly envious of the doyens of my own craft, up from London and able to be very blasé with the secure knowledge that there had been any number of inter­national race meetings in their country. I remember the rumours of B.R.M. ignition trouble and their non-arrival until the last possible moment. I remember the growing ex­citement that was only eased by the two-minute signal, the drop of the national flag, followed by the sight of Jimmy Gibbon’s familiar Rover Special and the knowledge that the day had really begun. 

And what a very fine meeting this was! How pleasant to recollect Ian Stewart’s lovely handling of his C-type (Ecurie Ecosse – Ian Stewart was more than a match for Moss; he told me once how he knew where to overtake Moss at Charterhall) Jaguar that was to keep him ahead of Stirling Moss all the way, but how unfortunate to see Stirling have to take evasive action in his Norton-engined Cooper to avoid Johnnie Coombs, whose Cooper had lost a rear wheel at Karnes Curve, so that we still don’t know if Stirling could have won. But that’s motor racing, and there was to be a further example of it before the day was over. While lifting my check cap to Bob Gerard’s fine performance in his not-so-young E.R.A., I am certain that he, too, would be the first to say that the truly unluckiest man of the day was Ken Wharton, in the B.R.M. 

This International Trophy Race was a most exciting forty laps in which Wharton drove magnificently, and throughout which the engine of his B.R.M. sounded a paean of triumph which was not to be. I remember the green car hugging Kames Curve. I remember it sweeping round Paddock Bend lap after lap after lap. And then, at the finish, in the very last lap, it spun at Tofts Turn to give Gerard the opportunity for which he, too, had striven so hard. The cup of B.R.M. misfortune was brimming over. 

But that’s motor sport—the sport whose excitements, whose fortunes and misfortunes, whose triumphs and defeats are the never-ending interest that gives me “My Fill Of Days.”

Anne and Ian Brown at a control on a Lanarkshirte Car Club event with Gilbert Harper , who was navigating my MGA (left) photo Eric Dymock

Comeback for Jaguar X-Type

Steve Cropley is usually right. In Autocar this week he suggests it’s time we “allowed the X-Type Jaguar in from the cold.” It’s true. Autocar tests awarded a rare four stars to both saloon and estate X-Types but ever since its introduction in 2001 critics were sniffy about it not being a real Jaguar but only a Mondeo in fancy dress. It has been underrated ever since, a bit like the splendid Rover 75 of 1998-2005, which also got off to a bad start. You can now buy perfectly worthy examples of either for £1,000.

Codenamed X400, the X-type followed a precedent of 1922, using underpinnings from another car manufacturer. Then the SS as Jaguar was known at the time, was based on the Standard Motor Company’s Standard Sixteen. Now it was Jaguar’s owner Ford Motor Company, and the new model’s technical basis was the Ford Mondeo. However, although it followed the broad principles worked out for the Mondeo, with four wheel drive, Macpherson strut suspension and transverse engine it owed almost as much to world standards of medium-sized car design. It was just as much a car of its time as a collection of bits from the Ford parts inventory.

Halewood was barely 60 miles (96.56km) by road from Blackpool, where young William Lyons started and the X-type, in some senses, went back to its SS roots; stylish, well made and fast, with interior trim of good taste and quality. It completed Jaguar’s four-model range, designed to at least double production from 85,000, a target temptingly close but never in real terms achievable. Conceived, developed and paid for at the Whitley Engineering Centre in Coventry, X-type remained strongly Jaguar in style and detail.

Like the first unitary construction Jaguar, the 2.4 of 1955, the X-type was aimed at a new clientele of whom some had never had a Jaguar before. In 1955 there had been big Jaguars and sports Jaguars but the 2.4 was neither and at £1269 cost the same as a contemporary Rover 75. The analogy could be stretched to the X-type, once again about the same price, or a little more than, the Rover 75 yet with its novel transmission and emphasis on speed and precise handling smaller, sportier and more affordable. X-type remained unflinchingly refined, well-furnished and by no means down-market with a choice of 2.5 litre or 3.0 litre V6 engines and, Mike Cross, senior engineering specialist, promised, an exceptional chassis, “The X-type will perform exactly how the driver wants it to. Its balance of ride and handling complemented by all-wheel-drive means it will hug the road or cruise smoothly and quietly.”

Distributing 41 per cent of driving torque to the front wheels and 59 per cent to the rear gave the X-type a predominantly rear wheel drive feel with the security of four wheel drive. Differences in speed between the front and rear wheels were sensed by a viscous coupling in the epicyclic centre differential. In the event of one set of wheels spinning, the torque split adjusted automatically to provide the best traction and stability.

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THE JAGUAR FILE: ALL MODELS SINCE 1922

Noises Off

Royce and Lanchester were good at suppressing vibrations. Edwardian heavyweights had a cloistered calm difficult to reproduce in modern resonating light weight saloons. Cars now make so many noises, tyre and wind roar, gear whine, body drumming it’s difficult to know where to start. It’s not just vibrations, which Royce and Lanchester believed were better eliminated at source. Engines make all kinds of racket, pistons slap, valvegear rattles, exhausts boom, turbos wail and drive belts howl. Sub-frames and absorbent bearing materials made a difference but for years it was mostly down to filling cavities with felt or polystyrene.

Silver Ghost, epitome of quietness

Ford’s Active Noise Control (ANC) now cancels noises out by playing them back at you. They say it’s like noise-cancelling headphones to occupants of its Mondeo Vignale.

Nothing’s new. Twenty-five years ago I went to Hethel for a demonstration of what Lotus was calling Adaptive Noise Control. It worked much the same way.

Sunday Times 4 February 1990. 
A car that cancels out its own noise by playing it back in stereo is not a sci-fi fantasy. I have heard it, and it works. Inventiveness at Lotus did not die with its founder, Colin Chapman. His heirs are not only working on new sports cars but also on setting Lotus up as engineers to the world's motor industry.
  
What Lotus calls Adaptive Noise Control consists of a computer, four loudspeakers, a number of microphones and sound feedback sensors picking up tyre and exhaust noise. I tried the installation in a Citroën AX, which Lotus engineers chose because it was made light in weight for economy.
   
 Lightweight cars tend to be noisy inside and adding layers of heavy sound-damping materials could cancel out the savings. The most annoying noises are low-frequency booming sounds that reverberate through the body shell from an acoustically complex mix of tyre swish, suspension rumble, engine vibration, and exhaust resonance.
        
Lotus has worked with Southampton University's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research since 1986 on a system, which is now ready for installing in a production car. It needs up to four tiny microphones in the headlining, those on the Citroën, Lotus engineers pointed out to me with some satisfaction, cost about 35p each. They are connected to a microprocessor control unit which is also linked into the car's ignition system to sense engine speed.           
The control unit detects the sound pressure levels inside the car through the microphones, matches it with every change in engine speed, and plays it back through an amplifier with 40 Watts RMS per channel. The effect is astonishing. By switching the system in and out, it was easy to hear the reduction in noise by up to 20 dB in the lower-frequency sounds below about 100HZ.         
  
The car is not silent. Tackling higher frequencies, the sort of buzz that comes from the engine valvegear, or whine from gears would demand more microphones and loudspeakers, as well as sensors in each seat to determine localised noise levels. In production examples, the system could be incorporated into a car's stereo system relatively cheaply. The entire system could be integrated into a production car for about the cost of the microprocessor Lotus uses, which is less than £100.  
         
The implications of anti-noise as it is sometimes known, go beyond introducing Lotus-licensed setups in production cars. Like another Lotus invention Active Suspension, which replaces springs with hydraulic plungers electronically controlled to make the wheels follow the road surface exactly, it will affect the way cars of the 1990s are designed. It makes softer engine mountings practical, which would not only mean quieter cars, but also make them almost vibrationless.

Ford’s Active Noise Control developed in its semi-anechoic chamber (above) is to be offered on other vehicles, including the Ford Edge coming in 2016. Engineers from Sony tuned the Vignale audio system for what it calls an exceptional acoustical experience with a customised stereo mode, a true surround experience. It has three microphones strategically placed to detect undesirable noises, counteracting them with opposing sound waves from the audio system. It doesn’t affect, they say, volume levels of music and conversation. Driver and vehicle behaviour is anticipated, for example when accelerating in a lower gear.

“Whether listening to a favourite playlist, tuning into a much-loved station, or simply enjoying a respite from the demands of modern life, the experience of sound – and just as importantly silence – can be a fundamental part of an enjoyable car journey,” according to Dr Ralf Heinrichs, supervisor, Noise Vibration Harshness, Ford of Europe, “Active Noise Control offers drivers enhanced levels of comfort, and fewer distractions.”

The Mondeo Vignale also has acoustic glass (above) to quieten air eddies round the windscreen. A layer of acoustic film reduces noise around the A-pillars. The Dunton test track has noise-inducing gravel and potholes. Engine bay insulation in the Mondeo Vignale is foam rather than fibreglass and reduces powertrain noise in the cabin by up to 2 dB.

Sound‑proofing in the underbody shield, wheel arch liners and doors block tyre noise, and the integral link rear suspension also contributes to reduction by 3 dB. Sound engineers from Sony Corporation tuned the Vignale audio system for, “an exceptional acoustical experience on the road with a customised stereo mode, and a true surround experience.” The Ford factory in Valencia where Mondeos are made (Vignales are hand-finished at a Vignale Centre) has a 300m ‘rattle and squeak’ circuit to help engineers ensure everything sounds right. Another test reflects increasing use of audio via Bluetooth from external devices like smartphones. 

1922 OD Vauxhall - on a calm evening.