2018 Newby Hall Historic Vehicle Rally
The North of England's biggest and best classic car show, in the grounds of Newby Hall near Ripon in North Yorkshire, on one of the hottest and sunniest days of the year, so both I and my photos suffered. This event, with around 1500 cars on show, is too big to cover comprehensively in one day so this is a selection of what caught my eye.
This has a two-litre six-cylinder engine. Three engines were available including one by Bristol, which I think this one has (it's listed as having a 1971cc engine), making it the most desirable.
For once, it's the real thing and not a replica! This is a Mk 1 '289' (4736cc V8) – they were made in 1962 and 1963.
1935 Armstrong Siddeley 17 Sports Foursome
Brightwells says: 'The 17hp Sports Foursome short chassis was launched in 1934 and produced until 1938. It had a six-cylinder in-line monobloc engine displacing 2,396cc with a four bearing crankshaft, balanced alloy pistons, overhead valves and downdraught Claudel-Hobson carburettor. Transmission was via a four-speed preselector gearbox with a Salisbury rear axle and semi-elliptic springs all round, underslung at rear. Steering was by worm and nut, with Enot’s ‘one shot’ central lubrication system and a permanently installed jacking system. The attractive bodywork was by Burlington of Coventry and featured a four seat, two door pillarless coupe with ingenious front side windows that both slid back and forth and wound up and down.' DVLA lists the engine as 2192cc for this one though...
Made from 1969 to 1976 – the fifth series of Chrysler-V8 engined Bristol models and rated highly for its comfort, performance and handling. Still a very elegant and discreet luxury car. For the first time since the 407 was introduced, Bristol changed the engine for a much larger big-block B series engine of 6,277 cc.
Six cylinder version of the 'traction' has a 2866cc engine. It was known as the 15CV in France, but this looks like a Slough built model and confusingly in the UK it was the 11CV that was known as the 'Fifteen' because of the British horsepower rating (for tax) at the time. Despite the big engine the Big Six could only manage 81 mph. From 1954 this car had self-levelling hydropneumatic rear suspension, but this car's too early for that so has the standard torsion bars and rear beam axle.
Daimler's version of the Jaguar 420
Although not quite as cute as the original 1936 Topolino, the restyled Model C is still a crowd pleaser. It was introduced in 1949 with a restyled body and the same 569cc 16 hp engine as the Model B, and was offered in 2-door saloon, 2-door convertible saloon, 3-door estate and 2-door van versions. It was made until 1955 when the new rear-engined Fiat 600 took over and provided four proper seats at last. The spiritual successor was perhaps the smaller rear-engined 500, which was introduced in 1957.
Photo by Androo at https://androo.smugmug.com
Estate version of the Imp, also available as a Commer-branded Imp van. The framed photo on the 'bonnet' shows how nice it would look with the correct wheels.
You can see from the open door in this photo that the bulbous sides of the Mark X did nothing for interior elbow room.
1957 Jaguar 3.4 Litre (Mark 1)
The rare Jags were out in force at this event. Introduced in 1955 and made until 1959, the restrospectively named Mark 1 was also available as a 2.4 litre. It was was the company's first small saloon since the end of its 1½ and 2½ Litre cars in 1949, and was an immediate success, easily outselling the larger much more expensive Jaguar saloons. It's fairly easily differentiated from the later Mark 2 by the simpler C-pillar and rear door styling. Some early cars have full rear-wheel covers.
This extremely original Jaguar won the overall 'Best in Show' award
A rather rare series 1 XJ6, with the smallest engine (and surely the drabbest paint colour). The XJ was launched in 1968 and pretty much replaced four of Jaguar's other models at a stroke. It was initially available with 2.8 litre and 4.2 litre versions of the famous six-cylinder XK engine, but from 1972 buyers could choose a 5.3 litre V12 that made it a very fast car indeed. Note this is the swb version of the XJ (the 2.8 was only available as a swb car). The lwb car had four inches more legroom and when the car moved to Series II in 1973/4 only the lwb body was available across the range.
