Entry A
My first car was a rare 1933 sports car, a Vale Special. It was a real boy racer designed to compete with the original MG Midgets but less than 100 were built before bankruptcy intervened. It was a lovely little car with leather straps over the bonnet, sexy cowls and the spare wheel set in a sloping tail. The under slung chassis gave a low centre of gravity which resulted in exceptional road holding for its day and the hydraulic brakes were a real innovation. Unfortunately the 850cc side valve engine inherited from the Triumph Super Seven didn’t live up to the rest of the design and 70mph was a rare occurrence. The deep exhaust note promised much more. The suspension movement was limited and the ride hard, particularly if I overdid tightening the friction shock absorbers, a task easily accomplished by spanner
I was taught to drive in it by a friend. The crash gearbox made double-declutching essential, not ideal for a beginner but character building for both of us. His reward was the loan of the car for his honeymoon. They were waved of in great style but whilst the wedding party stood around discussing how beautiful the bride had looked the couple reappeared on foot. The half shaft had broken rendering the car immobile! They continued in his father’s Jowett Javelin whilst I slunk of to find a replacement.
This I obtained this from a local character who raced a Vale into which he had fitted a supercharged Ford 8 engine. The handbrake worked on the transmission and could stop the car dead at 30mph. It was probably my playing with that that had weakened the half shaft!
On another occasion one of the headlights fell off and I managed to obtain two enormous chrome replacements. At that time twin filament bulbs were just coming into vogue for dipping. Previously only one headlamp was dipped by tilting the reflector electro-mechanically by solenoid whilst the other lamp was extinguished. I decided to update to modern double dipping by making both headlamp solenoids operative. I hadn’t allowed for the drain on my small battery from two large solenoids on powerful lamps designed for a larger car. If I drove for any time on dip the car ground to a halt with a flat battery. The flat belt driving the dynamo didn’t help, as it was prone to slip needing constant adjustment.
Other idiosyncrasies were the pneumatic upholstery that had to be re-inflated from time to time and the auxiliary hand throttle that screwed itself open under vibration causing panic when lifting the foot of the pedal produced no effect on engine speed.
I managed to pass my test first time. The vestigial hood was down and the windscreen folded for maximum visibility in traffic. Fortunately it didn’t rain and I think being driven around in an open vintage car intrigued the examiner, or perhaps he admired my gear changes.