who can identify this car??

[driftbean]

hi people of great knowledge and wisdom. A friend of mine has this car in his garage and knows nothing about it. It has a badge with SMD on it and the number plate is also 8 SMD. It has a supercharged 4 cylinder engine a steel tubular chassis and fibre glass body. that is all i know of it, any ideas??
[pic][URL=http://rides.webshots.com/photo/21523][/URL][pic]
[pic][URL=http://rides.webshots.com/photo/25588][/URL][pic]

[williamp]

Interesting. The front looks a bit like a "Wacky Arnolt" MG TD or Bristol, but the engine is neither.

There is a badge on the front. Did you take it? What did it say?

It could also, of course be a home-made special one-off. Very interesting, anyhow...

[Bacchus]

to me it looks like an MG B engine... very interesting

[driftbean]

thanks guys, for williamp, the badge has the letters SMD on it. There is no other identifying marks on it. i shall try to get a closer look at it in the near future to see what else i can see.

[tog]

It does have a similarity in the high-peaked front wings to the Arnolt-Bristol, but the grille is the wrong shape. In any case, they were steel bodied and all LHD. Could it be a special or home-built?

[530dTPhil]

The car is described as a Mostyn Special, first registered in March 1956 with a 2600cc engine.

The chassis number is quoted as VM1 so I presume that it uses a one off built chassis and body.

I don't recognise the shape of the cylinder head and the only 2600cc engine that springs to mind from this period is the 6 cylinder Zodiac engine.

The unit shown is a four cylinder unit I cannot recall one of that displacement.

Anyone else?

Edited by 530dTPhil on Wednesday 13th December 18:26

Edited by 530dTPhil on Tuesday 22 May 19:02

[ARH]

It looks like a triumph engine to me, but I could be wrong.

[Pigeon]

530dTPhil said:

I don't recognise the shape of the cylinder head and the only 2600cc engine that springs to mind from this period is the 6 cylinder Zodiac engine.
The unit shown is a four cylinder unit I cannot recall one of that displacement.

Austin Healey 100? Wasn't that a 2.6 four, or am I up the spout?

[530dTPhil]

I'm impressed! Just googled Healey 100/4 engine and found this:

The 100 was powered by an A90, 2660 cc, four-cylinder engine capable of producing 94 horsepower.

I think that you are right, correct sort of date for the year of registration too.

[driftbean]

Thanks everyone for your comments, we are much better placed now to further persue the cars history.

[johnwharf]

Exciting news for me. The car is indeed the only Mostyn Special named after its builder Monatagu Mostyn a retired Rolls Royce engineer (the instruments were said to be Rolls Royce. The car was owned for many years by a garage managed by my father. I have ridden in it many times. The poster who guessed at an A90 engine was correct, it has a Wilson pre-selector gearbox and Healey 3000 rear axle. It was built for hill climbing, hence the independent hand brake levers.

It looks in a sadd state, it was absolutely unmarked and pristine last time I saw it in the eraly 60s. Has your friend ever driven it? It is very fast and incredibly noisy. Does it still have Michelin X tyres? Even with such spindly tyres, on one trip my father accelerated so hard that he broke a half shaft twisting it like a candle.

If your friend ever wishes to sell it I would be interested.

Regards,

John

[jith]

johnwharf said:

Exciting news for me. The car is indeed the only Mostyn Special named after its builder Monatagu Mostyn a retired Rolls Royce engineer (the instruments were said to be Rolls Royce. The car was owned for many years by a garage managed by my father. I have ridden in it many times. The poster who guessed at an A90 engine was correct, it has a Wilson pre-selector gearbox and Healey 3000 rear axle. It was built for hill climbing, hence the independent hand brake levers.



It looks in a sadd state, it was absolutely unmarked and pristine last time I saw it in the eraly 60s. Has your friend ever driven it? It is very fast and incredibly noisy. Does it still have Michelin X tyres? Even with such spindly tyres, on one trip my father accelerated so hard that he broke a half shaft twisting it like a candle.



If your friend ever wishes to sell it I would be interested.



Regards,



John

John, as a point of interest, my father had an Austin A90 Hereford pickup that he used in his building company. It was fitted with this engine and would easily attain 100MPH loaded with a full Shanks bathroom suite in the back!!

Talk about running to the loo!!!

[driftbean]

hi john wharf

i have not looked at this thread for a while so have missed your post, for that my apologies. i have told my friend of the news you have put on here and he is very excited to have found out so much about the car. i wonder if you remember anything else about the car. where was the garage your father managed? why was it at the garage, up for sale or being serviced? do you know where it competed and under what drivers name? how do change gear with the preselector gearbox? He is in the process of getting the car registered and taxed ready to get the car started and running again. neither of us know how that typer of gearbox works.!

many thanks for providing us with some really great news

ian

[johnwharf]

Ian,

I am very pleased to make contact. The car was for sale for many years at Ascot Service Station, High St Ascot (now a supermarket)at a price of £999, about twice the price of a new mini for which they were main dealers. I don't know where my father acquired it, I could ask him although his memory might be fading, he is 89. Although I have never driven the car, from memory, one selects a gear before pressing the clutch, then the action of pressing the clutch enables drive. I am sure a web site somewhere will provide information on the Wilson pre-selector gearbox. When in my teens, I produced a short report on this car as a college project but I currently can't locate it, it was more than 40 years ago!

I would pay special attention to the brakes before using it, I remember my father boiling brake fluid and having a serious "moment" when a brake piston stuck after an extended period of inaction.

It is also almost certainly illegally loud for the roads of today without a change of silencer.

Where is the car located, I would love to see it again?

Kind regards,

John