Name this car....

[Ivan Goriup]

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Around 1910 or so a separate class of automobiles emerged in Europe and shortly thereafter in the US as well often referred to as Cyclecars. These vehicles were built down to a price, almost always small ( usually built to accommodate only two people, frequently in tandem seat configuration ), many used motorcycle power and in general tried to bridge the gap between 'normal' enclosed passenger cars and open motorcycles.  There was a time, prior to the 'great depression' when there were more cyclecar manufacturers than makers of automobiles.......is the one shown one of those ?

JZG

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[wlaidlaw]

8 hours ago, pippy said:

Might I ask whether this car is a three-wheeler?

Philip.

Correct Philip.

Wilson

[wlaidlaw]

8 hours ago, Ivan Goriup said:

Around 1910 or so a separate class of automobiles emerged in Europe and shortly thereafter in the US as well often referred to as Cyclecars. These vehicles were built down to a price, almost always small ( usually built to accommodate only two people, frequently in tandem seat configuration ), many used motorcycle power and in general tried to bridge the gap between 'normal' enclosed passenger cars and open motorcycles.  There was a time, prior to the 'great depression' when there were more cyclecar manufacturers than makers of automobiles.......is the one shown one of those ?

JZG

Ivan, this was built long after the Cyclecar era. 

Wilson

[wlaidlaw]

8 hours ago, Indeepthought said:

A Harper Runabout….

Nope. 

Wilson

[wlaidlaw]

10 hours ago, a.j.z said:

Sidecar also includes „car“ but as you said that it is no motorcycle this presumably is something we should pursue

There are motorcycle links with this car, which will become evident when the vehicle is correctly guessed. There is a very visible feature on my photo, which would have been totally laughable in the production version and was replaced. 

Wilson

[stuny]

How about Allard or Reliant?

[wlaidlaw]

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28 minutes ago, stuny said:

How about Allard or Reliant?

Neither of those. 

Wilson

[wlaidlaw]

Here is the whole car. I have blanked out the registration.

Wilson

 

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[pippy]

3 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

There are motorcycle links with this car, which will become evident when the vehicle is correctly guessed. There is a very visible feature on my photo, which would have been totally laughable in the production version and was replaced. 

Wilson

Is it a Matchless?

As far as the odd feature goes is it to do with the steering-rod?

Still flummoxed!

Philip.

[Viv]

On 8/18/2024 at 5:19 PM, wlaidlaw said:

I do hope that folks are not using google image search, which I would have to regard as cheating. 

Wilson

 

That would certainly be cheating!

[Viv]

Clearly with motorcycle features. But I have no idea what it is. BSA?

[wlaidlaw]

Not BSA or Matchless. The maker was far better known however for making motorcycles. I used to race against them in the mid 1960's in my Aermacchi Ala D'Oro and usually lost, especially when they had Bultaco or Starmaker engines. 

Wilson

[wlaidlaw]

if I told you that the kickstart on this vehicle was a supremely useless and laughable feature, would that ring any bells? 

Wilson

[Graham (G4FUJ)]

From the last photo it's an invalid car, but I can't remember the exact manufacturer.  "Invacar"?  

2 stroke motor.  Excelsior?

[Indeepthought]

Circa 1950 Thundersley Invalid Car ..

Predecessor to the much unloved (Uk) Blue invalid car…

Edited August 22, 2024 by Indeepthought

[stuny]

No bells, but perhaps Standard/Triumph?

[wlaidlaw]

2 hours ago, Indeepthought said:

Circa 1950 Thundersley Invalid Car ..

Predecessor to the much unloved (Uk) Blue invalid car…

Correct. the Greeves-Thundrsley car for disabled ex-servicemen, made in Thundersley, Essex by Bert Greeves (Greeves Motorcycles) as a prototype for one of his own disabled ex-services workmen. My father read an article on it in either Motor or Autocar and on one of his trips to London to buy New Zealand or Australian raw Wool in the now defunct Wool Exchange in Spitalfields. He made every effort to employ disabled ex-servicemen especially if they had worked for the company before the war. He tried out the horrible hand propelled device the War Department handed out to disabled servicemen, who were either paraplegic of missing lower limbs. These were hand propelled with two hand levers with the brake on one lever and a twist D handle for steering on the other. They took a huge amount of effort to propel weighing around 80 pounds and the steering, derived from the gearchange mechanism on a 1895 Leon Bollé Tricar, was dreadful.

My father went to see Bert Greeves, when he took the photo or it might possibly have been a publicity photo, and he put in an order for a number of the Invacars for his employees  once the cars had been more developed, with a self starter (called an Invastart) and a fibreglass body. Offering an invalid carriage with a kick-start to a one legged man, would not go down well. The Invacars were not wonderful but a country mile better than the hand propelled invalid carriages. They were steered by a tiller, had a twist grip for throttle and a hand brake lever for brakes on the early models. I think on the later models made by AC (the AC Petite) you pushed down on the tiller for braking. They had originally 198cc Villiers two stroke engines, later 250cc. I believe some of the later AC cars had a Sachs 4 stroke of around 350cc. The profits from making these funded both Greeves, trials, motocross and racing motorbikes and AC's development of the Ace and Greyhound, after the falling off of orders for their 2 litre saloon.

As an aside, when my father went to see Bert Greeves he would have been driving his 1948 2 litre AC Saloon, which came before his Jaguar Mk.V was finally delivered in 1951, after a three year waiting list. I had thought the Connaught modified Citroen Light 15 came after the AC but my older brother says it was the other way round and produced a picture of a 4 year old me, sitting on the boot of the AC, being driven along in pre-safety days. 

Your turn.

Wilson

[adan]

Fascinating history! 👍

During my early-teens year in the UK 1967-68, I was mildly aware of these cars, seeing them both on the street (with their later smooth fibreglass shell), and in the Observer's Book of Automobiles. 

But somehow got it into my head that they were simply a British parallel to the Heinkel and Messerschmidt 3-wheelers of the post-war era. And the name Invacar derived from the Latin the British love so well - invictus ("undefeated") or something similar.

However, given their actual origin and purpose - that derivation would still be absolutely appropriate.

Invictus (partial - William Ernest Henley)

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

 

Edited August 24, 2024 by adan

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[wlaidlaw]

Andy, 

I don't think the ones that looked like this were the motorised version. I suspect they might still have been the horrible hand lever propelled War Ministry supplied predecessor a number of which were still around in the 1960s. As far as I am aware, after the original Greeves Thundersley prototypes (2 or 3 made), the production cars all had the pale blue bodywork. The first few were hand beaten aluminium but quickly transitioned to a composite material. The early ones might well have used epoxy canvas, which uses a very coarse linen canvas as the reinforcing medium rather than fibreglass. This is not a great material for longevity, as unless very well sealed, water or just damp tends to get into the canvas and swell it up which cracks the epoxy. The canvas will eventually rot away. However it was far easier to work than the very coarse and open glass fibre in small sheets, that was all that was available as glass matting at the time. The large mouldable sheets of close weave "Prepreg" glass fibre were a long way in the future. A number of constructors of home built racing cars in the late 1940s and early 1950's used epoxy canvas. The one I know with epoxy-Canvas was built by Phil Chapman (no relation to Colin). I tried and failed to restore this Chapman-Buick (5.3L V8) race car in 1969, which other than the body, was of quite advanced design, with a De Dion rear axle, inboard finned alloy drums (all ex-Allard I suspect) IRS with coil-over spring/dampers, a Wilson pre-selector gearbox, large diameter tube ladder frame and early Dunlop discs at the front, all built around 1954/5 . I spent many hours working on the bodywork but it just got worse and worse. Eventually Phil Chapman heard about it and I was delighted to sell it back to him. He still had the original moulds and was going to make a completely new but identical looking body out of proper fibreglass. The car looked very like a Maserati 200/250S sports racing car. If you stuck a trident badge on it, nobody would disagree with you. Below is a picture of the early car, at this time with a Mercury (Ford) V8, with Phil Chapman driving it around 1958/9. When I had it, it had a bonnet bulge where the hole is in this photo, as the Buick engine was more compact than the Mercury flat head. His grandson Oliver Tomlin still hill climbs this car, which has reverted to a Mercury engine but with 4 downdraft twin choke Weber carburettors. 

Wilson

 

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Edited August 24, 2024 by wlaidlaw

[stuny]

Rob -

It's your turn to post the next mystery car.