The Newland Files Pt. V: the road to Brighton

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As we glimpsed in Part IV, one November Geoff Newland ventured out to the Brighton road to view the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, pitching camp just beyond Redhill. Geoff’s interest was skewed more in favour of vintage and post-vintage cars, however, so he photographed more of the interesting spectator vehicles than veterans. The quality of these photographs is affected somewhat by the limitations of Geoff’s old fixed-lens camera, but the interest of the subject matter makes them worthy of publication. In Part VI we will look at vehicles seen at the roadside once Geoff arrived in Brighton.

1933 MG 18/80
In this first shot, we have a car which, we are pleased to say, is still in preservation. It’s a 1933 MG 18/80 Mk. II Speed Model, from the last year of production and a rare beast besides. Only 236 Mk. IIs were produced and the Early MG Society knows of twenty-seven survivors. AYU 812 was owned at the time by Norman Sylvester, who was in charge of the Vintage MG Register. It is now painted black and appears to have changed hands in 2023.

1910 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost
You can’t ignore a Silver Ghost, and this one certainly got Geoff’s attention. Chassis 1456 dates from 1910 and is seen here wearing its third body, which was fitted in 1958. We don’t know any history of this car following its sale by Sotheby’s at Earl’s Court on November 5th, 1965.

1928 Rolls-Royce 20hp
This lovely 20hp is GC 6631 from 1928. It carries a handsome Thrupp & Maberley seven-seat limousine body and today looks very smart in maroon and black.

1926 Darracq TL 20/98
This car caused us a spot of confusion. It seems at first to be a Sunbeam but, in fact, YO 7480 is a 1926 Darracq TL 20/98 Weymann saloon. We found an old advertisement for this car on this very website, at which time it looked a little scruffy but sported the correct Darracq radiator. As the advertisement stated, “The TL 20/98 is French Talbot’s version of the 20.9 Sunbeam, although few components are interchangeable. YO 7480 is believed to have been bought from the Darracq stand at the 1926 Motor Show by a Mr. Ward who ran it until 1933. It was then laid up until 1961.”

1930 Lagonda
This is a 1930 Lagonda of, we would say, the Two-Litre Low-Chassis variety. Nothing seems to have been heard of this car since 1983. Do you know anything about GK 984?

1904 Mors 24/32hp
We see here Harold Arthur Pierpoint’s mightily impressive 1904 Mors 24/32hp Roi-des-Belges. It’s a famous car in Brighton circles as it was participating on the Run even before the Second World War. Pierpoint discovered it in 1938 and got it registered just a week before that year’s Brighton. The Pierpoint family kept it until 1975, when they sold it to Michael Banfield, and it remained a jewel in the Banfield Collection until its dispersal in 2014. In the picture, looks frighteningly like that Vauxhall is about to pull out right into its path, but we suppose it just left its braking a little late. With its present owners, the magnificent Mors is, once again, a regular sight on the Brighton road.

1914 Dennis N-type
This Braidwood-bodied 1914 Dennis N-type fire engine is another very well-known vehicle. DU 179 was the first motorised fire appliance to serve the City of Coventry and was bought for Dennis’s apprentices in 1958. It was a frequent participant on early Historic Commercial Vehicle Society Brighton Runs, entered by the Dennis Apprentices’ Association, and it has appeared on some recent runs in the ownership of Alexander Dennis Ltd.

1926 Morris Commercial T-type
Here we see another familiar face. This Morris was new to E. R. Courage, the brewer, with a general-purpose dropside body including removable benches and a canvas roof. Its early life was spent moving goods from his Essex estate to his new home at Edgcote, Oxfordshire, and it continued in use around Edgcote until 1946, when it returned to Essex. From 1957 to 1960, it was owned by a Mr. Fitzpatrick of Sheringham Hall, Norfolk. Clementine II, as she became christened, was then bought by the Royal School of Mines in London to replace the Aveling & Porter traction engine it had maintained since 1955. Towed to London behind a 1934 Ford lorry, it was overhauled by the students and has since been a regular sight on the Commercial Vehicle and Veteran Car Runs.

1923 Bentley Three-Litre
This rather extraordinary-looking 1923 Bentley Three-Litre has had its chassis drastically shortened. Chassis 299 was new to R. B. Vick as a coupé by Harrison but by 1956 it had become a pick-up and was for sale with Stevenage-based vintage car dealer Major C. J. Bendall. It was bought for £35 by the young John Ambrose, who got it running and drove it home to Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex. He stripped the body off, cut fourteen inches from the chassis and made a new body with steel tubing and sheet steel. We will see this car again in Part VI. We doubt it sees much use on the road today, since it was rebuilt in the 1990s as a typical Three/Eight-Litre special.

1929 Hillman 14
Considering how scarcely one encounters vintage Hillmans today, it’s quite remarkable that Geoff encountered no fewer than three in the space of just a few years. VC 1937 is a 1929 14hp saloon which survives but is not presently on the road. The Mod and Rocker chasing it contribute brilliantly to the period atmosphere of the scene.

Rover Speed 14
Although blurred, this shot has captured a very rare car. It’s a Rover Speed 14, Rover’s offering to the airline craze of the 1930s, and a most handsome design. Sadly, we cannot decipher the number plate so know no more about this particular car.

1902 Wolseley
This is a 1902 Wolseley 10hp tonneau, another car which, we are pleased to say, continues to be seen on present-day Brighton Runs. A number of these Wolseleys participated in the Brighton in the 1960s, including those of Major J. Gardiner, J. F. W. Howes and P. H. Pointer. We are not sure whose this was.

1934 Riley Nine Kestrel
Here we have a fine example of a Riley Kestrel. This car is very much still with us and on the road.

c.1934 Lagonda Rapier
We can find even less about this Lagonda than the other one, but we believe we’d be correct in identifying it as a circa 1934 Rapier drophead coupé by Abbott. Can anyone shed any more light on it?

1898 Stephens
We expect every regular Brighton Runner will recognise this car, too. It’s the 1898 Stephens dogcart which was then run by R. J. Stephens, son of the Somerset engineer who built it originally. By the 1960s, he had been driving it for more than sixty years. It is still a familiar sight on modern Brightons. The photograph is not of the best quality as Geoff took it from the window of his father’s car.

1932 Alvis 12/50
This would appear to be MV 9120, one of the very last Alvis 12/50s, from 1932. It was chassis number 9786—the last 12/50 was 9800. This one is still on the road and in use.

1903 Mercedes 60hp
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but this might be worth a thousand pounds to the right person. We expect everyone will know this car as the 1903 Mercedes 60hp Roi-des-Belges which was originally sold to Alfred Harmsworth and remained in the family until February, 2024, when it was sold by Gooding & Co. for $12,000,000. Famously, it had won the Nice Speed Week when new with Hermann Braun at the wheel, and then the Ballybannon Hill-Climb with E. Campbell Muir driving, before Harmsworth commissioned its touring body from J. Rothschild et Fils. Never restored, it was given on loan to the Montagu Motor Museum when it opened in the 1950s, and is seen here driven by Lord Montagu.

Words: Zack Stiling
 

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