Obscure British Manufacturers.
Discussion
nicanary said:
I thought you might be interested in this, the Fedden. Not strictly speaking a manufacturer because it never got past the prototype stage, and just about bankrupted its designer and backers.
Roy Fedden was a talented aeronautical engineer who designed successful engines during WW2 including the Bristol Centaurus and Napier Sabre. After the war he realised quite rightly that there would be a huge demand for new cars, and decided to go for it. Unfortunately he selected the weirdest format possible - a three-cylinder air-cooled radial. Because of the size and layout of the engine, it had to be positioned at the rear above the axle line, which meant that the car overturned when it went round corners.
Despairing of getting it to work, he dropped the whole project, and finished up lecturing at Cranfield. I reckon the principle was pretty advanced for the time, and would have worked if he'd gone for a conventional power source.Mind you, the Commer TS3 commercial engine used in the 50s was similarly weird, but worked. Designed for tank use in WW2, it was a three cylinder, six piston horizontally-opposed, two-stroke, supercharged unit - WTF! Made a fantastic noise.
Can anyone tell me of any others?
nicanary said:
nicanary said:
Forgot I had a photo of a Squire to upload. This one is a van den Plas body. (Note I used the original spelling of the Flemish company, not the modern Vanden Plas. Smart-Arse.)
@ VSCC Prescott 2012
king way!'
Excellent!Old Merc said:
That car is one of only six in the world.!!Before starting the business Adrian Squire worked for Bentley & MG.Tragically he was killed in a air raid on Bristol`s Fulton factory in 1940.
Here's one of the others
Apols if covered in this thread already (search thingy not working )but wondering if Clan Crusader has been featured? I owned chassis no 4 -OPT 440J- in the late 70s and loved it. Great looks- I think so anyway; terrific grip and quite pokey with 998 Hartwell Rallye Imp power. Any other Clan owners?
Old Merc said:
Like this, Squire.
@ VSCC Prescott 2012
That car is one of only six in the world.!!Before starting the business Adrian Squire worked for Bentley & MG.Tragically he was killed in a air raid on Bristol`s Fulton factory in 1940.@ VSCC Prescott 2012
http://www.1950sspecials.com/home.htm
One of my favourite sites full of obscure fibreglass creations, makes the Rochdale and Falcons seem like mass production
One of my favourite sites full of obscure fibreglass creations, makes the Rochdale and Falcons seem like mass production
esso said:
Old Merc said:
Like this, Squire.
@ VSCC Prescott 2012
That car is one of only six in the world.!!Before starting the business Adrian Squire worked for Bentley & MG.Tragically he was killed in a air raid on Bristol`s Fulton factory in 1940.@ VSCC Prescott 2012
The cars were built at Remenham just East of Henley on Thames , the workshops are still there behind the Shell Petrol station .
Powered by Anzani engines they were very expensive at the time , probably why there are so few of them !
coppice said:
Apols if covered in this thread already (search thingy not working )but wondering if Clan Crusader has been featured? I owned chassis no 4 -OPT 440J- in the late 70s and loved it. Great looks- I think so anyway; terrific grip and quite pokey with 998 Hartwell Rallye Imp power. Any other Clan owners?
I thought that maybe this wouldn't qualify as "obscure", but when I looked it up, they only made 315 cars over three years, plus another 40 cars in the revived company 10 years later (which goes to show how good the original concept must have been). I would have thought they built more than that. A similar small-volume sports car was the Davrian/Darrian, built in Wales, also Imp-powered.The truck-makers Guy tried to take on the established luxury car firms in the 20s with a 4-litre V8, but only 25 were made. They were too expensive, and although they tried again with smaller cars, only 110 of those were ever built.
RichB said:
Rower said:
The cars were built at Remenham just East of Henley on Thames , the workshops are still there behind the Shell Petrol station .
That will be White Hill Garage, I know it well. Didn't realise that's where Squires were made 
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