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Armstrong Siddeley wins at Brooklands
Armstrong Siddeley wins at Brooklands
an article by Leigh Trevail
The Board of Directors at Armstrong Siddeley never intended their cars to be
raced, however some owners thought otherwise and this is the tale of one of
them. Capt Denis Shipwright entered his 30hp Armstrong Siddeley in the BARC
Mid-Summer event of 1921 which was held at Brooklands in
The
following two paragraphs are taken from the
book Brooklands, The Complete Motor History by William Boddy
MBE.
“This was an era when any car tuned to exceed
its known maximum speed in standard form stood a good chance of success, and
for a wager Capt Denis Shipwright had duly taken one of those cumbersome 30hp
Armstrong Siddeley’s, a grey 2-seater with dickey, altered certain things
relating to valves and axle ratio and fitted two Claudel-Hobson carburetors and
880mm tyres instead of 820mm on the solid steel disc wheels. The integral
running-boards were removed from the chassis with a blowlamp, but this, the
only racing Armstrong Siddeley, was still rather heavy!”
“Mephistopheles was on scratch in Duffs hands in
the ‘100 Long’, but although it lapped at no less than 106.88 on its second lap
and 100.82 thereafter, and Campbell’s 4.5 litre Talbot and Park’s Talbot both
retired, the Fiat was not placed, Shipwright winning in the Armstrong Siddeley.
He lapped at 77.09 mph and came home ahead of Swains Vauxhall, which did both
its flying laps at 99.61 mph, and Birkin’s DFP (77.21mph)”
To get things into perspective here are some
facts about the other cars and drivers mentioned in the passage. Mephistopheles
was an aero engined Fiat which was to take the World Land Speed Record
(145.89 MPH) in 1924 driven by Ernest Eldridge. Also in 1924 Capt John
Duff won the 24hr. Le Mans in a Bentley as did Tim Birkin in 1929
.Malcolm Campbell went onto hold the LSR in Bluebird and DFP was a French
racing car imported and modified by WO Bentley before he started building his
own cars. When all of this is taken into consideration even if the handicapping
system was in Shipwright’s favour the Siddeley did extremely well.
Many thanks to WB.
Brooklands, The Complete Motor Racing History By William Boddy MBE Published by
MRP Publishing Ltd -
Copyright Leigh Trevail
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