Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rich5ltr]

Anyone able to identify this car? Unfortunately the photo is not even dated so that's no help.

Vintage car by Richard Branch, on Flickr

[Ray White]

I would love to be proved wrong because this is a very rare car...but I think it could be a Surrey.

According to Georgano, the Surrey was an assembled light car that utilised some Model T parts including the front axle and steering. It was powered originally by a 1 1/2 litre 4 cylinder Coventry Simplex engine. Transmission was either friction disc and chain to a solid rear axle or else through a Meadows 3 speed gearbox to a live axle. Electric starting and lighting were optional extras up to 1923.

I notice that this car appears to have a transverse leaf spring to the front axle, so perhaps Model T ? The radiator and bonnet straps are as pictured in Georgano; as are the wing mounted lamps...but here's the rub. The body is different and the wings appear older than the 1921 date given for the beginning of Surrey production.

Thanks for posting a real head scratcher.

[Rich5ltr]

Thanks Ray, just to add I don't know either so I'm not going to annonuce a winner!

[Cargy]

Sorry Ray, rather than a transverse spring the car appears to have a pair of single leading quarter elliptic front springs bolted to the chassis side rails. May have quarter elliptics ditto at the back, rear shackles not being visible. The front springs are bolted onto a flat front axle with tall king-pin pintles; the hub, swivels and steering arms don’t look like Model T. Such low-cost shackle-free, radius arm-free and torque-tube-free springing was common to a number of “light cars” from before WWI until c.1925, by when the fitting of mechanical front brakes revealed its weakness.

Up to 1925-ish, the following had at some point a model with leading front quarter-elliptics: A.B.C, A.C., AVRO, Belsize-Bradshaw, B.S.A., Charles Willets, Chevrolet, Cooper, Coventry Premier, Crowdy, Gillet, G.N., G.W.K, Hammond, Hands, Herbert Engineering, Hodgeson, Humber, Kingsbury, L.M., Rhode (Tyseley Engineering), Rotary Units Ltd., Rover, Seaton-Petter, Singer, Stellite, Stoneleigh, Wolseley and no-doubt more. There are clearly some of those it is not but one or two it might be...

What is most unusual and may be a key to its identity is the wheels having all spokes bolted directly to a demountable tyre rim, without a subsidiary felloe. Most notably, it has a large probably pressed/welded rear hub and spokes, with possibly an integral brake-drum, although that might be reinforcement to take the drive torque. Each of the ten spokes has a bolt holding it to brackets fixed to each side of the rim, which appears to fit either front or rear.

Combined wheel/hub with a separate tyre locating rim appeared pre-WWI, before fully detachable wheels became the surviving option. Early exponent of steel wheels with spokes individually bolted to the rim was American Walter Christie c.1906 and there were a number of American makers thereafter, e.g. Healy. The German Kronprinz wheel of 1911 was a rim/spoke-bolted design. Reportedly, there were two designs of bolt-on-rim wheel on sale in Britain by 1915, available with several tyre/rim cross-sections. Demountable rims became a hot topic again c.1920 when more cars with straight-sided tyres on complete wheels with demountable rims arrived from America but that’s not what this car has. Hard to find any photos of cars with similar rim-bolted, pressed/welded steel wheels.

The car is in mid-1920’s UK condition as it has a tax disc holder on the nearside below the screen. PB6163 looks like a Guildford registration.

[Ray White]

The springing is as you say. I have only just found a way of enlarging the photo. The quarter eleiptics are in fact quite evident. The rad and bonnet still seem to match the picture of a Surrey in Georgano but the Ford T parts are not there. I think it may well be a bitsa.