VOICES FROM THE PAST

Four audio interviews now available from the MSMT

Twenty-five years ago the MSMT commissioned a series of audio interviews with ‘backroom boys’ of the motor business to record their life and times for future authors and historians. We have now transferred four of these interviews to MP3 format, so that they are usable on most modern electronic devices.

The four interviews, conducted by broadcaster David Moss, are available free-of-charge as file attachments on application to: msedgwickmt@gmail.com

Roger Menadue (1912-2003) recorded 2000, 2h 0m, 276Mb

Mechanic and right-hand man to Donald Healey, Menadue was in charge of prototype build, including Austin-Healey and competition cars (among them the third-placed Nash-Healey at Le Mans in 1952).

Alex Moulton (1923-2024) recorded 2000, 1h 57m, 270Mb

Collaborator with Alec Issigonis, devising rubber suspension for the Mini, and later Hydrolastic and Hydragas for a range of BMC/Leyland cars. Inventor and manufacturer of the Moulton bicycle, as pictured above.

Theo Sherwen (1910-?) recorded 2001, 2h 0m, 278Mb

Engineer and draughtsman in the small team that built the Squire sports car, 1935-36. Apprenticed to Riley, transmissions specialist, later work on aircraft, tractors and agricultural machinery.

Ken Smith (1923-2014) recorded 1999, 1h 58m and 1h 12m, 212Mb

The key figure in Citroën’s UK production at Slough. Deeply involved with development of the Citroën DS, expert in hydropneumatic suspension, adviser on right-hand-drive cars after Slough production ceased in 1965.

KARL LUDVIGSEN’S POWER UNLEASHED

MSMT supports new three-volume history of supercharging and turbocharging

The biggest book ever supported by the MSMT has just been published. Karl Ludvigsen’s Power Unleashed, a meticulous study of the history of supercharging and turbocharging, comprises three large-format volumes (within a slipcase) stretching to nearly 2,000 pages and containing three-quarters of a million words and 3,500 illustrations. The MSMT contributed towards the cost of compiling the index, which itself consumes 33 pages across the three volumes.

It is no exaggeration to state that Power Unleashed has been many decades in the making. The author’s first close encounter with supercharging occurred as a youth in the early 1950s when he redirected a ventilation tube to the carburettor of his mother’s 1949 Buick Super convertible. Supposed to deliver more oxygen by ram effect, this succeeded only in leaning out the mixture, to the dismay of the Buick dealer’s service staff in his hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan. He first wrote about forced induction in a 1970 issue of Automobile Quarterly, the research for which brought him into personal contact with some of the early exponents of this exotic art. Their recollections served him well when he began serious work on Power Unleashed 12 years ago.

Let’s try to summarise the book’s scope in a single paragraph. Supercharging began with the bold pioneers who first won races with blowers in 1910 and then took to the air to gain altitude with supercharging in the Great War. Compressors were rare yet highly desirable devices in their early heyday of the 1920s and ’30s, an era in which they graced supremely charismatic cars on both road and track. Prolific use of forced induction in the air in World War II brought forth the many more engineering geniuses who populate the book’s pages. Having seemed abandoned on land, power boosting then found new acolytes who perfected turbocharging for all manner of machinery, from ‘hot hatchbacks’ to Formula 1 in the 1970s and ’80s. Into the 21st century turbocharging has found its way into more and more cars to enhance both performance and fuel efficiency.

Power Unleashed is published by Evro Publishing at £395 but the MSMT has arranged for recipients of this newsletter to get a discount of £100 when buying direct from the publisher. Go to the publisher’s website (www.evropublishing.com) and enter the discount code POWER25A at checkout.

ASTON HILLCLIMB CENTENARY BOOK

MSMT-assisted book covers the hillclimbs from 1904 to 1925

In 1925, exactly 100 years ago, an accident in which a spectator was injured at the Kop Hill event, near Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, led to the RAC ceasing to issue permits for closed public road events in England, Scotland and Wales. After that date, only Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man issued permits for such events in the British Isles, a situation that continues to this day, particularly in motorcycle racing with the North West 200, Manx Grand Prix and, of course, the Isle of Man TT races.

The nearest hillclimb to Kop Hill was Aston Hill, above Aston Clinton, where events were held from 1904 to 1925. Now, at the centenary of the last event at Aston Hill, a new book has been published about its history, supported by the MSMT. Written by Mike Stark and Steve Akers, The Motorsport History of Aston Hill is published by JRM Publishing and available from Chaters (www.chaters.co.uk) priced at £35. Based on two years’ research in period journals and archives, this 148-page softback book describes the events held at Aston Hill along with competitor profiles and over 100 period photographs, many previously unpublished.

Arguably the best-known aspect of Aston Hill is that it gave its name to a marque synonymous with fast and luxurious cars. Both of the founders of Bamford and Martin Ltd, Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin, competed there, initially in other marques and later in cars of their own construction. To celebrate and remind potential customers of their successes, the name ‘Aston-Martin’ (the hyphen was later dropped) was coined and had the added advantage of promoting them towards the front of any alphabetical listing. To recognise this connection, the book incorporates a foreword by Nick Mason, who is well-known for owning and competing in early Aston Martins.

Hand in hand with their book, the co-authors, who are both active competitors in speed hillclimbs, helped to organise a celebratory event at Aston Hill on 17 May 2025.

FOUR WHEELS GOOD, TWO WHEELS JUST AS GOOD

A reminder from Giles Chapman that the MSMT welcomes motorcycle projects

Having been lightly involved, at the Royal Automobile Club in London’s Pall Mall, with the presentation of the Simms Medal for 2024, it was no surprise to me that it went to Maeving as ‘an outstanding contribution to motoring innovation’. Maeving is an all-new brand of electric motorcycle conceived, designed and assembled in Britain.

As an MSMT Trustee, this reminded me that the country’s motorcycle industry – currently humming with activity around new and revived two-wheel marques – has a heritage just as rich and diverse as the car side. And the MSMT is here to help when it comes to investigating and recording the history of motorcycle endeavour that might otherwise be lost.

We noted at a recent Trustees’ meeting how refreshing it was to receive an application for a book on another British bike launch from over 40 years ago, Hesketh, about which there are precious few reliable sources. The yawning gap on the library shelf was suddenly obvious as it became clear the years had quietly crept by.

So… just in case there is doubt to be avoided, we are donning our literary leathers and declaring that – yes – we certainly do consider book projects on motorcycles and motorcycle history.

Of course, there have been copious marque and model histories on the ‘big beast’ machines from famous names like Vincent, Triumph, Norton, BSA and the rest. Authors such as Mick Walker, Roy Bacon, Cyril Ayton and Bob Currie have done valuable and excellent work in the past.

What matters to us, though, is what they might have missed, avoided, or perhaps even disdained! And while the main publishing attention will usually have been on horsepower, handling and top-level racing – just as for cars – we are here potentially for everything… even if it is scooters, mopeds or sidecars rather than high-performance speed machines.

Maeving’s silent ride through history is only just beginning, of course, but if you, as a potential author, have bike stories of the past to tell that might not happen otherwise, we are here with potential funding help.

MY FAVOURITE BOOKS

MSMT Chairman Ray Hutton nominates two

My favourite books are motor racing history but not as we usually know it. I started out in motor sport journalism and over 50 years have read dozens of racing driver biographies and accounts of teams and individual cars. I have even written a few myself. Most such books are a reliable record of achievements and failures, valuable to the researcher as well as the avid enthusiast, but they are narrowly focused. It is rare to find the subject woven into the surroundings and events of the time.

Although they have similar morbid titles, A Race with Love and Death by Richard Williams and Against Death and Time by Brock Yates use quite different techniques to transport the reader into their time period and provide accurate history written almost as a novel.

Richard Williams is a celebrated sports and music writer and broadcaster who has published several books on motor racing. A Race with Love and Death (Simon & Schuster, 2020) is the story of Richard Seaman, the young Englishman who drove (and won) for the dominant Mercedes-Benz team before the Second World War and died after crashing in the 1939 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa. His races are described fully but interspersed with fascinating details of family life, travels through Europe in the 1930s, his romance and marriage to Erica Popp (daughter of the founder of BMW), and the awkward politics of an Englishman driving for a team representing Nazi Germany.

Williams acknowledges the value of the unpublished memoir by Richard’s mother, Lilian Beattie-Seaman, in reconstructing the twists and turns of her son’s short life. By adding historical events from the world at large, particularly in England and Germany, he provides an evocative word-picture of a privileged life in tumultuous times. It is a good read even if you don’t care about racing; a great one if you do.

The late Brock Yates, who was a friend and colleague, was best-known for his outspoken and rebellious column in the American magazine Car and Driver, but also wrote a number of good books about the motor business and racing. Against Death and Time (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2004) was his best – a chronicle of one season, 1955, of motor racing on both sides of the Atlantic.

That year was a black period in racing history with the Le Mans disaster and the deaths of Alberto Ascari and Bill Vukovich, champions of Formula 1 and Indianapolis, as well as a dozen or more less famous drivers, and Yates also includes the story of film star James Dean who died in a road accident driving a Porsche 550 Spyder race car. His conclusion is that this was the year that motor racing and the automobile industry began to examine themselves and place more emphasis on safety – although it took 20 years for that to have any real effect.

Historians have a problem with this book because, as the author explains in the prologue, it is ‘faction’, a first-person account by a fictional motoring journalist who became part of the racing circus on both continents. Apart from this imaginary narrator and a couple of his immediate friends, all of the characters are real people at real events and the story is factually accurate.

This literary device allows Yates to provide a vivid insight to racing in its many forms, the lives and loves of the people involved, the development of the cars and those who built them, and the prevailing attitude to risk and reward. We learn much more about the personalities of the drivers and meet many more people than we would in a conventional racing history.

Against Death and Time does a terrific job in bringing the racing scene of the 1950s to life – even if its underlying theme is just the opposite. It is one of my all-time favourite motoring books.

WHAT IS THE MICHAEL SEDGWICK MEMORIAL TRUST?

The Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust is a charity, not a membership organisation, run by volunteer Trustees who between them have huge experience of writing and publishing books. The Trust exists to encourage new and original research into any aspect of motoring history and to offer financial and other assistance to authors and publishers.

The Trust wishes to see research into motoring history reach the public domain, through publication as books, other printed media or on the internet. The Trust gives advice to would-be authors and tries to ‘connect’ authors and publishers. The Trust believes that even books with very limited sales potential should be published if the subject matter is worthy and the research is new and comprehensive.

In cases where a publisher or author believes that a subject merits publication but is unlikely to be a viable commercial proposition, the Trust can often offer some financial help to bridge the gap or enable an author to self-publish.

Where research is of a very specialist nature and not commercially viable, the Trust may offer funding to assist with research provided that copies of resulting texts are lodged in selected specialist libraries, County Record Offices and possibly published on the internet.

michaelsedgwicktrust.co.uk