AN INSPIRING SATURDAY AFTERNOON

The Trust’s recent ‘Meet our Authors’ event

Steve Cropley, editor-in-chief of Autocar, described the Trust’s ‘Meet our Authors’ event, held on 21 March, as ‘Like a group of old friends exchanging ideas’. If that was so, it provided exactly the atmosphere we had intended — a relaxed gathering of established and novice authors that provided interest and information to inspire a new crop of motoring history.

It was estimated that the authors gathered in the Hagerty Clubhouse at Bicester Motion have, between them, produced 150 books. Attendees heard of the very different backgrounds, work processes and publishing experiences of four prominent motoring authors: marque historian David Knowles, prolific motorsport writer Ian Wagstaff, and Trustees Paul Skilleter, the Jaguar expert, and veteran car authority Michael Edwards. And the interviewers, Trustees Peter Card and Giles Chapman, brought their own publishing experience. It all made for a lively and wide-ranging debate.

The Trust is grateful to insurance company Hagerty for hosting the event in its fine clubhouse, an ideal venue in the heart of the classic car world.

The accompanying photographs show the stylish surroundings of the Hagerty Clubhouse and a discussion between David Knowles (left) and Giles Chapman (right).

THE FORGOTTEN DESIGNER

Peter Kirwan Taylor in his own words

The three latest additions to the MSMT audio library, Voices from the Past, include a rare interview with Peter Kirwan Taylor, the designer of the first Lotus Elite. He was interviewed by Jonathan Wood in 1982. He died in 2014, aged 84.

Often forgotten in automotive circles, Kirwan Taylor was not a professional designer but a chartered accountant who became a very successful merchant banker. He came to Colin Chapman’s attention when he produced an aerodynamic body for his own Lotus Mk 6 and worked in his spare time to shape and develop the 1957 Elite, which had a novel glass-fibre monocoque body/chassis. He maintained contact with Chapman for many years, serving as a non-executive director of Lotus.

Kirwan Taylor’s undoubted design talent was applied to only one more production car — the Citroën Bijou, a rebodied 2CV commissioned by Citroën UK in 1960.

The two other new files in the Voices from the Past library are Jonathan Wood’s interviews with Harold Beach, chief engineer at Aston Martin in the DB4/5/6 era, and Anthony Wedgwood Benn, government minister for industry at the time of state control of British Leyland.

The audio files are available, free-of-charge, to download on application to msedgwickmt@gmail.com For the full list see the MSMT website.

A SUPERCHARGED SEND-OFF

Remembering David Weguelin, by Ray Hutton

The sight and sound of an ERA, with its jacked-up wheels spinning, in a churchyard on London’s riverside was a fitting tribute to David Weguelin, who died in February at the age of 76. Although known as a film maker and archivist, Weg was revered by the historic car community for his 1980 book ERA: The History of English Racing Automobiles 1934-1978, the definitive work on the marque. A group of ERA enthusiasts brought two famous examples, R1B and R4D (the car pictured above), to the thanksgiving service at St Mary’s Church, Battersea.

Weg never wrote another book but he showed great interest and support for the MSMT and several Trustees benefitted from his knowledge and meticulous research. Specialising in the discovery, restoration and digitisation of old film of motoring and motor sport, he worked with the British Motor Museum, the National Motor Museum and the Mercedes and BMW libraries. Five years ago, as he became increasingly incapacitated with Parkinson’s Disease, his own archive was acquired by the Revs Institute for Automotive Research in Florida.

MY FAVOURITE MOTORING BOOK

Trustee Peter Card explains his choice

For the motoring enthusiast who likes to read of derring-do, I can recommend Charles Jarrott’s Ten Years of Motors and Motor Racing, published 120 years ago by Radclyffe & Hutchings in London and by E.P. Dutton & Co. in Boston, USA. So successful was the book that two further editions were published in 1912 and 1926, and it can also be had in paperback today. My original 1906 copy was a lucky find in an antique shop just off Regent Street, London in the late 1960s. For my two-guineas the book came with its original illustrated dust jacket, which included a front profile of a Salsbury Ltd acetylene gas-powered lamp on the spine.

Aged only 29 when he published his racing memoir, Jarrott probably had more experience of motor racing than many of his older contemporaries. Born into a working-class family, and receiving only a church school education, he had social aspirations and deliberately associated himself with wealthier sections of society. He started his career racing bicycles with S.F. Edge and moved to De Dion Bouton-powered tricycles in 1896, competently achieving a number of records. He then borrowed a Panhard & Levassor from Chevalier René de Knyff, the French motor racing pioneer and later president of the Commission Sportive Internationale, to take part in the 1901 Paris–Berlin and Paris–Vienna races. Jarrott’s apogee came when he won the 1902 Circuit des Ardennes, and he retired from competition two years later.

Skilfully written in a loquacious style, the book describes in significant detail the trials and tribulations of the drivers, who were brave, dedicated and tough, and had the kind of skill that a modern racing driver would not recognise, as they controlled their primitive cars with poor tyres and indifferent steering at what were seen as reckless speeds. Two stories in the book stand out, both concerning the overnight stop in Belfort, France during the 1902 Paris–Vienna race, an event that also embraced the Gordon Bennett Trophy. When the wooden chassis of Jarrott’s 70hp Panhard & Levassor suffered a cracked offside rail, drastic measures were called for, so he broke up furniture in his hotel bedroom to enable repair, apparently avoiding the landlord upon leaving in the morning. Meanwhile, Edge, the eventual winner, did not even have a hotel room after arriving late for the overnight stop, so he was forced to aimlessly wander the streets looking for food and accommodation.

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