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Bill Dutton’s gorgeous little Alta 1100 Special in the Fishermans Bend paddock during the 29-30 January, 1950 Victorian Tourist Trophy meeting. Love the ‘works’ Alta overalls.

George McKaige attended the meeting and took some marvellous photographs. A prolific enthusiast, driver, restorer and photographer, he and his son Chester published two books of George’s work, called ‘Beyond The Lens’, the shot above is on the cover of Volume 1.

This little known car was conceived when Bill Dutton – of the famous Melbourne car trading family – bought the supercharged, DOHC Alta 1100c engine (number 25S) which had been cast aside when Bill Reynolds bought Alta 21S from probable British MI5 spook, Alan Sinclair. Sinclair raced the car in Australia in 1938, an exhaustive and exhausting account is here; https://primotipo.com/2018/11/08/the-spook-the-baron-and-the-1938-south-australian-gp-lobethal/

Reynolds replaced the troublesome Alta four with a big, fat, lazy, powerful and reliable Ford V8. The Alta engine was surplus to requirements until Dutton saw its potential and built a car around it. The evolution of Alta 21S from four-cylinder sweetie to brawny V8 marauder is covered here; https://primotipo.com/2015/11/27/the-longford-trophy-1958-the-tornados-ted-gray/

Tony Johns tells me that the Dutton family business had all of the mechanical, engineering and body building skills to create the car on their Burnley Street, Richmond site. Stephen Dalton points out that Bill Dutton thanks Jack Dongers and Tom Stevenson for construction and body help respectively in the October 1949 issue of Australian Motor Sports. Do theses chaps ring a bell with any of you?

The 1950-51 Motor Manual Yearbook records that the Alta 25S four was 1096cc in capacity, was of twin-cam, two-valve type and fed by an Alta built Roots type-blower/SU carb giving 130bhp @ 5800rpm with 15lbs of boost. It was mated, via a bespoke bellhousing and metal to metal clutch, to a four-speed gearbox of unspecified make.

The chassis was made of chrome-moly steel tube, the main members of which were 16 gauge and two inches in diameter. The tubular front axle was specially made and suspended by transverse leaf springs front and rear with Armstrong hydraulic/Hartford friction shocks. The back axle was also specially made and used Ford bevel gears.

Brakes were hydraulic using modified Chev/Ford drums front/rear, wheels were pressed steel, 16 inch x 6 inch in size, with the whole lot clad ‘in a single-seat aluminium panelled racing body with a long tail, similar to a Grand Prix Alta.’

Bill Dutton engaged Wangaratta’s Ted Gray to drive his new car. Ted initially showed speed on pre-War speedways and in two very impressive appearances in the Male Special midget against Peter Whitehead’s ERA R10B at Rob Roy and Aspendale in 1938. Gray’s Alta credentials became impeccable when his patron, Melbourne car dealer, Alan Male bought Alta 21S Ford with which Gray took 24 wins from 26 starts pre-War according to John Blanden.

After the conflict, Ted re-commenced racing in another famous old-Oz racer, the ex-JAS Jones Alfa Romeo 6C1750 Zagato into which, you guessed it, Ted fitted a Ford V8. Blanden records that the Alta Special’s first race as being at the Fishermans Bend October 29-30, 1949 meeting where a broken cam-follower ended proceedings early in the day. ‘In the late 1940s, early 1950s, the car was a regular competitor, however the engine problems continued. The little car was third in the F1 Scratch Race at Woodside in October 1951,’ a better performance.

In the 1950s ‘the car simply disappeared’, one theory is that it sat on a service station roof in St Kilda (an adjacent suburb to AGP venue Albert Park) as a drawcard for punters after the servo owner refused to pay an exorbitant Alta engine repair bill from a Sydney business. Then Melbourne pilot/enthusiast/engineer Graeme Lowe responded to a VSCC Newsletter ad for an engine in 1967. His £10 purchase of 1100 #25S was the catalyst of a very long, thorough reconstruction/restoration of Alta 21S which was completed and then made its public debut in Betty Lowe’s hands in 1999.

In recent times 21S was acquired by Fiona Murdoch, the shot below was taken at Gladysdale, Victoria on March 4, 2023 during a drive – one I won’t forget in a big hurry – and photo session for a feature article just published in issue 07 of quarterly Australian classic car magazine, Benzina. If you can’t find it in a newsagent, a decent example of which is as rare as rocking horse shit in Australia these days, email the publisher, Jack Quinn; jack@benzinamagazine.com

Credits…

George and Chester McKaige, Ron Edgerton Collection, ‘Historic Racing Cars in Australia’ John Blanden, 1950-51 Motor Manual Year Book, Graham Smith Collection, David Woodhouse, Norman Howard, Byron Gunther

Etcetera…

The other pages of the 29-30 October, 1949 Fishermans Bend (correct spelling of the place according to our Government and lack of apostrophe by the way) programme sent by Tony Johns.

I always find these documents of wonderment as I don’t have a collection of them. This was fundamentally a local meeting but there are a swag of interstaters too, its interesting to see the Top Guns, Future Top Guns and Notables in the mix. Mine are – in no particular order – Ted Gray, Reg Hunt, Otto Stone, Lex & Diana Davison, Ken Tubman and Dick Cobden (NSW interlopers), Stan Jones, Gib Barrett, Rupert Steele, Tony Gaze, Jim Leech, Charlie Dean, Eldred Norman (Adelaide Hills), Doug Whiteford, Tom Hawkes, Ron Edgerton, Jim Gullan, Lou Molina, Murray Carter, Hedley Thompson, Arnold or Arthur Terdich, Peter Manton, Bill Patterson, Derek Jolly and no doubt others who just don’t ring-the-bells for me.

What jumps off the pages too is the importance of Australian Specials, and MGs in particular, which provided the lifeblood and bulk of Australian motor racing grids for decades. Depending on the year MG provided both outright contenders and the ‘Formula Vee’ in unmodified form, and ‘Formula Ford’ in modified form entry-level classes of the day.

Finito…