Seasonal salutations to those of you of a religious bent, and all the best for a well earned break for the rest of you. As father-time meanders on I do find my staunch atheism evolving towards an each-way-bet form of neo-agnosticism on the basis that one needs all the help ‘yer can find towards the end of one’s innings. “You fucking hypocrit!” my eldest son observed, fair comment too.
One of my mates asked me about my automotive highlights of the year the other day, I thought the contents of that discussion might be a good end of year topic.
When I think about it, all are related to my mate Bob King: medico retired, racer retired, restorer retired and author current with four Bugatti book tomes so far. My racing interests had been largely post-war until we had a series of illicit, coffee-infused research and talking-shit sessions during Covid. The Peoples Republik of Victoria was locked down tighter than a nuns chastity belt in 2020-21.
As a consequence, much of my research these days relates to earlier times, it’s fun as the learning journey is steep and rich. I worked out in 2022 that I could have my cake and eat it too if I mixed a car’s road impressions with the usual dose of history.
This combo has yielded 2023 articles on King’s AC Ace Bristol (published in Benzina magazine), the Murdoch Family’s two supercharged, twin-cam Altas: 1.1-litre #21S and 2-litre #55S (Benzina and The Automobile) and Richard Stanley’s 3.2-litre, six-cylinder, OHV Sunbeam 20/60 (The Automobile).
Driving these cars were the highlights of the year.
On top of that I get to drive Bob’s Ace very regularly, the best of those steers was participating in the Historic Demos (on all four days) of the AGP carnival at Albert Park. The pace is very-fast-road not full-race, its such a sweetie, a mix of just enough power (circa 135bhp), superb spaceframe chassis and predictable handling via independent suspension at both ends, rare in the day. See here: https://primotipo.com/2023/02/21/benzina-magazine/
The logistics of these road impression exercises are not to be sneezed at. The rendezvous point for the Alta day (the week before the AGP in March) was in the Upper Yarra with one of the cars being trailered from Melbourne. There was a five-person-Murdoch Posse in attendance, David Hewison and his son manning the lenses, plus Bob and the two British stars of the show, who behaved well despite an exceptionally hot day.
THE DRIVE of the year was in Fiona Murdoch’s little #21S. It’s a car first brought to Australia by MI5 spook Allan Sinclair in 1938. I’ve written about it a lot in primotipo and have been all over and into the lore surrounding it – Sinclair, the DKW touring team of 1938, Bill Reynolds, Ron Edgerton, Ted Gray, Ford V8s, Tornado, restored by Graeme Lowe and all the rest – so to drive it was very special, evocative, memorable. See here: https://primotipo.com/2018/11/08/the-spook-the-baron-and-the-1938-south-australian-gp-lobethal/ and here: https://primotipo.com/2015/11/27/the-longford-trophy-1958-the-tornados-ted-gray/
Nico French did the AC Ace shoot on Mornington Peninsula roads very familiar to me: a loop comprising Arthurs Seat, Main Ridge, Red Hill, Flinders and Shoreham and then a blast to Mornington for lunch en route home.
Kingy really doesn’t like the verbal foreplay between his car – mainly directed towards it’s perky little rump – and I in his garage before we set off on these occasions. There are only six-hundred-thousand-reasons she isn’t mine!
I froze my nuts off in the back of Richard’s Sunbeam way back in late April when I was the third-wheel on the annual Ye Olde Codgers Stanley-King Alpine Tour into Victoria’s high country.
Clad in my favourite Thredbo ski-gear, with rear windscreen erect and struggle-rug over my legs it was fantastic fun but, far-canal, it was a true British winter touring experience in The Great Brown Land.
I pitched the Sunbeam piece to The Automobile and it got up against two other ideas I rated more but were knocked back. The drive day was a warm one in mid-October, David Hewison did the static shots in Lancefield and the drive was via the Burke and Wills Track to Redesdale.
The 3.2-litre tourer was surprisingly spritely, the right hand change crash-box novice friendly. No pressure here in the driving, Stanley is a renowned Kiwi/Oz historic racer and has owned the car since restoring it in the early 1970s. He drives it with supreme finesse. Victorian country C-roads are bad at present given the lack of funds deployed to maintaining them, what surprised me was just how the twenties Sunbeam ate the B&W Track in a way my Alfa 147 GTA didn’t: low profile tyres and the rest.
Hewison produced his party trick this time, working with a drone for the first time was interesting, and adds another dimension to considering the terrain in which you shoot. More on the Sunbeam here: https://primotipo.com/2023/05/20/sunbeam-20-60/
Photos continue to be the inspiration for the primotipo articles but it’s yer mates and confidants, mentors, supporters and sub-editors (the latter are readers who pick up and point out the f-ups) that sustain you. So, many thanks to Bob King, Tony Johns, Stephen Dalton and Alistair MacArthur, Bruce Williams, Tony Davis and Doug Nye, and Geoff Harris and Rob Bartholomaeus.
Etcetera…
This shot of Bob King was the ‘money shot’ of the AC shoot, a ripper. Three-quarter front floats the editor’s boat. The owner is having a ball, there a couple of places on the steep climb where the chairlift goes over the road.
Bob competed here in his Bugatti Type 35 Anzani – the ‘Anzani Bugatti’ in Australia – in the early 1990s. There were two climbs (I think) in the modern era which aped the use of the venue pre-war, then officialdom got in the way, as it usually does.
These days the best approach to enjoy this magic stretch of road is an illicit dawn blast having first done a recce to ensure moisture levels of the surface, with many overhanging trees, won’t cause grief…
Rest assured it was as cold as it looks, what superb drivers roads they are. The two old-fellas were cocooned in the front while I was ‘punished’ in that airy rear seat. Kevington countryside, the local pub is great, albeit with a dang-diddl-lang-dang-dang factor about it.
Geoff and Neill Murdoch’s 2-litre Alta 55S at Jack Quinn’s Benzina Concours at Wombat Hill, Daylesford in March. See here: https://primotipo.com/2023/02/25/wombat-park-classic/
Easily the best of this years piss-up type events, it’s on again in 2024, with me as a judge. It’s a very dangerous choice as someone who regards these things as wank-fests, and will fulfil his duties with that degree of conviction….
Neill Murdoch me showed just how quick this supercharged 2-little mid-1930s Alta accelerates, “think of it as a two-seater ERA” was meant indicatively rather than definitively but sums the thing up in a nutshell. Geoffrey Taylor’s marque is so underestimated.
Credits…
David Hewison, Nico French, Mark Bisset, CC Collection
Tailpiece…
What it’s all about, a long and winding road that leads to a hotel door…with apologies to Paul and John.
Richard Stanley and Bob King with Sunbeam 20/60 burbling it’s beautiful six-cylinder song on the Maroondah Highway, Molesworth, Victoria on April 25, 2023.
Merry Christmas, may you all have a peaceful and restful break with lots of good health and luck in 2024.
Finito…
primotipo... 