A Roseborough, perhaps, Bob King thinks the driver may be Doug Whiteford racing under a pseudonym, from unknown, and Norman Hamilton or Les Murphy, MG P-Type during the early laps of the Benalla Centenary 100, Easter Monday, April 13, 1936.
Teaser for the little-known Benalla Centenary Hundred to be held by the Victorian Sporting Car Club.
The centenary being celebrated, was the European-settler establishment of the township of Benalla 210km northeast of Melbourne. There is bugger-all in the way of photographs of this meeting, I’m not helping solve the problem here either, but the firsthand report of the meeting is a start; photo contributions invited!
The correct name of the winner is Vincent Aloysius Moloney, born 1902, later in life a resident of Murrumbeena, Melbourne, while the winning car is an MG Magna L-Type chassis #L0658.
The car was imported by Lanes Motors and lobbed at Port Melbourne in December 1933. It was locally bodied by Chas Aspinall, a common practice at the time to minimise the exposure to import duties levied by The Fiscal Fiend. Vin raced the car mainly in Victoria until 1936, after which the car was sold to a South Australian owner. The car has lived in New Zealand since 2014, click here for an interesting, comprehensive history of the car, scroll down to #L0658:https://www.mgclub.org.nz/download/167741/L%20Types%2C%2007%20October%202024%20V2.%20PDF.pdf
MG Historians are certain the VA Maloney (sic) who competed in four Australian Grands Prix: Nuiootpa 1950, Narrogin 1951, Bathurst 1952 and Albert Park in 1953 aboard a Head Brothers, Murrumbeena, Melbourne built MG TC Monoposto Special is our boy.
Jack Day punches his Ford V8-powered Day Special – Bugatti T39 Ford – out of one of the right-handers. That water tower will be a tip for a local as to the precise locale.
Etcetera…
Bob King on the first photograph, which he posted on Greg Smith’s ‘Pre 1960 Historic Racing in Australasia’ Facebook site. ‘I know very little about the Benalla road races of 1936, said to be the first Victorian mainland races on public roads. This photo given to me by David Watson in 1975, shows an unlicensed (too young) Doug Whiteford driving the ex-Beith Chrysler followed by Reg Nutt in the Day Special (painted purple) and either Norman Hamilton or Les Murphy in a P Type MG – they were both in the race.’
John Medley, ‘Just a glance at my records of this event offends the historian in me. So many mis-spellings, obvious errors, outright mistakes and fabrications, earnest over-amplifications and over-simplifications (not unlike Australian or USA or world politics 2025!). And of course officials and more who couldn’t count, so results were changed overnight…. One thing veteran competitors in any sport learn is calmness under pressure– so the competitor in me is offended by what I see in my records of this event. This is and was a mess, and extended by people 2025 trying to re create from snippets of information what we think may have happened in 1936, from the work of 1936 scribblers who didn’t know all that they didn’t know…. One needs at least a PhD in Philosophy to unravel the thinking.’
On Norman Hamilton – of later Porsche Cars Australia fame – ‘Distant memory, but I’m pretty sure that Norman told me that he drove at that meeting. He was old enough and was a friend of Jack Day who owned the Day Special,’ Bob King.
So what does this all mean? Who knows who really won the race.
Credits…
The Car March 1936 via the Bob King Collection, Edward Trevithick-State Library of Victoria, Nathan Taska Archive
Finito…
primotipo... 