The lighting of this shot of Ted King’s Rajo Ford is poor but it also makes the shot, so very evocative!
Historian Nathan Tasca chased up a fellow who posted another photograph on Facebook and was rewarded with some other shots including these two,. At this point ‘Prof’ John Medley came to the rescue and identified the car, as he does…
As luck would have it, my loan-copy of a ‘Half Century of Speed’ has the shot below of King “after winning a championship at Penrith in 1927.” What follows is a truncated version of the late-great Barry Lake’s narrative.
Ted King lived in Newcastle (NSW) and raced mainly on dirt tracks in that area. King used to ship his car by steamer to Sydney and back to attend meetings. In the mid-late 1930s groups of speedcar drivers would do the reverse of this trip; travel overnight on Friday, race in Newcastle on Saturday, then return overnight on Saturday to be home in Sydney on Sunday.
In the first half of the twentieth century road travel between cities was long and arduous. Roads were narrow, rough, winding and dusty, with many ferry crossings. Coastal steamers were cost effective alternatives right up until the early post-war years; Sydney to Adelaide an example.
Frontenac ‘Fronty’ and Rajo manufactured overhead valve conversions for T-Model Ford engines. They both used crossflow heads, but Frontenac Fords had the inlet ports on the left and exhaust ports on the right hand side of the car. All Rajo-Fords had the inlet on the right and exhaust on the left.
The Morris bull-nose radiator was a common fitment to locally assembled T-based racers which used Fronty or Rajo parts as they looked like the US built cars of the time at less cost.
Many Fronty and Rajo Fords were raced in Australia but few were fully imported complete cars. Heads, engine parts and other hot bits were brought in then built up with locally sourced T-Model parts to build copies of the US built cars. There are still about 35 on register in Australia.
More reading; https://primotipo.com/2018/11/20/penrith-speedway/
Etcetera…
After posting this piece the following material arrived from David Smallacombe, photo of King at Penrith, and from Andrew Webb, who has the remaining bones of the King machine; the front wheels, Rajo head, Solex carburettors, chain drive magneto and water pump, and log book.
Ted King in his Rajo Ford at Maroubra, date unknown.
Credits…
Nathan Tasca, John Medley, Ro Ander Family, ‘Half a Century of Speed’ Barry Lake, Tony and Pedr Davis, David Smallacombe, Andrew Webb, Peter White Collection via Colin Wade
Finito…
primotipo... 