and Mary Bowran studied the work with
great interest.
Reg had been custodian of the
unrestored M type for thirty-five years,
saving it in a complete unmolested
condition for a retirement project, but
decided to do other things. It passed
through Graeme Steinfort’s hands to
Jim Thompson. Reg and Mary’s ‘other
things’ included touring the world in their
MGBGT, which has the names of many
of the traversed African and European
countries painted along its midriff, but on
inspection it had never been to Lancefield
or Carlsruhe. The world is a big place.
We inspected Richard and Judy’s
attractive sporting Type 23 Brecia Bugatti,
another example of Richard’s handiwork,
looked at the work-in-progress six cylinder
Riley, an MGTF 1500 and the 4.3 litre
Alvis saloon. The 1925 20/60 Sunbeam is
a large beautifully engineered touring car
imported from New Zealand with Richard,
and restored many years ago. It has
provided Richard, often with Crankshaft
Rebuilder Shuggy on board, with rapid
reliable transport in VSCC events for over
four decades.
But perhaps the real gems in the shed
are the two three-litre twin overhead cam
Sunbeams.
A batch of six newly designed Sunbeam
Three Litre tourers was commissioned
in haste at Sunbeam’s Wolverhampton
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JUNE 2014
works in the spring of 1925, two of which
were destined for Le Mans. Sammy Davis
and Jean Chassagne drove one car to
second place behind a Lorraine Dietrich,
and beating fairly comprehensively
two Three Litre Bentleys. A Three Litre
Sunbeam was again too fast for the
Bentleys in the Essex Six Hour Race for
touring cars at Brooklands in May 1927,
and Malcolm Campbell drove one in the
Irish Grand Prix in 1929.
In all, three hundred and fifteen twin
cam Sunbeams were made over the five
years until 1930. Forty-two are known to
survive, two at Richard’s, one owned by L
type MG owner John Lawson, and a fourth
by hearty MG man George Leitl which is
now situated at HVR at Blackburn.
Interestingly, Judy inherited her lovely
original Three Litre Sunbeam from her
dad Trevor Willey, and her brother Nigel
Willey is deep into the restoration of the
four-seater L type MG and, along with
Fran, is now active in our register.
Mercifully Steino was not on the run
because we would have sung a rousing
chorus of our old Sunday school song:
Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam,
I reckon it is a pretty good swap.
The octagonal mob swept down the
road to Louise and Jim Thompson’s place
where Jim had partially emptied the
extensive shedding of his collection of
interesting motor driven devices for our
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