Let's Talk Cyclecars

And one more vote.

 

Hey jade great car didn't know the car had history, until I was talking about it the other day to a fellow vscc member ,

I would be interested to chat to you about your dealings with the esc as I will have to submit the jappic recreation in the near future

I have just put a video of the current jappic recreation progress on my Facebook page ,

Search for jappic recreation , or maybe someone could put it on here

Adrian

 

Here's the link to that Jappic video...
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151920669633665

Jeff

 

Your Jappic replica is starting to seriously look like a cyclecar Ade.
Progress so far is a great testament to your skills and workmanship.

 

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Thankyou, It's good to feel welcome.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The Gnariel was the 4th competition special built by Kenneth Neve hence it's title KN IV, his first three were made pre-war and used Douglas and Ariel engines. He had a habit of adding another engine if he wanted more power, as he was at school with John Bolster who built Bloody Mary and with his brother the 4 Rudge engined special perhaps you could blame the school![/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]He campaigned KN IV through the 50's then sold it and the car passed through many hands without much success, it got re-bodied and there were many changes made to it before it briefly reappeared on the VSCC scene in the 1990s. I had been after it for a long time and finally caught it 5 years ago, I have rebuilt it retaining as much as possible of Neve's original and abandoning or altering back much of the subsequent changes.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The chassis is from a 1921 or 1922 GN cyclecar, Neve writes in his book 'A Bit Behind The Times' that he thought this a retrograde step as he had used wood for his earlier chassis which were lighter, he installed the 2 Squariel engines connecting them by a chain, the primary drive being another chain to a much abused Burman gearbox with a hand operated lever outside the cockpit, the next chain is to a layshaft at the rear suspension pivot point and a final chain to the solid GN axle, that's right no differential folks so a lively rear end! Each engine has it's own oil tank and fuel is supplied from a tank in the tail which is pressurised by a hand pump.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]I don't want to write a book here or even a chapter of one so I'll leave it at that for now but I am happy to add more information later or answer any questions if there is more interest, the car has a reputation for being 'difficult' being a bit of a handful on track and unreliable, I have had my share of adventures with it but it has now completed it's first competitive season this century and probably its most successful for 50 years. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]When I first acquired the car there were several people who suggested that I was as mentally deranged as the car was mechanically, they may well have been right which is why I suspect that I will fit in very well here![/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Adrian, I'll PM you separately.
Ah! I am having a little difficulty with posting pictures, I am not very computer literate, they are not oily and mechanical enough for me, here are 3 for now, I'll try more later.
[/FONT]

 

Jade,thanks for more information on your car and welcome! I hope you will share more.

BanjeauX Bob

 

Morgan.Image from Colin.

 

Morgan

 

Mr. and Mrs. Dougal of Longstone Tyres with "PIGLET".

 

Thanks for the link to your Flickr account Ade. I really enjoyed the motorcycle photos -especially those of the cafe BMW's! I'll send you a few of mine for your collection if you'd like. We did a professional photo shoot last summer.

And welcome back SanctaRosa!

Now how cool is that, a cyclecar with two Ariel motors. Very neat Jade. Thanks for sharing, would love to hear/see more.

Unfortunately I didn't made much progress on my Airhead Roadster project this summer as my garage has been full of cycles that I've been repairing/customizing for friends. The roadster has certainly enjoyed their company and they've been a fun distraction for me, but I'm anxious to get back to work on the roadster -especially now that it's cooling off a bit.

This thread does a good job of keeping me motivated and I appreciate everyones contributions. Thanks!

 

1919 Busy Bee

 

benjamin artwork

 

Jappic and J class records

The Jappic was designed and driven by H.M.Walters in late 1924 early 1925 . Walters was a director at Jarvis of Wimbledon a coachbuilder who built road and race cars
Descriptions of the car can be found in John Bolsters book Specials , Jeff Clews Jap the vintage years and William Boddy’s the history of Brooklands , all these descriptions seem to be based on the article in Lightcar and cyclecar on March 13th 1925 “a cyclecar for record breaking “.
The Brooklands Gazette May 1925 published a picture around this time titled J.V(sic) Prestwich’s Jappic hence the mistaken belief in some articles that it was a works effort
In May 29th edition of lightcar and cyclecar the Jappic was listed in an article about current lightcar and cyclecars, it said it was available to order,, in a later edition the rights to the Jappic were offered for sale , and there is no evidence that any further cars were built

Extract from email from C Walters the son of H M Walters
One thing that does spring to mind is that I recall my father telling me that he and Jimmy Palmes of Jarvis's had 150 enquiries about producing replica Jappics at the 1925 Motor Show where I think they had a stand and that they were completely taken aback and unable to respond to this as the Jappic was produced as a one-off and they hadn't considered building replicas and abondoned the idea as it was too challenging for the time!

I also recall my father telling me that he knew J. A. and Vivian Prestwick (the fuels man) very well and whilst the concept, design and production of the Jappic was entirely a Jarvis affair, these two were helpful on the engine and fuels side - they also helped my father with his motorbike engines which my father modified to produce more power as he was a well-known motorbike racer at Brooklands in the 20's with many victories and records on 250, 350 and 750's (728cc) bikes and was the first person to do an 100 mph lap round Brooklands (on his 728cc Vee-twin Zenith-Jap) on a bike under 1000cc!

An interesting fact that my father also told me was that after his modifications and the Prestwick's help, the Jappic 346 cc engine gave 42 bhp on Cleveland Discol alcohol (121 bhp/litre in 1925!).


5th March BMCRC easter meeting at Brooklands ; First outing for the Jappic , possibly ran without brooklands cans as seen in the very early pictures , but brooklands cans and fishtails were compulsory for 1925 at Brooklands ,
Ran in “75 short” this was a handicap race Jappic was first off with 61 seconds over the next car , finishing position is not known but average speed by the Jappic was 66.85mph
Also in 1925 Walters and the Jappic ran at Brooklands and broke records in class J under 350cc
Standing KM @85.163Km/h
Flying KM@93.386KM/h
Standing mile @58.12mph
Flying mile@70.33 mph
5km@105.10 km/h
5 mile @69.04 mph
10km@110.86 KM/h
10 miles @68.79 mph
The engine was then changed to a 495cc (85.7x85) jap engine and Kaye Don drove the car to break class I under 500cc records
5 KM 5 mile 10 KM and 10 mile at speeds ranging between 65 and 69 mph
These Class J records were ratified in 1926 when the governing body changed
In 1928 the car now called HS special (Hawkes Stewart) and was reported running at Montlhery (the story of the Paris Autodrome by William Boddy)
During 1928 Hawkes drove the Jappic to raise the class j record to “nearly” 71mph for 100 miles and 1 hour at 70.95 mph
The car was lost when the Hawkes Stewart workshop under the home banking in Montlhery was destroyed along with a number of other cars belonging to them

J class records
H.M.Walters 346 Jappic 70.46mph 1925
G Hawkes HS Special (Jappic) 75.94 mph 1928
G.B.Gush 348 Vitesse special 77.52mph 1934
R Cyeghinl 349 Moserino 91.30 mph 1939
Count Luroni 250cc Nibbo 105.12 1947
LT-COL ATG Gardner Gardner special 120.4 1951


Bibliography
The history of Brooklands Motor Course 1906-1940 by William Boddy
Montlhery The Story of the Paris Autodrome by William Boddy
Specials by John Bolster
Jap the Vintage years By Jeff Clew
Lightcar and Cyclecar March 13th 1925, May 29th !925,Jan27th 1928
Autocar March27th 1925
Brooklands Gazette May 1925

 

Welcome to the HAMB jadea, great looking car. Bob

 

interesting article on building period race cars

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55288722@N00/sets/72157633119477811/

 

here is a fuselage from a display at the Experimental Aircraft Association museum in Oshkosh ,Wisconsin.It could easily have been used in a cyclecar.

 

Thanks for posting further information about your car Jadea It's good to know more about your car's unique history which makes it much more to us than a few pictures posted on the forum. Mind you they are very interesting pictures, but knowing some background history makes them even better.

And thanks too Ade for posting such a complete history of the Jappic. It makes me wonder what would have happened if Jarvis's had been able to build those 150 replicas. I think a good sized chunk of British motorsport history would have ended up being completely re-written.

Bob, I remember reading an article about the 'Busy Bee' in 'Classic Motorcycling' magazine some years ago. It's a delightful little car, - a complete one-off build and it's good that it has survived.

That aircraft fuselage is definitely food for thought and as you say it could very easily be mistaken for a cyclecar body frame.

 

this is the book i worked from to build the chater lea and now the Jappic,,
interesting how different aircraft construction is to traditional wood work in that the strength comes from glue rather than mechanical joints such as mortice and tenon also screws and nails are used but just to hold and clamp while glueing joints and often the fixing is removed after the glue is set

http://www.amazon.com/The-Techniques-Aircraft-Building-Eaa/dp/094000044X

 

Great stuff ! You forgot to mention it was also registered for the road.

Just the other day I was flicking through The History Of Brooklands - Vol. 2. It seems this little car had a lasting impression on Bill Boddy and I can understand why.

I love period articles. Thanks for posting. Now go and scan the rest of that volume and others you might have so I don't have to spend over 100 Pounds for a magazine.

Ivan.

 

Thanks Ivan

http://shop.motorsportmagazine.com/product/CategoryView/category/ARCH

These two cd s have all the back issues of motorsport scanned in as searchable PDF , save you a fortune , the other stuff I have from light car and cyclecar was photographed at the vscc library which is only an hour for where I live
Take a look at my Flikr site for more scanned items

 

Ade,it seems to me that with all of the information you have collected on the JAPIC,you could very well publish a fine book about both the original and recreated JAPIC.

BanjeauX Bob

 

As far as removing fasteners after gluing wooden members,this also a common practice in the building of certain watercraft.

 

Having built many wooden aircraft structures and one complete single seat biplane of wood, I can attest to the fact that the small nails, (when used), have no purpose other than to hold the pieces together while the glue sets. Properly done the wooden parts will fail long before the glue joint.

 

I have recently been contacted by a guy who bought a kit of parts a number of years ago to build a jappic recreation, he was keen to hear of my progress, and has spent a long time researching the history of the car and its drivers, but feels now I am building the car that there should be only one recreation,
hopefully in a few weeks he is going to come and visit so we can bring together all the research, and i hope to pursuade him to write the history up, as he is a published author in the vintage car world,, not sure if there is enough for a whole book , but certainly a couple of magazine articles ,,
he has a pile of parts which i hope to see and maybe buy ,, if i can scrape together enough money ,, especialy as this stuff doesnt come up too often so has to be grabbed with both hands ,,

i do fancy doing a book on small capacity record holders,, class K , J and I lots of interesting stuff over shadowed by the big brothers

would be great to try for a record in the Jappic recreation , there are a couple just waiting to be broken

 

Wonderful idea!!

I'm sure Ade and others here are aware of the recent purchase by the Brooklands Museum Trust of many items from the collection of the late Bill Boddy. I suspect there is more unpublished material regarding the Jappic to be found.

 

I had forgotten that, I have just emailed Brooklands to see if I can come down and do some research ,it's only an hour away ,

Another car I am interested in is the vitesse special which went on to break most of jappic records ,
when looking through the lots in the boddy auction there was a lot of 200 period pictures the example picture was the only rhs side view I have seen of the vitesse special ,

 

That's a very useful article Ade, thanks for sharing

The wooden aircraft book from Amazon will be going down on my 'must buy' list too.

 

That's the way, we get thumped in The Ashes, and now you pour some more salt. Hopefully one day i'll make the 22 hour flight and immerse myself at Brooklands for a day or five.

It seems we both have the same taste, or do we just like cars a couple of blokes can pick up with their bare hands. I've seen a Mini picked up on one side in the same fashion but I've never had an infatuation for that sort of vehicle.

Question for you Ade. Do you have Boddy's 3 volume set of The Story of Brooklands? If so, is it much the same as The History of Brooklands Motor Course? I wish to get a copy of the latter but I won't spend money if it's basically the same as his earlier work.

 

HI Kurtis I have the single volume history of brooklands motor course , bought it from the local Oxfam charity book shop ,, the one about monthlery has just been republished and can be bought very cheaply from amozan

I don't know if the 3 volume is different from the single volume suspect it the same

 

Mr Airhead,

I await news of your project! Did you decide what to do about the drive?
After viewing one of these hands-on, I figure moving the diff to one side would be the way to do it.

Yes friends, I said hands-on! I bought an early Bantam chassis, and picked it up yesterday. Quite a drive, it was in Pennsylvania. A title is said to be forthcoming...

I'm thinking of building a body of wood.