Kenneth Neve describes an unusual but classic race of the days of "chain-cum-belt."
All except the very youngest of Motor Sport readers, even if
he or she did not own or ride one, will remember those motor-cycles
common until the late 1920's and to be seen in remoter districts even
to-day, on which the power was transmitted from the engine to the
gearbox by chain and from the gearbox to the back wheel by belt. It was a
system of transmission which was surprisingly comfortable and of
reasonable efficiency when used in conjunction with low-powered engines,
but one which in the nature of things fell into disuse when power
output rose. In its declining days the belt was a tedious component
which took umbrage whenever the throttle was opened, and machines so
equipped well deserved the entertaining yet veracious epithet
"Chain-cum-belt : belt-come-off."
But this is not an article about vintage motor-cycles. We are apt to
forget that just before the anti-Kaiser war the belt was a common form
of transmission for light cars, and a surprisingly successful one, too.
Trying to design an effective "special," and working on the well-known
dictum that there is nothing new under the sun—a cliche corroborated by
the revival of the De Dion-type axle on modern racing cars—I cast back
to the early days of cyclecars and found facts enough to suggest that a
closer study of the then prominent makes would be worth while.
In 1913 there was held the first Cyclecar Grand Prix, which must have
been every bit as exciting as the T.T. or full G.P. races of the
period, because competing in it were vehicles which as a type are kept
alive to-day only by the amateur builders of "Shelsley specials." The
following table gives a list of the cars entered, the drivers, among
whom many since-famous names are to be seen, and as much detail as I
have been able to collect about the cyclecars themselves.
The table is not as comprehensive as might be wished; the power
output from the engines is missing, and the weights of the complete cars
would have helped. I think about 700 lb. was the limit, and it was
freely commented at the time that at least one competitor was compelled
to eschew steel-studded tyres as they would have added the few fatal
ounces that tipped the scale the wrong way.
The most interesting competitor of all was the Bedelia, a French car
which was sold for some time in England ; at least one well-known member
of the Vintage S.C.C., Peter Wike, commenced his driving career on one.
It was very long and very narrow, the driver and mechanic sitting one
behind the other with, amazingly enough, the driver at the back,
elevated, so to speak, in the dress circle, so that he could see above
his passenger's head! The V-twin engine was mounted not transversely as
in a G.N., but along the axis of the chassis. The crankshaft projected
through each side of the crankcase and on each end of it were expanding
pulleys. From these pulleys V-belts, one on either side of the car,
drove direct on to belt rims on the back wheels. No gearbox, no
countershaft; then where, you ask, was the clutch? Answer : no clutch
either, but the engine was mounted on rails and could be pushed forward
or pulled backward by the manipulation of a lever in the cockpit, thus
altering the tension of the belts. In short, it was a four-wheeled
edition of the Rudge-Multi, except that the "notching-up" process of the
bicycle was, on the car, centrifugally controlled. The gear-change was
automatic in that the cheeks of the driving pulleys came together as
engine speed increased and thus raised the ratio, and, conversely, as
the engine speed dropped so the pulleys opened and the ratio changed.
The driver had to keep belt tension right and also steer. Scorning
gearbox and all transmission except a couple of V-belts, it can be
appreciated that the Bedelias were the lightest cars in the race.
In Captain Roy Taylor's "Cars I Have Owned" article in the April 1942 issue of Motor Sport,
he mentioned a "Violet Bourget," and wondered what it was like. In the
Cyclecar G.P. there was a Violet Bogey — surely the same car with
Anglicised spelling? A newcomer to racing in 1913, this concern entered
three cars, one of which was driven by the even then experienced M.
Violet himself. It had a water-cooled vertical twin cylinder engine of
73 x 130 mm. and developed just over 22 b.h.p. It possessed the only
friction drive among the entries, the power being transmitted from the
propeller-shaft to the countershaft by friction disc and finally by
chain to the solid back axle. In appearance it was a short,
well-proportioned two-seater rather better finished than most of its
contemporaries.
Foremost amongst the British entries were the two G.N.s driven by A.
Frazer-Nash and C. M. Whitehead. They had G.N. engines of 84 x 98 mm.
but there the resemblance to the chassis which is so much sought after
as a basis for "specials" to-day comes to an end. The steering then was
by cable and the final drive by belt, although the gears were selected
by shaft and chain. These G.N.s were very fast and handled, even in
those days, as one would expect the forerunners of the incomparable
Frazer-Nash to do.
Four Morgans were entered, and apart from their somewhat
unprepossessing appearance, seem basically but little changed from those
in regular production until the arrival of the recent gearbox model.
They were amazingly fast, and anyone who has examined early Morgan
steering, noted the nakedness of the front wheels, and recalled the
mechanics of the rear wheel brake, can scarcely fail to gasp at the
courage of Messrs. McMinnies, Holder, A. F. S. Morgan and R. G. Munday,
who formed the team.
One of the best-looking cars in the race was the Duo, which, contrary
to prevailing fashion enclosed all its works under a neat bonnet. The
steering, always the most frightening thing about these early cyclecars,
was effected by four cables which, in their passage from one front
wheel to the other, were wound round the steering column. Just how
elementary it all was is well illustrated by the fact that motor boats,
on which the wire and bobbin method is used, have for years taken the
trouble to put a sprocket on the wheel-shaft, and include a length of
chain in the cable to run over it, in order to obtain some degree of
positive action.
W. D. Hawkes drove the D.E.W., a vehicle remarkable for its
uncontrollability, a failing which is explained by the following
remarkable yet apparently true story. The machine was built originally
as a monocar, and on subsequent conversion to a 2-seater it carried its
passenger behind the rear axle. From this position he, if the merest
trifle obese, might engage in a game of "see-saw" with the engine as the
complementary balance weight and the axle as the fulcrum. Under the
circumstances one must regard as typical English under-statement the
naive comment of a 1918 motoring journal that "as a result of this
arrangement front wheel adhesion was affected."
Another since-famous name, that of F. H. B. Samuelson who entered one
of the first M.G.s at Le Mans, appears, as the driver of the
Marlborough. He bought this car for ordinary use on the road, but
finding it capable of high speed in touring trim, riddled the thing with
holes, turned off most of the flywheel, and entered for the Grand Prix.
Happy days those must have been; one might anticipate a raising of the
official eyebrow if one turned up now at Tripoli or Nurburg with the
family Morris, however liberally lightened.
The German Mathis was the only car possessing a normal type
differential gearbox and shaft drive. With artillery wheels and a high
chassis it resembled more than anything a Morris-Cowley of about 1920,
with a cylindrical tank in place of the "dickey" seat.
The Super was not unlike the Bedelia in appearance, but in this
instance the driver occupied the "pit" while the mechanic was above and
behind him in the "circle." A cylindrical petrol tank between the two
nestled in the nape of the driver's neck and made him look for all the
world as if he were in a barber's chair with the cushion nicely adjusted
behind his head awaiting the attention of the latherer's brush. If M.
Leveque, the driver, possessed the then fashionable beard the whole
picture must have been quite charming. How the unfortunate passenger
fared if the tank, on a level with his face, were overfilled one cannot
imagine.
Two Sphinx-Globes were entered, one of which had a J.A.P. twin and
one a single-cylinder engine. Although the twin was the more successful,
the car with the single-cylinder engine was of greater interest, as
this engine was of 103 x 132 mm. (I.O.E.) made by Anzania - a goodly
size for an air-cooled single. [Production Globes had single pots of
about a litre capacity.—Ed.]
The two Automobilettes also had different types of engine, a four and
a twin, both water-cooled, but unlike the Sphinx-Globes, they housed
them in different types of chassis. The more interesting, the twin, was
very light indeed, and drove from engine to counter-shaft by chain,
while the final drive was by belt with expanding pulleys. Externally
they were most attractive, having very long bonnets, pointed radiators,
staggered seats and nicely-rounded tails, thus anticipating by some ten
or twelve years the Amilcar and Senechal sports two-seaters.
For the rest the Roneteix, La Rouelle and Noel offered no features of
especial interest, while the Du Guesclin was so far from being ready
for the race that even the make of magneto and carburetter were not
decided.
Besides all these, sidecar entries were permitted and N.S.U., B.S.A.,
Zenith, Gillet, Regal Green and Clyno all ran. It is beyond the scope
of these notes to describe the race (which, by all accounts, must have
been one of the most stimulating spectacles ever) or to list the
performance of the cars on the bends and over the roughness of the
course cut up by the G.P. machines on the previous day. Sufficient to
say that the Morgan driven by McMinnies won, followed (in this order) by
Bedelia, Sphinx-Globe (twin), Roneteix, Duo, Super, Violet-Bogey and
another Roneteix.
The lap was 10.86 miles long and the Morgan covered this fifteen
times - 162.9 miles— in 3 hours 53 minutes 9 seconds, which gives an
average speed of 41.9 m.p.h. The Bedelia was half a mile-per-hour
slower, and the eighth car, the Roneteix, achieved 36 m.p.h.
Now the habit of drawing a moral from a story is from every point of
view quite indefensible, but remembering my reason for digging out these
details of early cyclecars, it is pertinent to make a comparison
between them and the modern "Shelsley special." The outstanding thing is
that such elementary vehicles gave so creditable an average over 162
very rough miles. 41 m.p.h. is no mean average over good roads in a
modern 10 h.p. car, in spite of what the white-helmeted letter-writers
say in the weekly contemporaries; I name no names, but a number of very
modern V-twins jib at a couple of 1,000 yard runs in a day. This 1913
reliability was due in no small measure to the fact that all these 1913
cars, whatever their design, possessed, above all, primitive simplicity.
Peter Robertson Rodger stressed the same point in his article on the
Frazer-Nash in the June issue. In 1913 petrol came down a pipe from a
tank; now we carry an airpump, a gauge, and yards of copper pipe to
achieve the same end; they raced without rev.-counters and oil gauge -
motor-cycles still do in the Isle of Man— but "specials" adorn
themselves with these redundant luxuries. The drive from the engine to
the wheels went the shortest way—a straight line—and remembering the
many lengths of chain which, leaving their rightful duties, have lain
like oily adders on the slopes of Shelsley Walsh, we must allow this
virtue. This merit of simplicity is amply demonstrated in the relative
performances of the unsophisticated Bloody Mary or Freikaiserwagen, and
the more complex Fuzzi or Dorcas.
All this is no suggestion that we revert to pivot steering and belts;
still, I think the investigation has been worth while. No miracle of
mechanics has been disinterred, but the cars' performances offer a
latent challenge to the modern "special" builder, and the simple variety
of design a fountain at which the enthusiastic amateur constructor can
refresh his flagging ingenuity; thus inspired, perhaps he may be relied
upon to present to an ever-hopeful world some improvement on the
orthodox and unimaginative G.N. [To which we feel obliged to retort that
to one knows how long McMinnies's Morgan or the Bedelia would have
needed to ascend Shelsley Walsh, so that perhaps Messrs. Bolster, Fry,
Glegg and Waddy need not hang their heads in shame after all - Ed.]
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