Ex-Works 1937 Monte Carlo Rally & 1937/38 MCC Trials Entry Ex-Works 1937 Monte Carlo Rally & 1937/38 MCC Trials Entry

from Magneto Magazine issue 17: Spring 2023

by Hothouse Media

My

UK registration ‘CDU 63’

1952 Jaguar C-Type

UK registration ‘CDU 63’

Riley four-cylinder 1.5 litre engine

Extensive period competition history

Chassis # XKC 024

Properly restored with correct matching numbers

April 1953 first raced by Phil Hill to 2nd o/a

Mille Miglia entry 2020

SCCA ‘Lone Star National’ 200 miles

Bergstrom Air Force Base, Austin, Texas

The 24th C-Type of the 53 cars built Current ownership for 26 years

1961 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster

Chassis Number # 002756 is 1 of only 5 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadsters which were originally supplied in Fantasiegelb color code DB 653, Fantasy Yellow. Tastefully restored to show condition and now with a dark green leather interior, matching two-piece luggage, black hard top and upgraded with Rudge wheels.

Chassis Number # 002756 is 1 of only 5 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadsters which were originally supplied in Fantasiegelb color code DB 653, Fantasy Yellow.

Tastefully restored to show condition and now with a dark green leather interior, matching two-piece luggage, black hard top and upgraded with Rudge wheels.

FURTHER CARS AVAILABLE:

1957 Fiat Abarth 750GT Corsa Zagato ‘Double Bubble’

1965 Ferrari 275 GTB

1967 Ferrari 330 GTS

1974 Lancia Stratos HF Stradale

1976 Lamborghini Countach LP400 Periscopica ex Princess Dalal

CALIFORNIA

California

CONNECTICUT

Connecticut

Malcolm Welford malcolm@mmgarage.com

Malcolm Welford malcolm@mmgarage.com o: 949.340.7100

Malcolm Welford malcolm@mmgarage.com o: 949.340.7100 o: 949.340.7100 c: 949.500.0585 o: 949.340.7100 o: 949.340.7100 c: 949.500.0585 c: 949.500.0585

Miles Morris miles@mmgarage.com o: 203.222.3862

Miles Morris miles@mmgarage.com o: 203.222.3862 c: 203.722.3333 c: 203.722.3333 c: 949.500.0585 mmgarage.com mmgarage.com mmgarage.com c: 949.500.0585 mmgarage.com o: 949.340.7100 c: 949.500.0585 mmgarage.com o: 203.222.3862 o: 203.222.3862 c: 203.722.3333 mmgarage.com c: 203.722.3333 c: 203.722.3333

The incredible life of SF Edge new quick-lift jacks. SF had followed a rigorous fitness regime, and before the start he claimed to have felt “very fit, as never before in my life”. And the run went swimmingly, more than 72 miles covered in the best single hour, still 61 miles in the worst. When SF and his riding mechanic – chauffeur Joseph Blackburn – had completed the 24-hour run, the record was resoundingly theirs, at over 1581 miles and more than 65mph average speed.

Into 1908, SF continued to promote Napier cars through competition, but on July 27 cousin Cecil – who had contracted tuberculosis –died, aged only 28. Writing to The Times on September 28, SF announced withdrawal of Napier cars from all dangerous competitions, feeling that his objective had then been achieved and that “the British motor car now leads in type, design and workmanship”. In fact, his various businesses were faltering financially.

He fell out progressively with early backers the du Cros family, and with Montague Napier. He developed an interest in aviation, and increasingly in farming, living first at Frensham near Farnham in Surrey, then at nearby Churt.

In 1910 he bought Gallops Homestead near Ditchling, East Sussex, adding two neighbouring farms (and later more), a reputed 15,000 acres – vast by British standards – where he would develop intensive open-air pig farming. By 1912 he and wife Eleanour had separated. There was some talk of SF having had an affair with Napier’s star lady driver, Dorothy Levitt.

After the split from Napier, SF pursued the life of a gentleman farmer, while continuing to write endless letters to the press and, in 1913, being elected president of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). He toyed briefly with a movie-making enterprise, the Cunard Film Co Ltd, but it closed in 1915.

Estranged wife Eleanour had died in Australia in 1914. During the Great War, in 1915, SF’s continuing organisational and promotional energies saw him made a member of the Metropolitan Munitions Committee and, in 1917, director of the Ministry of Munitions’ Agricultural Machinery Branch.

He developed a new relationship with his secretary, Myra Caroline Martin, marrying her in March 1917, but meanwhile his relationship with government disintegrated as his lack of diplomacy struck sparks off his one-time customer Winston Churchill. In a classic case of flint cut flint, it was SF who had to resign, returning with his new wife to farming.

A seven-year non-compete agreement with Napier ended in 1919, and SF began buying shares in Auto-Carriers (1911) Ltd, better known as AC Cars. Into 1921 he owned sufficient shares to be offered a seat on the board. He immediately sought to repeat his Napier success by promoting the AC brand through competition. JA Joyce set a new Double-12-Hour record at Brooklands, at 1709 miles 1234 yards –surpassing SF’s 1907 mark by 128 miles.

Aged 54, SF determined to take the record back. Remarkably, he chose to do so not in an AC but in a Dutch Maybach-engined Spyker. He laid on a fleet of charabancs to bring the AC labour force from Thames Ditton to Brooklands to cheer him on. Mission accomplished: 1782 miles 1006 yards in the 24 hours, 74.27mph average.

Edge ran not only AC Cars, living with Myra at The High House, Thames Ditton, but also his huge farm in Sussex and – from 1923 – Cubitts Engineering, planning to build cars in Aylesbury and to produce Anzani engines for AC. Yet his health was faltering, his long-over-stressed heart failing. His doctors urged him to ease his ferocious work rate. When import duties on foreign cars were removed in 1924, the home industry suffered badly: Cubitts closed.

SF did all he could to keep AC afloat, at great personal expense. October 1929’s Wall Street stock-market crash finally killed the endeavour, the Hurlock brothers picking up the pieces in

1930. But SF had taken a tremendous financial loss – probably exceeding £200,000, which by 2022 values would be just over £15 million.

Having sold his farms, he, Myra and their two daughters had a new home – Dentdale at Hindhead – from 1930. His health had been frail during these years of unremitting tension. His letters-to-the-press habit remained strong, until a June 1938 missive to The Motor, reading: “I am sorry to tell you that I may not drive a car again, and this after driving for 42 years, from 1896, without an endorsement. My heart has given out and I am liable to faint, so it is not safe to drive. Hence, I stop.”

After World War Two erupted in September 1939, the frail SF Edge – possibly seeking the supposed health benefits of sea air – and Myra took rooms in a hotel at Eastbourne on the Sussex coast. On February 11, 1940, they cut short their attendance at a concert in the town’s Winter Gardens. SF complained of chest pains. Once back in the hotel, he retired to bed. Half an hour after midnight, the porter heard a shattering crash. SF had either fallen – or had jumped – from the wide-open bedroom window down through the glass canopy sheltering the entrance steps. He sustained multiple injuries, including a fractured skull. Rushed to Eastbourne’s Princess Alice hospital, he died without regaining consciousness.

The inquest coroner dismissed suspicion of suicide, and returned a verdict of death by misadventure. A cremation was conducted at the Brighton Crematorium on February 16, sparsely attended by old acquaintances. SF’s ashes were then interred in the Tilford churchyard, touchingly joining Cecil – and into the spring of 1969, after her death aged 82, Myra joined them both. To this day, that roughhewn monolith within sight of Formula 1 legend Mike Hawthorn’s favourite country pub reminds us of a similarly extraordinary – and ultimately unlucky – motor-sporting pioneer…

Ex-Works 1937 Monte Carlo Rally & 1937/38 MCC Trials Entry Ex-Works 1937 Monte Carlo Rally & 1937/38 MCC Trials Entry

Next Article

My

1952 Jaguar C-Type

1961 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster

1961 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster

1961 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster

More articles from this publication:

My

The Racer Sam Hancock

The Curator Robert Dean

The Lawyer

Brun Motorsport

Restomods: Better Faster Cooler

Ultimate Works Porsche 962: The Definitive History

DIVERSIONS

To sip or to tip?

This article is from:

Magneto Magazine issue 17: Spring 2023