03-03-2019, 06:42 PM
One feature that makes our Sevens so remarkable, as well as being great fun and a fine distraction in the workshop on a wet Sunday, is the fact that as well as being an affordable and reliable family car, the factory developed and promoted them for competition work from the very beginning. This famously began with Capt Waite's successful race at Brooklands on Easter Monday 1923, driving the car home to Bromsgrove afterwards.
What I wonder if any forum members can discover, is whether the 1924 Hereford Speed Trials, the Seven entries, driven by Dudley Beck and Louis Kings, were works entries. Louis Kings, known as Lou in Wyatt's index, was referred to as Chief Tester and was also a works driver. He had been successful both at Brooklands and hillclimbs with the 20, which became known as the Black Maria. He went on the very unhappy outing to Boulogne, an image in the LAT/Austin Harris archive shows him with the team before various disasters struck.
Dudley Beck is not immediately recognisable as a works driver. He drove at Angel Bank, just outside Ludlow, earlier in 1924 but his time was beaten by a Bugatti.
There was a Seven entered at Hereford in 1925 but I have yet to find out whether it started on the day, and who the driver was.
I know I should be in the workshop, but a couple of hours with Tim Nicholson's "Sprint", thumbing through the index free WB's "History of Brooklands" and using the computer to search the Motor Sport archives is more academically rewarding, or just more comfortable perhaps. Many thanks in advance to Seven historians.
What I wonder if any forum members can discover, is whether the 1924 Hereford Speed Trials, the Seven entries, driven by Dudley Beck and Louis Kings, were works entries. Louis Kings, known as Lou in Wyatt's index, was referred to as Chief Tester and was also a works driver. He had been successful both at Brooklands and hillclimbs with the 20, which became known as the Black Maria. He went on the very unhappy outing to Boulogne, an image in the LAT/Austin Harris archive shows him with the team before various disasters struck.
Dudley Beck is not immediately recognisable as a works driver. He drove at Angel Bank, just outside Ludlow, earlier in 1924 but his time was beaten by a Bugatti.
There was a Seven entered at Hereford in 1925 but I have yet to find out whether it started on the day, and who the driver was.
I know I should be in the workshop, but a couple of hours with Tim Nicholson's "Sprint", thumbing through the index free WB's "History of Brooklands" and using the computer to search the Motor Sport archives is more academically rewarding, or just more comfortable perhaps. Many thanks in advance to Seven historians.