Ulster picture source

[JonE]

and that looks like standard height suspension too..? and a flat back with lowered hood sticking out?
You would have though chummies would have removed the 10kg of hood roof for the race....

[Chris KC]

Here is an un-cropped version, they are of Lawrence Clayton who was president of Brighton and Hove motor club and were discovered by Jim Wilkes in his Aunts loft, I will endeavour to see if Joss remembers which issue of the magazine these pages came from. I can also have a go at taking a better photo if Mike or anyone else  wants to have another try at photoshopping. 

Ian I'm trying very hard to read the text but not getting very far. Would I be right in deducing that the piece in the mag relates to a private collection of pics from Brighton and Hove area? The clue may be in the text itself. And there's a string of portraits at lower left of - - 'Tucker' Clayton jnr, is that?

I asked Chris Gould, as that's his neck of the woods, but he'd not seen this before either.

[Austin in the Shed]

Didn't someone run a chummy bodied car at  Le Mans ?

[Mike Costigan]

Yes, Charles Metchin and Cecil Masters ran this chummy in the 1933 Le Mans:


  1933 Le Mans Metchin Masters.jpg (Size: 124.04 KB / Downloads: 367)

They entered again in 1934, but by then it looked more Ulster than chummy!

   

[JonE]

I presume that IS a different car...!

Chaplin's Mrs Flea - Brighton and Hove Motor Club Brooklands meeting 1930
Mr Flea - Brighton and Hove High Speed Trial 1931... and was also in the 1931 Relay "now completely stripped" (?)
Mr Flea was sold to a Cheam garage when Chaplin acquired his orange blown TT in 1933.

[austin]

The chummy that the Metchim brothers used was called "Earthquake", went through a lot of change over the years, (and at a guess had some factory support, especially for Le Mans!)

More photos of it here

[Mike Costigan]

I understood Metchim's 'Earthquake' was one car which was developed over the years, ultimately becoming (the first?) Ulsteroid, but one of those photos suggests otherwise. The car entered at Le Mans in 1933 was clearly still chummy based, and yet the photo at Brooklands dated 1933 BARC Easter Meeting (and therefor pre-dating Le Mans) shows a much more sporting body. I have never seen a reference to an 'Earthquake 2', but did Metchim run more than one car?

[stuartu]

Michael, I do not think the car with the scuttle cowl is Earthquake. Masters was involved with another Austin special which I believe was built by a group of people with whom he worked in the garage trade. The car was initially painted, with any leftover paint that could be scrounged, in a sort of dazzle pattern - obviously not the case in the Austin Harris photo - but even so, I think this is the car.
There was a letter from one of Masters' accomplices in a post war Motor Sport describing their adventures, with a 3/4 rear view of the car which I cannot now find for the life of me. I am pretty sure Masters also drove it at Brighton.

Regards,
Stuart

[Alan]

Yes Stuart, I remember that letter. I could be wrong but I have a feeling that car had a plywood body. It’s a long time ago, but I will certainly have a copy of the magazine. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I’m not at home right now so I can’t look. I’d guess late 60s early 70s.

[Julian Hunt]

The story of Charles Metchim and Cecil Masters Le Mans entries is in the November and December 1956 editions of Motor sport with a follow-up article in March 1979.

Charles Metchim's account (with three photos) is published in "The Austin Seven" (formerly "The Motor Sport book of the Austin Seven") published by the Pre-war Austin 7 Club and available at £8.00 including p&p

Other Austin Seven Books are available.