ANOTHER MISSING ULSTER

[Henry Harris]

VE shortly after being bought by Mike Bills.

   

[Reckless Rat]

Starting handle?

[Ivor Hawkins]

Yep, still on it to this day I think Bruce...

[JonE]

unsupercharged 132078 has just "appeared" on FB. Was that a missing one, or has it always been known? not on Survivors Reg.

[Reckless Rat]

The reason I posted about the starting handle is that I thought all the Ulsters had pressure fed cranks...

[Mike Costigan]

Yes, Bruce, but they still retained a fixed starting handle.

[James Anderson]

It’s great to see the comments and photos. Colin, I think your version of Tam’s son death are probably correct for a least two reasons that I’d rather discuss in a private message than a public platform such as this (assuming you’re interested!). With regard to the car being shinier, it did have a cosmetic rebuild/repaint ? In the 1970/80s when Mike Bills owned it. Mike Costigan has asked me to write about the car for the ‘grey magazine’ and I may cover some of the interesting social aspects of the car such as its owners and fellow competitors at Brooklands that underlines something I’ve said before, that it’s often the people who are as, if not more, interesting than the cars! In respect of the starting handle, yes, you don’t see many in situ on pressure fed engines but VE4492 has always had one. In fact, with the help of Vince Leek, it took me the best part of 10 years to build a replica engine also with one, that’s currently in the car, and aspects of that build were so difficult that his words ‘I’ll never do another one’ are still ringing in my ears!

[Reckless Rat]

Thanks for that. You live and learn!

[Lance Sheldrick]

132078 could be right as it seems they were made in small batches of consecutive chassis numbers and the one I had, which was registered OV 9 is chassis 132080, now in Germany.

[Mike Costigan]

132078 is indeed the chassis number of a genuine Ulster, originally fitted with an unblown engine 132997, painted green and black with black trim, despatched 1st April 1931.