XL 3

[Henry Harris]

XL 3, the third prototype, sadly now tucked right away and behind glass. 
Science Museum, South Kensington.
Has anyone recently had a chance to examine it closely? It seems to have unique details, for instance the one piece forged(?) steering arm/ball. It also appears to have brakes smaller than 6" diameter.

   

   

[Tony Griffiths]

In 1972, for the 50th Anniversary at Longbridge, the science museum didn't have to be asked twice to deliver the car for the display. It was pretty dirty, so I spent a couple of hours carefully cleaning it - but astonishingly, I never took any photographs. Perhaps it's now behind glass because some fool thinks it might have a square cm of asbestos tucked away somewhere - and visitors would fall over and die if they came within 50 yards of it? On my last visit, I found that the Merlin and Mercedes engines from Spitfire and FW190 were, instead of on the floor as before - when could walk from one to the other and make interesting comparisons - they'd been hauled up into the air part of some arty-farty-woke "display". Likewise, with the machine-tool display - nothing of interest remained - and a section about “pioneers who open up new worlds” had been covered up. "Science" museum? No longer, I found the whole thing very depressing.

[David Cochrane]

This car was rebuilt by Science Museum staff in 1996/97 (?) with advice and financial assistance from the A7CA. The result was on display at the 75th anniversary rally at Gaydon in May 1997. An article was written about it (with photos) in the grey mag, and lots of photos were taken during the restoration. Considering how much the A7CA contributed to this, our treatment by the Science Museum when we asked for it to be displayed at the Centenary was (IMHO) disgraceful.

[Dave Mann]

Try 1997C where Phil Baildon gives a detailed write up.