BACK UP & RUNNING
Just a short burst up the A151 and we arrive at our final destination – Grismthorpe Castle. As we drive down the tree-lined gravel drive with the castle in front of us, the ‘Frogeye’ reminds us what a classless car it is – just as happy on the manicured lawns of stately manors as it is in the greasy paddocks of grass-roots motorsport. This is a particularly remarkable feat when you remember that this is a car with no external door handles, let alone anything resembling luxury. Having said that, I know where I would rather take my Sprite to.
Turning immediately right at the gates of the castle’s courtyard, the Sprite’s bug eyes gaze down just under a mile of Tarmac. It’s smooth, no more than a car or so wide and gently ribbons its way down to the estate’s vast lake. This must be the route of the speed trials that will be held here in August, reviving a competition that was last seen here almost a century ago. They haven’t decided whether to go up or downhill yet, so I do both.
We’re not quite going full bore today because there are no marshals, but the Sprite’s acceleration is pretty much all or nothing, and it’s remarkable how well the car puts its power down, even when unsettled by the occasional lump on the way down the hill. This makes the steering feel momentarily light, but it handles the bumps far better than a Fifties’ sports car of this weight really has any right to – those quarter elliptic rear springs might be oldhat today, but they work fantastically well here.
Approaching bends, the Frogeye emboldens the driver like little else, too; its steering and throttle response are almost telepathic, making it a proper ‘point and shoot’ car. It’s so fast and so much fun on these tight roads, in fact, that I ask owner Mike whether the engine is the original 948cc unit. He assures me that it is.
Quite simply, the ‘Frogeye’ is one of those cars that truly feels like an extension of yourself. It’s so stiff, responsive and utterly predictable that it goes beyond being merely communicative and modest costs, image and mechanical complexity mean that you never feel guilty about playing around with it.
Never has 50bhp felt like so much fun. And it probably never will again.