Barrel of Fun
Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire mobile bar driven
Armstrong Siddeley, which marks its centenary this year, was famed for producing luxuriously-appointed cars that appealed to the connoisseurs of motoring across the globe. But it’s fair to say that this wasn’t your typical Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire, even before Luke Roberts converted it into a vehicle capable of carrying 420 pints of his brewery’s finest ales to various events since launching The Wriggly Monkey in September 2018.
The Sapphire belonged to Luke’s late father-in-law Michael Wylie before it came into his possession. Belfast-based Michael had always had a strong connection to Coventry marque – his father and grandfather operated Armstrong Siddeley dealerships – and he was also involved in rallying and as such decided to build an amalgamation of all the best bits from 1950s Armstrong Siddeleys.
Luke says that Michael always felt that the 346 Sapphire should have been fitted with the larger Star engine and that the pre-selector gearbox was underrated and great for racing and rallying, if set up correctly.
Work on the go-faster Sapphire began in 1991. Michael didn’t want to chop up a working Sapphire, so he used a series of cars that were beyond economical repair. He bolted a 346 body on to a 346 hearse chassis and mated these with a Star engine. Most of the 346 running gear was retained, though Michael opted for front disc brakes and a limitedslip differential before stripping the interior to make it lighter for racing.
Michael was later invited to race in 2005’s Goodwood Revival St Mary’s Trophy and also competed at the Donington Historic Festival, done lots of hill climbing in
Ireland and taken part in the Circuit of Ireland Retrospective Rally on numerous occasions.
Luke says: ‘It’s been campaigned on the Vintage Sports Car Club’s Pomeroy Trophy in the past few years. It’s set up quite well for that because you have to be able to carry two suitcases – you can actually get about 18 on board.’ Despite carrying equipment for transporting and serving beer, Luke says that the car is otherwise largely unaltered from his father-in-law’s original vision: ‘It’s all basically standard Siddeley. Sapphires are about 140-150bhp as standard and this car has been dynotested at 235bhp in its current guise. It’s been balanced a bit better, the cylinder head has been gas-fl owed and there’s a tubular manifold, bigger carbs and a lighter fl ywheel.
‘It’s really torquey. It was geared for hill climbing when I took ownership of it. It’s now been given slightly longer legs, just to make it more comfortable on the road between events. It gets driven a lot now so it’s all just to avoid thrashing it.’
THE BEST, BAR NONE
As tempting as it is to sample Luke’s ale before setting off, it’s understandable that the driver would want full possession of their faculties – especially so if they’ve never used a pre-selector gearbox before – quite apart from the obvious legal ramifi cations.
Rather than a lever sprouting up from the transmission tunnel, there’s a miniaturised arrangement to the left of the steering wheel, which, despite its size, feels solid with a strong spring action and no hint of looseness or play.
As the name of the system implies, gears are chosen before depressing the clutch. Luke advises treating the clutch pedal like a switch, depressing and lifting from it as quickly and cleanly as possible. Get it right and the transmission moves seamlessly into the ratio the tiny wand-like lever had previously been slotted into. Get it wrong, and the result is a ‘false neutral’, requiring the driver to slot the lever back into neutral and re-engage the clutch before trying to select the desired gear again.
That said, this tuned Armstrong Siddeley has so much torque that it pulls strongly from low revs in almost any gear – despite the equipment behind and its contents therein sloshing around, which Luke says weigh in the region of 450kg.
Aside from completely obscuring the view thorough the rear window, the bangs and rattles from the shifting beer barrels does mean that what was formerly a luxury saloon is now almost van-like in terms of how loud