READERS’ WRITES
The article on the Lycoming Special which appeared in the July 2019 issue of New Zealand Classic Car [No. 343] has a small but significant error on page 38. It refers to “the rotary valve aeroplane engine”, which Ralph Watson designed and built. It is in fact a radial engine, where the crankshaft stays still and the cylinders rotate around it. The propeller is therefore attached to the cylinders, not the crankshaft. Alan Woolf once mounted the radial engine on a trailer and
I saw and heard it going on that trailer at his property at Silverdale. He had taken it on the trailer down to the rest home where Ralph was living and fired it up outside for him.
It has possibly been confused with the unique engine which Ralph later fitted to the 1931 BSA Special. As far as I know, he is the only person to have designed and successfully converted an ordinary fourstroke engine into a rotary valve engine. He also made a new worm and wheel for
the differential and raised the gearing. This 1931 BSA is racing successfully today in the Historic Racing Class and still has its original four-wheel independent suspension. A few contemporaries like Lancia, Morgan, and Peugeot had also developed independent suspension, but only on the two front wheels.
John Grant, Mt Eden
Article author Donn Anderson says you are quite right about this inadvertent slip. Thanks, John, for noticing and correcting this for our readers, and for your other fascinating insights.