Hillclimb star’s rebuild nears completion
In his early career as a motorsport photographer, our Michael Ware covered many Vintage Sports-car Club meetings and among the cars he captured was Robert Ashley’s highly successful 1930 ‘chain gang’ Frazer Nash. The car started life as a saloon, but at some stage was rebuilt in the style of a Sports model; scruffy but potent, it was driven enthusiastically by Ashley.
Ashley died in January 1970, and willed the car to his great friend Thomas ‘Jumbo’ Chivers, the expert engineer who’d kept the Nash going. Soon after this, Chivers was offered a job in the USA and the car went with him. He took the Frazer Nash to pieces, but never rebuilt it. It’s not known if the sports body was with the car when it was shipped, but it is missing now.
During several house moves, all the bits were kept together until recently, when the kit of parts was advertised on Craiglist and purchased by Elliott Baumgardner. The classic car restorer and dealer soon realised the components could be made into a complete car, less body. Chivers also had some AFN blueprints of the car and a box of trophies won in the ’50s and ’60s.
Baumgardner loosely assembled the chassis and engine, then made an inventory of the spares, but decided to let a Nash expert have the pleasure of putting the car together. It’s now back in the UK, having been sold to Nash enthusiast Andrew Hall, who also has a Meadows-engined Super Sports and co-owns the Fane single-seater with Patrick Blakeney-edwards.