RAC CARS
Sampling the Club’s historic vehicles
THE ROYAL AUTOMOBILE Club, 120 years old this year, was formed in 1897 when the fledgling British car industry had barely turned a wheel. It’s the world’s second-oldest surviving motoring organisation after the Automobile Club de France. Founded as the Automobile Club of Great Britain (and later Ireland) by Frederick Richard Simms, it started life in a rented flat in the Whitehall Court apartment building before moving to 119 Piccadilly in 1902 and its magnificent Pall Mall premises in 1911. By 1913 the Club had grown enough to acquire a country estate, Woodcote Park near Epsom, Surrey, for the further enjoyment of its members.
Although the Royal Automobile Club built its early reputation on rescuing stranded motorists, it divested itself of the roadside services division in 1999 – rather confusingly still branded as the RAC. However, it has made every effort to preserve its heritage. The enthusiastic and energetic Club Motoring Secretary, Peter Foubister, who died suddenly in November 2016, was determined to make Woodcote Park, in his own words, ‘the world’s finest motoring clubhouse’.
To this end, the club has recently completed the restoration and conversion of the ‘Old Barn’ at Woodcote Park into a magnificent Motor House in which to store and display its vehicles and memorabilia. It stands next to Woodcote Park’s entrance and dates from 1770. The barn was originally a granary and has variously also been a mill, a bakery and a cottage, and before the restoration and conversion was an increasingly rickety storeroom.
Peter’s vision was rewarded in April this year with the top prize in the Surrey Heritage Awards for its sympathetic restoration, but sadly ‘Foubs’ did not live to receive it. The club intends to make the Motor House available not only to club members to visit, but also to school groups and engineering apprentices.
Before joining the Royal Automobile Club in 2010, Peter had a long and distinguished career with Autosport magazine and was well known across the motor sport world. Once at the RAC he assembled a small team of like-minded enthusiasts and launched London Motor Week, a seven-day celebration of all things automotive, culminating in the annual Veteran Car Run. He also re-introduced the RAC’s 1000 Mile Trial, which encompassed his native Scotland.
Peter also re-ignited the RAC’s association with the Rally of the Tests, first run in 1932 and revived as part of the Historic Endurance Rallying Organisation’s season of events.
THE RAC HAS moved on a long way from the vision of its intriguing and influential founder, Frederick Richard Simms. He was born in Hamburg in 1863 to an English father and an Austrian mother, was schooled in England and Germany and trained as an engineer in Hamburg and Berlin. As a young man he developed a close friendship with Gottlieb Daimler and his associate Wilhelm Maybach, and in 1890 he purchased the rights to manufacture the Daimler petrol engine in Britain and the Empire, thus paving the way for what would become the British motor industry.
Simms formed the Daimler Motor Syndicate in 1893, at first fitting the engine into motor boats. In 1894 he decided to build his own ‘motorcar’ (a term, along with ‘petrol’, which is sometimes attributed to Simms), spurred on by the excitement surrounding the world’s first officially organised motor competition. It covered a 126km course from Paris to Rouen, on which the Daimler engine excelled.
To this end his business partner, the Hon Evelyn Ellis, ordered the first car to be imported into Britain, a Daimler-engined Panhard et Levassor, built in Paris to his specification with left-hand tiller steering as he wanted to sit next to the kerb for safety. (For the same reason, French cars of the period were right-hand drive.) The car was delivered by boat to Southampton and then by rail to Micheldever Station in Hampshire, from where he and Simms, in a direct challenge to the prevailing and restrictive highway regulations, drove the iron-rimmed car 43 miles to Ellis’ house in Datchet, near Windsor – the first long distance journey by a motor car in Britain. (See page 110 for the full story.)
A year later Ellis took the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, for a high-speed spin in the Panhard et Levassor. The Prince was frightened but not enough to prevent him ‘appreciating the innovation’ and becoming a motoring enthusiast. As king, Edward became an enthusiastic Daimler driver, a member of the Automobile Club, and decreed in 1907 that the club should henceforth be known as the Royal Automobile Club.
Simms didn’t proceed with manufacturing but sold his patents and business at a handsome profit to Harry Lawson, who incorporated it as The Daimler Motor Company in 1896. Lawson was a bicycle-designer, manufacturer and entrepreneur who saw the great potential that lay ahead for the horseless carriage, and he attempted to corner the market in Britain by acquiring as many patents as possible.
This objective ultimately failed and Lawson, whose business practices were always suspect,
was sentenced to a year’s hard labour for fraud. But before his ignominious departure from the fledgling auto industry he founded The Motor Car Club, Britain’s first. Both Simms and Lawson campaigned energetically to repeal the so-called Red Flag Act of 1865 which stipulated that traction engines should travel at no more than 4mph on the open road, 2mph in towns, and be proceeded by a man carrying a red warning flag.
To celebrate the repeal of the act, on 14 November 1896 Lawson and Simms staged an ‘Emancipation Run’, a 33-car, 60-mile charge from London to Brighton at the new legal speed of a giddy 14mph – although not all of the 17 participants that eventually made it to Brighton might have attained that velocity. The annual Commemorative Run commenced the following year with a less-taxing, eight-mile cruise to the Sheen House Club adjacent to Richmond Park. For the 1899 run the Motor Car Club reverted to Brighton as the destination, while Simms’ recently formed Automobile Club organised another run to Sheen House. In 1900 the clubs amalgamated and organised a joint run to Southsea.
Simms, in 1902, was instrumental in forming the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders as a body to promote the interests of the expanding British motor industry, initially sharing premises with the Automobile Club. Both organisations campaigned to have the 14mph speed limit abolished, achieving partial success when the limit was raised to 20mph in the 1903 Motor Car Act, and all concerned felt there was no longer a need to continue the Commemorative Run.
The revival of the run as an annual event was the result of a circulation-building promotion by the and the which in 1927 organised a successful re-staging of the 1896 Emancipation Run. In 1930 the run became the property of the RAC and it remains one of the most popular classic car events in the UK, with hundreds of participants attending from all over the globe. It’s the world’s longestrunning automobile celebration.
Embedded in the DNA of the club was Simms’ belief that competition would lead to improvements in design and reliability, so it organised long-distance trials to test the mettle of new machines. In 1900 Claude Johnson, the
first club secretary, organised a 1000-mile trial around Britain. The 70 contestants left London on 12 April, travelling west to Bath and Bristol before heading north to Scotland. Various tests were engaged in along the way, including hillclimbs and speed tests, as well as displays for the thousands of spectators who gathered to see, often for the first time, the horseless carriages. Fifty-one cars made it to Edinburgh and 46 cars made it back to the finishing line in London on 23 May. The winner was Charles Rolls at the wheel of a Panhard.
In 1905 the Automobile Club organised the Tourist Trophy race, which has been run regularly ever since and is the longest-surviving trophy in motor sport. In the same year the club became the governing body of motor sport in Britain, and it also suffered a schism which resulted in a breakaway and the formation of the Automobile Association.
The other long-running and internationally famous RAC event was the eponymous ‘Rally’, first run in 1932 as the Royal Automobile Club Rally and Coachwork Competition. It was sometimes referred to as ‘The Rally of the Tests’ because of its additional challenges – including
‘Simms believed that competition would lead to improvements in design and reliability’
a slow-running test! Starting from nine different towns and cities, 341 unmodified cars travelled 1000 miles over their chosen route to the finish in Torquay. A Lanchester 15/18 won.
The relaxation of sponsorship rules in 1970 saw the Daily Mirror name prefacing RAC, followed in later years by Lombard and Network Q, until RAC was dropped from the rally’s title in 1998. It became the Wales Rally in 2003. The RAC also organised the first British Grand Prix, held at the Brooklands track in 1936, and the first international Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1948.
THE CLUB’S HERITAGE Fleet embraces several decades of progress in attending to its members’ roadside calamities. Initially a mobile force of jodhpur-sporting, tunic-clad patrolmen and guides helped members when in unfamiliar territory or mechanical difficulty. Riding ‘quick response’ bicycles, they carried a few tools so they could fix simple mechanical problems. The club also introduced a get-you-home service in the form of a one-guinea token exchangeable at garages displaying an RAC sign.
At first the patrolmen were stationed at major junctions waiting for customers, but in 1912, following the lead of the Automobile Association, the club introduced locked phone boxes painted in the RAC livery at strategic points across the country. The members’ keys, by mutual agreement, also allowed access to AA boxes. During World War Two the Home Guard also had keys.
In 1922 the RAC motorised its field force with motorcycle combinations by Phelon & Moore, followed by Norton ES2 bikes. Motorcycles were the main patrol vehicles until well into the 1960s, when they were phased out with the adoption of Minivans. The 490cc, single-cylinder Norton was coupled to a mobile tool chest which by the 1960s had developed into a distinctive streamlined glassfibre device.
During the 1930s superintendents got an extra wheel and some weather protection when they were upgraded to Austin Seven Chummys. After World War Two some Morris ‘J’ vans were added to the fleet, but only one van per area because of shortages.
In the 1960s the RAC experimented in London with a small fleet of six BMW Isetta three-wheel bubble cars. Fitted with a large equipment box that completely obscured rear vision and must have dramatically shifted the centre of gravity, the cramped and noisy vehicle was not popular. It’s not hard to see why – the patrolmen must have felt very vulnerable dicing with double-deckers.
The Austin A35 van arrived on the fleet in the 1960s and the larger Morris 1000 van in 1969, a familiar sight in the Home Counties until 1973. The vans introduced an illuminated roof sign for night-time recognition, and their two-band
radios kept them in touch with base which helped to shorten the response time.
Successive club secretaries have built up the Heritage Fleet over the years. Today it consists of a trio of veterans used primarily for the London to Brighton Run, plus a selection of RAC-liveried patrol vehicles from the 1920s to the 1960s.
The oldest vehicle is the 1900 Simms, registered 1 RAC and built by the club’s founder. With tiller steering, solid tyres and a slightly later 750cc, 6hp stationary engine fitted, it is thought to be a prototype and probably older than its registration date. The 10hp 1901 Mors Tonneau, acquired in the early 1980s from the Sears family, repainted in RAC blue and re-registered RAC 1, has appeared in 20 London-to-Brighton runs, sometimes piloted by HRH Prince Michael of Kent.
The third veteran is a 1903 14hp Daimler Tonneau Tourer. Daimlers were favoured by King Edward VII, and his patronage made them
popular amongst the aristocracy. Finally, to represent the club in more modern classic-car events such as the re-introduced 1000 Mile Trial, a recent addition to the collection is a splendidly rakish 1938 Vanden Plas-bodied Alvis 4.3 Short Chassis Tourer. Only 12 were built of this type and 11 have survived.
Maintenance of the collection is in the expert hands of Michael Moment and Tony Worsfold, who also doubled as chauffeurs for Octane’s visit. The veterans demand the most attention to keep their increasingly fragile mechanical components fit for purpose, particularly as some ‘guest drivers’, lacking familiarity with 100-year-old clutches and transmission brakes, have a tendency to be more aggressive with the controls than perhaps they should.
THE 1904 DAIMLER is a reminder that the horseless carriage may have dispensed with the horse but it hadn’t yet got rid of the carriage. Automobiles were still something you climbed onto, not descended into. After the preliminary starting procedure, which involves much setting of valves and switches and tickling of the carburettor, followed by vigorous rotation of the starting handle, the little engine settles into a steady chug-a-lug. Then, once the occupants are mounted well above the hoi-polloi, forward motion is achieved by a deft juggling of feet and hands that would confuse a modern motorist. The clutch, harsh and not for slipping, is on the floor but the accelerator is a lever on a brass quadrant on the steering column, with an advance-and-retard lever opposite to keep the engine on song.
Feedback from the road surface is of the tooth-rattling kind, a series of sleeping policemen transmitting shock waves right through the car’s frame and into my dentistry. Better to take to the grass and avoid them.
On the pleasant day of our visit the absence of a windscreen didn’t chill the blood, but you can imagine how uncomfortable it might be with rain slapping you in the face. The high and exposed position is at first disconcerting, with fears of an emergency stop precipitating a forward roll over the dash and bonnet to the tarmac a long way below. But there’s no need to worry because stopping, even in an emergency, fails to produce much detectable g-force. Veterans are an acquired taste but full of personality. It’s easy to see why they are treated with such affection by their owners.
The Austin Seven ‘Chummy’ is just that, a friendly little beast of such limited dimensions that, if travelling two-up, you can’t avoid being chummy with your companion. By the 1920s mass production was making the motor car more accessible to the ordinary family, and the Chummy is a reminder that the average family then may have been larger in numbers but was surely smaller in stature. Once in the tiny cockpit you remain aware that some of your bits, arm and shoulder for example, are still outside. You wouldn’t expect a lot of oomph from the 747cc sidevalve engine but the lightweight construction – there’s very little of anything to add mass – gives it more go than anticipated. You can see why its design was licensed for manufacture in so many countries.
The BMW Isetta, a sort of mobile window
seat, is another reminder of how the average human has grown in stature and girth – today’s typical Briton would find the cabin a tight squeeze. The RAC’s example is a three-wheeled version, not renowned for its stability, and having witnessed one roll over in front of me in a bend many years ago I can’t profess much affection for them. The four-wheeled version was much more stable.
It was originally an Italian design by Iso, then BMW bought the manufacturing rights and adapted the design to take its own 298cc motorbike engine. Its 13bhp was enough to propel the little bubble to 50mph, but at any speed the tiny cabin reverberates with the noise of the engine which is located just behind the bench seat. As a piece of industrial design created to fulfill a then-current need the Isetta is a brilliant solution, but it’s awkward to get into, noisy and scary, made even more so by the large packing case that blocks rearward vision. Nevertheless it’s a fascinating time capsule, clearly fun for some – and it lays claim to being the best-selling single-cylinder car of all time.
THAT THE CLUB he founded could have influenced motoring in Britain so much during its 120-year existence would undoubtedly have thrilled the pioneering Simms. And we suspect he would greatly enjoy the contents of the Old Barn. One aspect of RAC membership that he might regret the passing of, though, is the salute patrolmen gave when they spotted the RAC badge on a member’s car. This stopped in 1963, and the AA did likewise. Safer to keep hands on the steering wheel, they said.