 In the fifties the American car scene in England showed a large increase of American cars on the roads.
There were several reasons for this. Firstly a great number of new cars had been imported by dealers such as Lincoln Cars, Lendrum and Hartman, Simpson's of Wembley and several others but the Major factor for their popularity was the stationing of American bases, especially here in East Anglia. Two prime examples being Lakenheath and Mildenhall. It was a 'Little America' where the servicemen and women cruised the local streets in triple-tone custom Royales, Impalas, Galaxies, Furies, Crestlines, Crown Victorias and many more fabulous fifties cars. People would travel for miles just to gaze at these beauties and of course, many became hooked after seeing them for the first time and wanted to own one.
The Ponsford family, who owned Five Ways Garage at Barton Mills, had a yeard full of cars that had been wrecked by Americans who were unfamiliar with our roads and complete strangers to the phenomenon of our 'roundabouts'. Monty Ponsford, who co-owned the garage, was a very good friend of ours and in a later edition, I will cover my dealings with Monthly, now unfortunately no longer with us.
By this time I was buying almost any American car I could lay my hands on, especially Ford V8's which I used for racing. Take a look at these 'buys' £11 for a 1932 Model 'B' 3 window coupe into which I fitted a T-Bird Special V8 engine and it went on to win many races. Another Model 'B' Cabriolet cost me £8. I ran around in a 1934 Model 40 Tudor which I had to pay £50 for - far too dear but I really liked the car. I also had two 1934 Ford V8 Cabriolets, one of which was a successfully hill climb car at Shelsy Walsh and Prescot. From my old stock car buddy, Fred Mitchell who sadly died last year, I successfully dealt on a like-new 1935 Model 48, 3 window coupe with only thirty odd thousand miles on the clock. The price? £30! How about this story- I was at stock car drivers' AGM at the Holborn Hall, Grays Inn Road London. Now in those days every stock car driver was on the lookout for Ford Copes which had undoubtedly proved to be the best for racing so there was a great deal of rivalry between us. However, on the occasion I had gone to the toilet where I overheard an interesting conversation between two guys concerning a 132 Model W Ford coupe that was for sale in Bedford, which they intended to go and see the following day. One of them mentioned the name of the road and described the house but didn't give the house number. Naturally, I was all ears! When the AGM ended around midnight, I jumped into my car with Sprog, my mechanic and headed off into the night towards Bedford arriving there around 2am. We drove around for an hour before locating the street and proceeding to look for the house from the vague description. On seeing one that seemed to fit the bill, I took the bull by the horns and hammered loudly on the front door. BINGO! It certainly didn't bother me that it was three in the morning- I was determined to get that car! After knocking for what seemed like ten minutes, a head encased in an old fashioned night-cap appeared at an upstairs window. 'What the hell do you want?', the wearer bellowed out blearily, plainly rather irate. 'Have you got an old Ford cope for sale?' I asked. 'Yes I have', came the reply. 'It's a 1932, now sod off and come back at 9o'clock.' Inwardly over the moon, I remained poe-faced and said we'd be back. We drove round the corner and settled down to snatch a few hours kip. At 9o'clock sharp we drove back to Mr Nightcap's house, who despite having been woken up at three in the morning, was now surprisingly friendly and led us around the back streets until low and behold, there she was- a 1932 Model 'B' 3 window coupe, to tally original. The asking price was £20 and needless to say I was not going to argue with him. I paid up and drove happily back to Wembley. We were the talk of the town amongst the stock car fraternity when word got around.
On another occasion, I had been racing at Matchams Park, Ringwood, when a guy offered me a 1934 Ford V8 rolling chassis which was hurn near the local airport for Bournemouth so the following week Sprog and I set off to pick it up. The body was long gone but the chassis was complete apart from the steering wheel! Not to be outdone, we just clamped some selfgrips where the wheel had once been, hooked a rope tot he chassis and set off to tow it back to London, with Sprog sitting on a wooden box and steering it with the selfgrips! We had got about 20 miles up the old A30 when a cop car pulled us over. When the cop, who was on his own, looked at this contraption Sprog was steering with, sitting on his box, he was almost lost for words. He really could not believe his eyes. With a resigned shrug of his shoulders eyes rolled heavenwards, he said, 'There are so many contraventions I could book you for but it could take me all day to write them up so l'm going to pretend I haven't seen you, OK?' The turned on his heels and went. Can you imagine that today? We made it back home without further mishap.
I also raced a pretty 32 Ford Victoria Coupe that I had paid £16 for from a scarpeyard in Epping. Another 34 Ford V8 Cabriolet came form a vicar in Notting Hill Gate, which cost me £20, but only after he insisted that I put£2 in the collection box! Most of the cars on the tracks were Ford V8's but towards the end of the fifties, things started to change dramatically. Most of the drivers were now racing 'specials' and with so many American cars being scrapped on the base, the boys could get ohv Rockets, Buick Fireballs and various other big block engines. Possibly the first of these to come out of East Anglia were used by the Wardroppers, the Frost Brothers, George Foulger and many more top line drivers but it soon spread to other parts of the country when the potential of that extra h.p. Was discovered. However, it is true to say some of the weekend racers were worse off with more power and the added weight because it proved too much for the chassis they had installed them in, consequently they handled like a supermarket trolley and we all know the hazards involved there!
I was still racing me 34 Ford V8 Flathead Coupe and outrunning most of the dinosaurs that took to the ovals, but by now, I was the only one driving a (STOCK) stock car and was one of the last flatheads campaigning all over the country. I paid £3 for that coupe and ran about 200 races with it. With an ohv engine costing more money than old Henry's flathead V8 and cars being hand built, the cost to put a car on the track had started to escalate. Many drivers who could no longer afford to build one subsequently retired from the sport. This was a great shame because we lost some really first class drivers but they figured there was no way they could complete against the star drivers who were after all, mostly garage owners with all the equipment to hand for building a winning car.
1959 was the end of an era for road cars. The consensus was that you cannot stop progress- well be that as it may, interest tended to wnae in stock car racing at that time. Many fans were Ford, Chevrolet, Studebaker or Hudson lovers who would follow the circus to cheer on their favourite make of car. This has proved so successful with NASCAR cars (which are instantly recognisable by many fans in this country) who would drive to tracks in similar cars to the ones on the track. It was very good business for me because I was supplying most of them. However, I continued to race my 34 Ford V8 Coupe enjoying every moment and having fun at each and every track-which was the way it should be.
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American Cars in Britain
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