Side Curtain News. Gateway Healey Association St. Louis, MO. GHA Christmas Party see page 6

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1 Side Curtain News Volume 38, Issue 11 November 11 Proud chapter of the Austin-Healey Club of America since Gateway Healey Association St. Louis, MO GHA Christmas Party see page 6 Inside this issue: Rumbling 1&2 Minutes 3 Car Show Pics 4 Delahaye Boattail Speedster 5 GHA Xmas Party 6 Earliest known British LBC 7&8 St Louis Events 10 From the Boot 11 Greetings Members and Friends: And the winning bid is 15.5 million dollars! This was not a 1964 Ferrari GTO at auction. On October 26, Paul Newman s Rolex Daytona (watch) sold for a final total of million dollars including buyer s premium. The watch had three types of provenance: (1) It had auto racing history; (2) It was once owned by one of the coolest stars of all time; (3) It is a rather rare Rolex Daytona, one of the most collectible watch models of a highly collectible watch brand. Prior to the auction, daughter Nell Newman recalled timing Paul s laps at Lime Rock with the watch. The watch was held under 24 -hour armed guard and was sold to an anonymous phone bidder. If the successful bidder is among our membership, I expect to see the watch at next meeting! For more details see Paul Newman, Auto Racing, and the Most Valuable Watch in the World in the July issue of Side Curtain News. (Correction: Auction results make this the most valuable wristwatch. The most valuable watch is a Patek Philippe pocket watch, sold previously for 25 million dollars) October was a fine finale to the car event season. October 1 saw the Brass and Nickel Car Show at the Museum of Transportation (MOT). These cars were pre-1932, and were quite fascinating. The materials and engineering set the brass era cars apart from cars of the 1930s. From my limited experience, cars of the 1930s tend to drive like old trucks, with heavy steering, cumbersome handling, extreme pedal effort on the brakes, and balky crash-first three speed transmissions.

2 VOLUME Volume 38, 38, ISSUE Issue 1011 PAGE 2 This was a great improvement over the earlier cars, with non-standardized controls, rear-wheel only mechanical brakes and little or no lighting or signals. For example, the Ford Model T pedals worked as follows: your right foot operated the rear brakes; the center pedal was reverse; the pedal on the left was the gear shift, first gear is engaged when you push the pedal to the floor, neutral is in the middle, all the way up is top gear. The throttle and spark were adjusted by stalks on the column: advance the throttle, then advance the spark till it pings, then back it off a bit. Panic stops were accomplished by putting right foot on the brake, left foot on the center pedal (reverse), and pulling back on the hand brake lever to your left. Got that? Now you are ready for a drive. The car felt light as does the steering. Once you achieved the insane speed of 30 mph, you realized that there was no need to achieve modern highway speed. But I digress. A few of the highlights included a 1909 Dorris presented by George Dorris IV, a 1925 Gardner (also a St. Louis make), and an early brass era Model T roadster that was beautifully restored. I next attended the Misfit Toys car show at the MOT. This show was quite good, in spite of its strange name. This was mainly populated by a variety of American cars and trucks, but there were some nice ones. The original style windshield washer on a nicely restored VW Bug captured my interest. The spare tire was cotter pinned to plastic pegs apparently molded into the windshield washer reservoir. A nozzle emerged from the center of the wheel with a hose that connected to the valve stem of the spare tire. Thus, the windshield washer was powered by the pressure in the spare tire. When you needed the spare, it just might be flat. Ah, the good old days! Due to early morning rain, I was late to the October 21 Cars and Coffee at Westport. I missed all the British car enthusiasts that I know, but our vice-president has included an article concerning the cruise in this issue (Thanks, Ron!). During our crazy but fun meeting concerning all things automotive, we discussed the not-to-be missed Triumph Club Christmas Party on December 1, and the always excellent Gateway Healey Party on December 9. We looked ahead to a repeat of the always successful Valentines Party, and discussed a possible trip to the apparently fantastic Gilmore Auto Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan. Happy holidays to all and keep enjoying our hobby! Richard Etz Paul Newman s Rolex Daytona Watch Sold for a total of $17.75 mil

3 PAGE 3 Volume 38, Issue 11 President Richard Etz (314) dretz@sbcglobal.net Vice President Ron Varley (314) ronvarley@aol.com National Delegate Tom Hartman thomasehartman56@charter.net Gateway s Officers Membership Chairman & Treasurer Dan Forguson (618) aforgus@aol.com Secretary Tom Hartman thomasehartman56@charter.net Social Events Coordinator Marilyn Salini (314) Msalini73@gmail.com INTERIM Newsletter Editor Jim Reiter (636) Ghawebmaster@yahoo.com GHA Webmaster Jim Reiter (636) Ghawebmaster@yahoo.com Don't forget to go to the club website! Members and Guests at meeting Keith Bester Bandit Jim Reiter Bob McElwee Dan Forguson Tom Hartman Richard Etz Ron Varley Meeting Minutes (Courtesy of Jim Reiter) Treasure s Report: 2017 Income-Expenses netted the club $1.58 Old Business: John Lore and his 3000 attended the Oct Cars and Coffee There may be a Nov. Westport and Cars and Coffee. Richard Etz attended the Brass and Nickel Show. Said it was very good. New Business: Elected officers for Same as last year. We are still in Need of someone to do the Gateway Healey newsletter starting in Jan, 2018

4 Volume 38, Issue 11 PAGE 4 Brass and Nickel Cars 1909 Dorris 1925 Gardner Early Brass Model T Misfit Toys Car Show 1940 Ford Dodge Pickup VW Windshield Washer Westport Cars and Coffee BMW 2002 Replica Cobra E-Jaguar Jaguar Sedan Richard s Corvette Viper Lincoln 1966 Nova 1977 Corvette

5 PAGE 5 Volume 38, Issue 11 October 2017 Westport Cars & Coffee The fun of Cars & Coffee is getting to see the unusual, the exotic and the classics that occasionally show up. At last month's show at Westport a car drove in that was an absolute show-stopper. Immediately after it was parked the crowd converged on this car like vultures on a fresh kill. The car is a Delahaye USA Boattail Speedster - a tribute to the iconic Delahaye roadster of the 1930's with interpretive styling by rod stylist Chip Foose. Power comes from a Ford 302 cubic inch engine mated to a C4 automatic transmission. And just so the passengers don't suffer too much it has power brakes and power steering. This car is built by Delahaye USA. You can check it out on their web site at The radiator and cut-down windshield recall the Bugatti Type 57SC. Further inspiration comes from Gordon Buerig's Auburn boat tail speedster. The radiator is in fact an accurate replica of a Bugatti Type 57 radiator shell. The car has rocket inspired tail lights which are actually 1937 Hudson hood ornaments turned 180 degrees and illuminated with red Lucite. And the eight custom tail pipes are simply exquisite with their openings carved at sharp angles.the two place cockpit is trimmed with leather covering the seats, door panels, and cockpit surround. All fitment is done to the highest standards of craftsmanship. The car belongs to Mark Hyman. Ron Varley

6 PAGE 6 Volume 38, Issue 11 Gateway Healey Christmas Party December 9, :00 pm Keith Bester s Home 115 N Sappington, Kirkwood, MO Please bring a dish to share. Help!! I am not able to attend the Christmas Party. Will be out of town. Any and all who take any pictures at the party, please forward to me for the December Side Curtain News. Jim Reiter j-reiter@sbcglobal.net

7 Volume 38, Issue 11 VOLUME 38, PAGE ISSUE 710 The earliest known British automobile was built for breaking the law Daniel Strohl Photos courtesy Bonhams. Not intentionally, of course, but the brothers Santler couldn t help but break existing British road laws when they first ventured out in the little car they called Malvernia. Still, they had to give it a shot and in the process may have become the first automobile manufacturers in Great Britain in a car that will next month head to auction. To be clear, self-propelled road locomotives plied the country s roads well before Charles and Walter Santler decided they wanted to build their own personal horseless carriage. Typically gargantuan and slow, the steam-powered locomotives either worked local farms or served as stages, hauling a dozen or more passengers at a time. Their proliferation in the 1820s and 1830s not only caused traffic problems, but also led to the passage of the infamous Locomotive Acts starting in 1861.

8 PAGE 8 Volume 38, Issue 11 Like many entrepreneurs, Charles and Walter Santler decided to bend the rules a little bit in Nothing prevented the brothers both engineers in their father s steamengine business in Malvern, Worcestershire from installing a triple-expansion steam engine in an atypically small handbuilt steel frame. Where they ran afoul of the existing Highways and Locomotives (Amended) Act of 1878 (in addition to the lack of a man walking ahead of their carriage with a red flag) was in deciding to put a twoplace bench seat atop the frame: The law required a three-man crew. According to the Bonhams description of the Santler carriage, after a few spins around town in 1889, the Santlers shelved the idea, probably repurposed the steam engine, and didn t touch the horseless carriage chassis again until 1891 or 1892, when they installed a coal gas engine, then, later, a small single-cylinder gasoline engine. After the Locomotives and Highways Act of 1896 essentially repealed the earlier, more restrictive Locomotive Acts and spurred on the automobile industry in Great Britain, the Santlers continued with their horseless carriage experiments and even went into limited automobile production in the mid-1910s. Throughout that time, Charles Santler kept the old Malvernia around, trotting it out once a decade or so for some event or another. Certainly due to its unique status successive owners struggled with the car s narrative. Early documentation of the car was lost in a bombing raid in World War II; its owner in the 1950s installed a Benz 3.5-hp water-cooled single-cylinder engine, which remains with the car; and nobody appeared willing to deep-dive into the car s history until Dr. Alan Sutton bought it in 1985 and documented the car s entire history. Since then, Sutton registered the Malvernia since rechristened the Santler for the road, finally making it street legal 100 years after its construction, and entered it in the London-to-Brighton Veteran Car Run multiple times. It has yet another trip to the coast scheduled for this year s run, the same weekend Bonhams intends to sell it at the auction house s annual car run sale in London. The Bonhams pre-auction estimate for the car ranges from 200,000 to 250,000 ($260,000 to $330,000).

9 Volume 38, Issue 11 PAGE 9 St. Louis, Missouri, 1960s Daniel Strohl Like yesterday s carspotting photo, this one s also been floating around the Internet recently. We tracked it down to a Flickr account called Dealer Best Practices, which claims that the dealership in the photo Sports Economy Cars was his father s and operated at the intersection of Watson Road and Chippewa Street (the latter also once known as Route 66) in St. Louis. No longer the site of a car dealership, the corner does still have some of the same utilities as seen in this photo. What do you see here?

10 PAGE 10 Volume 38, Issue 11 Events November Nov 28 7 PM GHA Monthly Meeting at Keith Bester s Garage, 115 N Sappington Road, Kirkwood, MO (314) December Dec 9 7 PM GHA Christmas Party. Keith Bester s, 115 N Sappington Road, Kirkwood, MO Bring a dish to share No Regular GHA Monthly meeting in Dec January Jan 23 7 PM GHA Monthly Meeting at Keith Bester s Garage, 115 N Sappington Road, Kirkwood, MO (314) February Feb 11 6:30 pm Valentine Day Dinner Trail Head Brewery, 921 S Riverside Drive, St Charles, Mo. Please RSVP to Marilyn Salini, Msalini73@gmail.com, or so she knows how many to plan for. Wear Red Feb 27 7 PM GHA Monthly Meeting at Keith Bester s Garage, 115 N Sappington Road, Kirkwood, MO (314) Gateway Healey meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month in Keith Bester's garage. Located at 115 N Sappington Rd, Kirkwood, MO Phone

11 Volume 38, Issue 11 PAGE 11 From the Boot Barne s Law of Probability: There is a 50 percent chance of it happens or it doesn t. anything, either 1956 Utah Street in South St Louis One of four garages, large and small, added to National Register of Historic Places. Click here to read article. Note: I plan to retire from doing the GHA SCN. December issue will be my last hurrah. Please call if you are interested and I will get you set-up. Jim Join the Gateway Healey Association For information contact Dan Forguson or at aforgus@aol.com