Riley Brooklands Ex Gerard "registered 035"
| Bezeichnung/description | Riley Brooklands Monoposto Ex Gerard   |
| Jahrgang/year | 1931 |
| Kennzeichen/registration | VE4847 |
| Chassis-Basis/chassis base | Riley Brooklands |
| Chassisnummer/chassisnumber | 8052 |
| Chassisjahrgang/year chassis | 1929 |
| Motortyp/engine typ | Riley 1100cc supercharged |
| Motornummer/engine number |
13682
|
| Motorjahrgang/year engine | 19?? |
| Bodyhersteller/bodymanufacturer | Bob Gerard |
| Rennhistorie/race history | many |
| weitere Informationen/more info | Thompson and Taylor delivered the last of the Brooklands Chassis side rails in 1929. These were to be used for both the works and customer road cars. This is why Brooklands are considered to be Vintage even if the car was registered at a later date in the 1930’s. Evidence in the form of Local Authority Registration Records of the time allude to the fact that Chassis number 8052 had two registration numbers held against it, VC835 and VE4847. One of these was used as a works car, the other apparently a standard Brooklands. A car with this Chassis number was then sold to A F Ashby which then in turn passed to E K Rayson of 142 Piccadilly London. Ownership of the other chassis passed to F R Gerard in 1935. In 1944 Sir Anthony Stamer, Bt, visited Bob Gerard racing, in his subsequent article published in the May edition of “Motor Sport” Page 97 Sir Anthony writes “before leaving, Gerard took us upstairs to what appeared to be a normal garage stores. But which, on closer inspection, proved to be composed of Riley spares and very special ones at that.” There he observed “Bits for a proposed single-seater lay around” . These “bits” were, at some point later, sold by Gerard to the trade in the 1950’s, In the 1960’s the chassis was owned by a Mr Bailey, the original letter on file from Mr Bailey dated 20th October 1965 Reads; “Dear Sir, I was most interested to hear of my old Riley again as I thought I had lost trace of it. The history of the car is very vague. I understood that the chassis was converted to single seater by Bob Gerard. I wrote to him and he confirmed this. His intention was to build a Brooklands/Sprite using Sprite components on a Brooklands chassis. He started the project before the war but it was never completed. I purchased the chassis from the late Stanley Burville. With the chassis at that time was a Sprite front axle back axel and gearbox. Whether these were the orginal’s that Gerard was going to use, I do not know. The components on the chassis that I fitted were from a crashed saloon. The cylinder head was acquired through Autosport. ”Photo of the Chassis are on file from Mr Bailey ownership during the 1960’s. Stanley Burville was a trader during this time and handled some of the Bob Gerard’s cars at this time. There is a further Original letter on file which is from Gerard Racing, dated 1st November 1965 to K.G. Young making further reference to the single seater, which had been described in the 1944 Motor Sport article which I refer to previously. Gerard states in this replying letter that “The single seat Brooklands chassis you have could well be the one we were proposing to build.” “It was ultimately planned to take a T.T. Sprite engine, gearbox, transmission system and suspension, and was sold, partially completed, together with an 8 plug, 9hp race engine, in the early 50’s.” Following Young’s and Gerard’s correspondence time passes and the project then past through several hands, with little trace eventually arriving in the workshop of Bob Upston in exchange for work on AVC7. , Bob after further time passes the car onto his son Nigel. Who did what Bob had hoped for, and that was to build the car! With the car there was also a drawing of the body as you see her to today with exception to the radiator surround (the drawing show a Riley cowl rather than the ERA inspired one on the car as built by Nigel). Finally the completed car reappeared in the 1990 VSCC racing season, one hopes that it was built as F.R. Gerard would have intended. The car was then sold by Nigel Upston during the 90’s and she has been through the hands of European collectors before returning to the UK during 2010. The current owner has spent significant sums getting her mechanics right, and achieving the vintage Brooklands look. The car uses Riley 9 front and rear axles as mentioned by Mr Bailey, newly rebuilt 1100cc Riley 9 engine, newly built Derek Chinn supercharger, rebuilt preselect gearbox with close ratios, and sitting on new 19” wheels shod with Blockley tyres. She is understood to be on the button and ready for the new owner to go racing. The start of the season is less than a month away! Photos from engine work carried out in Holland show that modern crank and rods are installed, there is also an invoice from Piper Cams for two new Steel billet cams. |
| zum Verkauf/for sale | no |
| Datum/date | 27.03.2013 |
| Badge no |  035 |
