| The concept of matching American engines with lightweight European chassis produced many wonderful automobiles. Marques such as Allard, Jensen, Facel Vega, Gordon Keeble and of course the AC Cobra are successful examples from the post-war period. Prior to the war such an idea was unheard of, with the exception of RAILTON, a little known sporting machine based on a Hudson chassis and engine. Railtons were built by Fairmile Eng. Co. in Chobham, Surrey. The company was the enterprise of Noel Macklin who, up until 1931, had been building impressive Invicta cars on the same premisis. Railtons were in production from 1933 to 1939 and most were fitted with Hudson straight eight 4.2 litre engines. A number of coachbuilders were used, providing a wide variety of designs, examples of which are shown below. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of my Father's own car. |
| My Father bought one of these delightful cars when I was about five or six years old and I can remember being so impressed because, from the 'Beehive' to the 'Old Castle inn' (a distance of no more than half a mile) on the road from Amesbury to Salisbury (past Old Sarum) we managed to accelerate from 20 mph to 100 mph in top gear, and that was up a quite steep hill! The 'met' used them in London as chase cars and they were well suited to this. |
| The next car I remember was the Chrysler Airflow |
| Short wheel base |
| Long wheel base |
| The Airflow was the first production car to use wind-tunnel design testing. The body was built in a similar way to an aircraft, with a steel beam and truss framework for the panels to mount on. It was very aerodynamic and a 1934 coupe model completed a flying mile at a speed of 96 mph. The gearbox was unique at the time as it was fitted with helical gears to make it exceptionally quiet. However,the vehicle was considered too radical for its time and had poor sales. They were all fitted with a 4.8 litre straight eight engine (122 hp) and a three speed manual gearbox. The cars weighed in at 4000lbs and were produced from 1934 to 1937. |
| There were five wheelbase lengths offered up to 145 inches |
| My Father bought one of the long wheelbase models from a dealer in Bournmouth. The story went that the car had been laid up in Jersey during the war, so it had very few miles on the clock. The car was black and had the whitewall tyres as seen above. We used to call the tyres 'balloon' tyres as they were very large and absorbed bumps in the road very impressively. I remember the hydraulic breaks were not too special. We nearly came to grief one day as we came over a hump- backed bridge at some speed to be confronted by a herd of cows. I do not know how my Father managed to come to a stop in time, but he did, and just as well too, as two and a half tons of American metal plowing into a herd of cows would not have been a pretty sight! I must have been about fourteen, we were living at Netherhampton just outside Salisbury (1955), and I used to drive the car up and down the driveway (probably the first car I actually drove). However one day the car was parked in the garage and my Father was out with Mother, in her car. I decided to take the Airflow out of the garage but, in the process, managed to get it firmly wedged against the door frame. I could not go forward or back so I abandoned the car, and disappeared up the road on my bike. I returned three hours later to see the car in the driveway and the garage still in one piece! Typical of my Father, he never said a word to me, as if it had never happened. So I slept well that night! |
| The first car that I have real memories of was when I was about five years young |
| Notice the huge jump in design concept from 1933 to 1934, the Airflow setting the road to the streamlining of motorcars |
| Chrysler 1933 4 door sedan |
| Chrysler Airflow 1934 4 door sedan |
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