Cheyne cars

Cheynes

Iain Cheyne was a neighbourhood friend - his son went to the same school as mine, his wife was Mexican, etc , and he and his two brothers had since childhood had had a thing about old cars. and I had too, partly because I used to own some.

Halford Special

James Cheyne, Iain's younger brother, had, as a boy, an Aston Martin 1920's tourer. He went to the specialist, Fred Ellis, for something, and Ellis told him that the part James bought was off the Halford Special. Frank Halford, an aero engine designer (Gipsy, Cirrus, Sabre, Goblin, Ghost, Gyron etc) had the raced the car for Aston Martin, and it had crashed, so he bought the chassis from them, and designed and built a six cylinder 1,500cc engine for it. This engine was originally supposed to be turbo-charged (the world's first in a racing car) but it proved to be troublesome and he super-charged it instead. Then he took part in the first British Gran Prix in 1926. Ridley had a second Halford engine, which went into a friend's Bugatti 35.

In due course the car passed to George Eyston, and eventually to Lord Ridley, who put the engine in a boat, which sank in the middle of his lake. Anyway, James was intrigued, and set about finding the rest of the Halford bits. He got the engine out of Lord Ridleys lake, the chassis he swopped with a similar one which the Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason had (together with, unknown to Nick, the registration OM1), the radiator from the Beaulieu Museum, etc. I was at Goodwood, years after the work was completed, when an old guy came up to us and offered James the oil cap from the original car, no idea how he had it. Gradually he assembled all the bits, and with Maserati restorer Sean Danaher put it all together, the most amazing restoration of all time.

And he left the country (he and another UN World Health Organisation guy did the gas-powered fridges which enabled the small-pox vaccine to be carried around to remote places, thus eliminating small-pox, and the scheme was called the Cold Cheyne). So Iain Cheyne, my neighbour, raced it in VSCC hill-climbs and races. I went to one to help him, and the rest is history.

Lightweight Special

This car was built during the war by Alec Issigonis (who later designed the Mini etc) in his spare time. It was a very special car. The car was bid at auction by Sean Danaher for Iain. Ed Way was the disappointed under-bidder, but Ed's wife thanked Iain for it, and the Way's became good friends. At his first meeting at Prescott he lost it at the esses and landed up against a tree, the front right side well stove in,

Semmence Special

This car was built by Fatty Semmence before the war. It was a single seater, based on a GN chain-drive chassis and an AC engine. Iain had long admired it in a small museum, and eventually he bought it.

Frazer Nash Le Mans

This was a closed 2-seater fastback car from the 50s. It was intended as a tourer, but it was very noisy, and he had to install headphones so that he and his passenger could talk to each other. He and his son George did the Mille Miglia in 2000 (which I did with my George) but broke down halfway round, and eventually sold it. I didn't much like the car, myself.