A car is no horse!

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Last year we wrote about the 1909 Thornycroft that Martin Shelley is restoring. He sent us a new picture showing the chassis with its radiator in place. Take a look at the nearside front chassis rail. For transport from Australia to the UK it was braced with a piece of angle iron, which also covered a bad crack. The story goes this was the result of several excursions off road during the first few months of ownership by horseman Sidney Kidman. He was unused to the idea of steering his vehicle himself, being accustomed to leaving the horses to do that! At first Martin was tempted to recreate the Thornycroft as a replica of the 1908 TT car, but then, thanks to Michael Ware, he found the actual body drawings that were used in the construction of his car. As a result the Thornycroft will now be rebuilt in its original Torpedo bodied guise.
(Martin is most interested to learn from surviving Thornycroft motorcars not yet known to him. We have heard rumour -but no more than that- that one or two still are around in India. Let us know if you see Thorny's passing by every day.)

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