Foster Pup seeks a loving home

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With the phrase ‘you’re never too old to learn’ in mind, we present to you these two beautiful shots from Letchworth’s Garden City Collection. They show us the rare Foster Pup. Never heard of that before? You’re not alone. The internet doesn’t seem to know much about it and while there is one Foster entry in our edition of Georgano, that is an American steam car which doesn’t seem to be quite the same. But our edition is an early one, so this particular Foster car may have been added later.

The original source, however, was kind enough to add some further detail. It mentions that the vehicle was made by the Foster Instrument Company of Letchworth, Hertfordshire, with these images showing ‘A Foster Pup belt-driven car dating from c.1920’. It continues, ‘Foster Instrument Company designed the car which was test driven around 1917 by an employee(?), Warner, on the Western Hills and the cam belt frequently slipped off!’

Yes, the impressive belt is clearly visible on the right hand side and supposedly made the Pup like an automatic, with its front mounted V-twin engine requiring no gears to propel it: ‘This car was an early example of an automatic. Mr. Foster of Foster Instrument Company was assisted by Mr. A. E. Bowyer-Lowe, formerly of Phoenix Motor Works.’ Now, Phoenix is better known and did indeed hail from Letchworth before ‘going into liquidation in 1924’. Was the Foster an attempt to revive the company? The Pup was ‘To sell for £150 if built in units of 100. But it was thought that only five of these cars were ever made and they made a loss of about £5000.’

There wasn’t much luck there. Does anyone know of any survivors there?

Words: Jeroen Booij; picture: Garden City Collection
 

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