Classics at Royal Highland Showground

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

Every year there is a large classic car show held at the Royal Highland Showgrounds here in Wadebridge and I dutifully attend to bring home to Veloce readers any interesting finds. Despite many hundreds of cars arriving, I must say most of them are standard issue British classics, Austin Healeys and Triumphs of every shape and colour, and by far the more interesting are the odd pre-war cars that were classics of their day.

Take, for example, this Riley 9 of around 1932 vintage in concours condition but a very rare model, the “Plus Ultra Monaco”.

Percy and Stanley Riley, two brothers, launched themselves into the car business in 1898 with Percy responsible for the design and building of the engines and Stanley doing the chassis and bodywork. They built a prototype that did not go into production, so their first production model was a small 520cc three wheel device with steering by handlebars that came out in 1903 and supplanted by a VTwin engined model four years later.

The same engine was used in their first four wheel automobile and from then on they were able to develop the company.

Of all their creations the Riley Nine series was perhaps the most successful not only as a road sporting car but as a racing car with many variations such as the best known racing model, the Brooklands Riley.

That model with its long-streamlined tail brought both Innes Ireland and Mike Hawthorn notoriety and along the pathway to grand prix success.

The Riley 9 engine was a 1087cc four cylinder with hemi combustion chambers and a crossflow head.

The model photographed was the ultimate model in their Monaco series, the Plus Ultra that was introduced in 1932. As can be seen from the photo, the Plus Ultra was the first with the rear doors hinged at the rear rather than the front of the door. So this was a relatively rare model.

Nearby was this three-wheeler, the Lomax, that was created as a low cost kit-car in 1982 using the chassis of the popular Citroen 2CV and flashier Dyane clothed in a glass fiber body designed by Nigel Whall that reflected the passion which glass-fiber kit car builders had to carve all sorts of odd shapes that sometimes don’t blend well together.

Thinking about it, I don’t recall seeing one in the flesh back then.

Though this car does not look in concours condition, it is an interesting Alvis model, a 1930 12/50 tourer discovered in a scrapyard, rebuilt as a Special and equipped with a 6 cylinder Silver Eagle engine in 1960 and used in English cross country trials events…….note the prominent radiator mascot.

Alvis used a sculpture by A.E. Lejeune of a “Prancing Hare” with its ears sticking up on the 12/50 sports model, a few years before Enzo Ferrari used the “Prancing Horse” on the Alfa Romeo racing cars.

As you can see this hare has been adorned with its own small scarf. Today they sell for good prices on the autojumble market, with or without the scarf.