Itala in the Alps: The Envelope, Please

Thursday, August 8, 2024
Subject: Veloce Today – Over the Alps Itala mystery (2020 article)
Dear Mr Vack
I came across the piece today that was published on your site back in July 2020, entitled “Itala over the Alps: A 115 Year-old Mystery”and was wondering if you ever solved the mystery? If you have, then I should love to learn more. If not, I think I may have (part, at least, of) the answer.
I look forward to hearing from you.
James Thorne
Company Secretary
Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd
https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/

Saturday, August 10, 2024
James,
Thank you! Yes, that was a very interesting story and no one ever came forth with any ideas.
What might you have? I have copied Dale LaFollette, who found the photos, on this email.
Pete Vack, Editor, VeloceToday

Sunday, August 11, 2024
Dear Pete
Thank you for your e-mail – I think this is quite the story.
First, in answer (briefly) to the specific questions set out at the end of your article:

Who was that woman?
I believe the woman to be Dame Ethel Locke King, for reasons I will detail further in this reply.

And the man in the checkered cap?
The men in the photographs include Dame Ethel’s husband, Hugh Fortescue Locke King, and the driver they took with them on this particular motoring tour. There is some ambiguity over exactly who the driver was, the suggestions being Henry Richard Pope (chairman of Itala Automobiles Limited, an English importer of Itala automobiles) or George Pope, a racing driver from the Itala team. It is of course possible that these are one and the same person, or at least related, but some reports state that the driver was a “racing driver” and that he took part in the 1906 Targa Florio – in which “George Pope” was entered for the Itala team, retiring with a broken fuel pipe on the first lap. Meanwhile H R Pope later engaged (in 1924) in correspondence in the pages of The Autocar magazine (regarding the origins of the Hotchkiss drive) in a manner which suggested that he had been at the Coppa Florio in September 1905 – which we will see was the central event around which this particular road trip was organised – so it could have been him.

Were they dealers?
If H R Pope is among the gentlemen pictured, then yes, he imported Itala cars into England. However, I think his dealer status or otherwise is not the key feature of the story.

Can anyone figure out the registration?
The registration is LC1793, and the car was nicknamed by Dame Ethel, “The Hun” – presumably as a play on the manufacturer’s name (Itala – Attila – Attila the Hun), although it has also been suggested that it was given on the basis that, like its namesake, it did not venture further than Venice. The Locke Kings owned several Itala cars, and there are photographs of LC1793 in front of their house.

What the pictures depict is a motoring tour undertaken by the Locke Kings, which – according to the track’s “foundation myth” – led directly to the creation of the Brooklands Motor Course. Around the time the circuit opened in the summer of 1907, Hugh Fortescue Locke King wrote:

“The idea of the course dawned at Brescia after the Targa Florio (sic) meeting, as I sat among the owners and drivers of the French, German and Italian cars which had been competing. In reply to my question why there was not a single English car entered, the reply came quickly and unanimously: “You have no practice in racing, no cars with the speed – you would not have had a chance.”… The time had surely come when England should no longer lay behind the rest of the world, but take her place at the very fore-front…This feeling revived, when a few months later I heard the suggestion made that a circular track was what we needed in this country, where the cars could be watched over the whole course.”

(Bear in mind also that, at this time, racing was forbidden on public roads in England, the speed limit here was a mere 20 mph, and no-one had yet had the foresight to construct any kind of test facility for automobiles). The meeting in question was not, in fact, the Targa but the Coppa Florio, which the Locke Kings had made the object of a motoring tour in September 1905. Dame Ethel’s report of this tour then featured (anonymously) in a brochure published by Itala Automobiles Ltd (which may lend support to the idea that it was H R Pope who was the driver on the trip), entitled “To Venice and Back by Road”.

The Road Trip
LC1793 was a 50/70hp Itala purchased by the Locke Kings in August 1905, to add to their stable of automobiles (though it seems that it was Dame Ethel who was the true motoring enthusiast in the family – another Itala she acquired, registered LC8199, nicknamed “Bambo” and which she drove at the head of the procession at the opening of Brooklands on 17 June 1907, was reputedly Cagno’s 1906 Targa-winning car). LC1793 was also a used car, and had apparently finished second in the Touring Class at the 1905 Mont Cenis Hill-Climb. The Locke Kings ordered a new body for it to be made in Paris, and arranged for its collection and fitting as part of their tour to Venice, during which they would “see the races” at Brescia.

The Locke Kings undertook the trip with a party of Americans travelling in a Mercedes, although whether they all travelled together for the whole tour or just for a part isn’t clear. Might it be therefore that the photographs featured in your article were taken by the Americans?

In any case, although the brochure reported that there had been “not one iota of trouble” from the Itala (and the only “casualties” being one dog and the author’s hat, which had been “strapped in a small box upside down just over the exhaust” and lost its shape in consequence), the trip had actually been quite eventful. Indeed, they actually missed the Coppa Florio itself, arriving just after it had finished thanks to Pope having crashed the car into a ditch at Mont Cenis on the way – which I think is shown in one of the photographs – necessitating a delay for repairs to a bent front axle at the Itala works in Turin.

These repairs (which included the fitting of new lamps) probably explain the apparent differences in the car’s appearance in the various photographs – the stop in Turin preceded their passage through the Col de Tende, which is where radiator/lamp differences are noted in your article.

I am now setting about reconstructing the Locke Kings’ route from the information I have, and tying the photographs to it. Although they arrived in Brescia just too late to see the Coppa Florio on Sunday, 10th September, they had (considering the mishaps) made fairly impressive speed to that point, having left their Sussex farm at about 17:30 the previous Monday (4th September), catching the overnight steamer from Southampton to Le Havre. By just after midnight on 8th September they were in Turin (via Dijon and Mont Cenis), bent axle and all, but the need for repairs meant they were unable to set off again until early evening on the 9th (the day before the race), the lack of daylight then hindering their ability to make up time. Thereafter, there was some sightseeing and then a return via the Col de Tende and Provence. Presumably the new body for the Itala was fitted in Paris on the return leg, before they returned to England.

As for the photographs themselves, I cannot say whether these are likely to have been the Locke Kings’ own pictures or taken by the Americans with whom they were travelling. It is possible that they were published in the Itala brochure but, alas, I have yet to actually hold a copy of this rare publication in my own hands – although, having been set off down this avenue of enquiry, I shall be making an effort to track down a copy.

Sunday, August 11, 2024
Dale LaFollette wrote:
Pete,
Wow, poke a historian and you get the Bible! That is really fun as I’ve spent a lot of time in my life reading about Brooklands, been there several times and even attempted to walk up the banking in my street shoes. As I remember it, it was scary, but I made it. Of course you can give him my email address as I would be more than happy to send scans of the photos. I believe our article mentions that we found those photos in a book that we had purchased when I was in the book business. Of all the photographs I found over the years this response is one of the most fun. Our friend Aldo also inquired about the photographs as he had a lady in Italy that was writing a book about the Italas so I sent her a set of scans also. I think James has solved the mystery as I’ve discovered that license plate number on one of the cars and I have also one of the photos is described as Bambo going over in May 1906, the whole thing is a hoot!
Dale

Thursday, August 15, 2024
Dale LaFollette wrote:
James,
I thought you might like to understand the curious route the photographs took to finally reach me. I had a partnership in an automotive book business for several years but in the early 90s one of my partners and I decided to sell the business in about 1992. My old partner, Dean Newton, called me about four years ago, circa 2020, and said he has some photographs that I might be interested in, and he’s pretty sure that they were in a book that we bought years ago. He mailed the photographs to me and sometime in the following year, I sent scans to Pete Vack and he decided to publish them four years ago in the article that you read. So the photographs have traveled from the original buyer who probably bought them at an auto jumble.

Each photograph has a price on the back in pencil of one pound each. He or she then stuck them in an automotive book of some sort, then sold the book to a book dealer that sold at auto jumbles. Now I would think that the photos have been in our possession for close to 40 years. And finally, thanks to you and the Brooklands Museum, the mystery is solved.
What makes all of this amusing is that during that time I’ve been to Brooklands at least five times!
Dale

Friday, August 16, 2024
Dear Dale,
Thank you for this – that’s quite an amazing chain of events! I am just delighted that the mystery has been solved, and that this has given us some fresh insight into Brooklands’ origins. And I hope that, if you (or Pete) plan to come to the UK again, you will pay another visit – when were you last here? The Museum has changed quite a bit in the past few years (and will of course continue to evolve), so it probably looks a little different now to when you last saw it.
Best wishes,
James Thorne
Company Secretary
Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd
Brooklands Road
Weybridge
Surrey KT13 0QN

Visit us Brooklandsmuseum.com

Itala over the Alps: A Mystery Solved?