LETTERS
Letters to the Bulletin on any topic connected with Brooklands – past, present or future, or about the BTM, are most welcome. Please send them to Chris Bass via
chris@chrisbass.co.uk or 2 Riverside Close, Brookwood, Woking, Surrey GU24 0AP.
Lost Mercedes
a picture of it as it is nowadays – with an ‘SSK’ Sindelfingen-style [ie Daimler-Benz] sports body. According to the notes made by Ronald Johnson [Founder of the Mercedes-Benz Club], the car was ‘cut and shut’ to SSK specification in the early 1950s by its then-owner F M Haft of Manchester. You can see in the old pictures that it originally had a tourer body. Its first owner was Dorothy Paget [who financed ‘Tim’ Birkin and the ‘Blower’ Bentleys] and I think the body might have been made by Cadogan but I am not sure.
Mercedes-Benz chassis number 36320 in the 1970 Sotheby’s auction catalogue.
Dear Diana, Looking through the November-December Bulletin, the Mercedes etc article part two lists UV 5424 chassis number 36320 as ‘lost’. Alarmingly it also states ‘built a replica with that chassis number’. My Sotheby’s catalogue from 1970 notes the car as an ‘SSK’. I believe the prices achieved were very good (for the time!) Also included were the ex-Hugh Hunter Alfa 2900B JML1 and 1956 Le Mans winning Jaguar D-type MWS 301, plus ‘Blower’ and eight-litre Bentleys. I have no interest other than as an enthusiast. Also attached are some photos from a Motor
Sport report of the 1967 Brooklands Reunion. My late father is standing behind the front bonnet-strap of the Napier-Railton and I am to his right, 50 years ago. I hope to be at Brooklands for the VSCC Driving Tests in January.
Best regards, Michael Clarke, via e-mail
An enquiry to Mercedes enthusiast Dieter Dressel reveals: ‘Horst Lautenschläger built his car from the remains of that offered in 1970 by Sotheby’s. I attach
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Part of the Motor Sport report of the 1967 Brooklands Reunion. Michael Clarke and his father are in the upper photo.
It was certainly not made by Daimler-Benz, ie not a Sindelfingen body. The picture in the Sotheby’s catalogue also does not show a Sindelfingen body. What happened to the car between 1970 and the early 2000s I don’t know.’ – Ed.
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