RAC Rally 1952 Appeal for Information

[Jack]

We seem to have found a reasonable amount of info now, with articles in the Gallery to back up the results we have found.

But we have hit a bit of a dead end regarding more info on this, unless anyone has any more leads on the other people in the photo other than Hodgson or Gatsonides. I am working on getting the official programme for the event that might help, but that is a fairly rare document it may not be the easiest thing to find and won't have any results just the entrants.

And so from this we should probably look next at the 1953 Rally, class win again for the Javelin which I think was driven by E. Elliott, and a Javelin finished third driven by Dr D. Laing. We should probably get the relevant documents that confirm this (presumably Autosport from 12 months later!) into the Gallery for the future and so we have proof confirmed of the results of these events.

Jack.

[robert lintott]

Did Hodgson , your contact ,have any information about the Delroy sports car his father owned and what its fate might have been ? Bob

[NoelStokoe]

DC Hodgson (Tony) - RAC Rally 1952
I have spent some time in correspondence with Chris Hodgson regarding his father's drive in the 1952 RAC Rally, this is what I have found out, it will appear in the Dec Jowetteer:-
My book, Sporting Jowetts, had three main chapters the first being pre-war articles, the second being post-war articles and the third was called “what the papers had to say” which had quotes from local papers about people from their local area taking part in events such as the RAC Rally and the Monte Carlo Rally. I am pleased to say there was this short note taken from The Evening Argus, but sadly, no picture accompanied it:-
1952 RAC International Rally,DC Hodgson - The Evening Argus…8th April 1952…3 Back from Tough Rally.
“Three East Sussex men, who competed in last week’s RAC International Rally of Great Britain, and successfully finished the gruelling 1,800-mile course. They returned home after running up a normal motorist’s mileage for two months in only five days.
They were Mr. DC Hodgson of Asten Cottage, Water Mill Lane, Bexhill, Mr. John Batten of Grange Road, Eastbourne and Mr. R Mackenzie Low of Dorset House, Hastings Road, Bexhill.
Neither Mr Hodgson, owner of the 1950 Jowett Javelin saloon, nor Mr Low had taken part in a rally before. Although they were not in the prize list, the crew managed to get through the road section without losing marks, and Mr Hodgson will receive a finisher’s plaque from the RAC.
The rally ranks with the Monte Carlo and Alpine Rallies as one of the toughest motoring events in the world, and attracted some famous continental drivers as well as many well-known British competitors”.
Thanks to the pictures that Chris provided, we now know the car was registered FNJ957, unfortunately the official programme for the event only published the name of the car owner and from which checkpoint they started from. This year there were two official starting points, Hastings and Scarborough, with the final checkpoint at the top of Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough for everyone; DC Hodgson was a Hastings starter. In all there were 19 Jowett entrants that year out of the 252 entrants.
Unfortunately, for historians, the official programme does not list the co-driver or model of Jowett, this was rectified in the 1953 programme, but in many cases there were three people in the car, so at least one might not be listed. In both the 1952 and 1953 programmes the car registration number is not listed, so once again for historians, a picture of a car is not enough to work out whose car it is, as the entrant number on the rally plate is not always clear enough to read.
In the case of DC Hodgson the newspaper clipping confirms that there were three drivers in the car, DC Hodgson, John Batten and R Mackenzie Low, it also confirms that they were finishers and that this was the first rally that DC Hodgson and R Mackenzie Low had taken part in, which in my opinion, was a fantastic result.
Chris since wrote, “I have read Gerald Palmer's book but I think he got it wrong, as Father, I believe, covered the whole of Southern England including London for Jowett Cars Ltd but it is true that my memories are of his dealers in the South/South West.
He did have the Deroy but it was sold and I have no idea who bought it - it was a bit of a wreck. The Jupiter was not reliable having constant delivery problems. I remember his driving an early Javelin flat out over Salisbury Plain (straight roads) till the crankshaft broke. Gerald Palmer and his team were then able to identify the problem”.
Tony Hodgson was born in Ilkley and when old enough, attended boarding school in Sedburgh, he was good at rugby, playing both for the school and Leeds. He later moved south to Oxford early in the war, he was an engineer and spent his time at RAF Kidlington working on the fighter planes that came in for repair. At the later part of the war he worked on bombers at Vickers in Weybridge.
After the War he started work at Jowett Cars Ltd Bradford and one of the stories Chris told me was when his father took a Bradford to Canada and drove it to Vancouver on a marketing trip, taking it right across the country. He was driving the Bradford on one of the main roads when he was pulled over by the police. He was not sure why as he was sure he was doing nothing wrong; it transpired that he was driving too slowly as there was a minimum speed limit of 60mph, which of course, the Bradford could not achieve! I assume he had to travel the rest of the way on more minor roads. He also worked there for a while between 1945 and 1946. By 1950 he was running the Jowett agents, Cooden Engineering, Bexhill-on-Sea, he made regular trips to Jowett Cars Ltd in Idle and had a good working relationship with the Company.
Another story that Chris told me about was when he left Cooden Engineering, after being there for about a year, to set up White Rose Engineering at Liss, one of his suppliers being Raymond Mays. On one occasion he brought in a Ford Zepher for conversion for rally purposes. Another customer at White Rose Engineering was Tony Crook of Bristol Motors, who regularly sent down new cars in primer so that they could be sprayed in a non-standard colour to fulfill a customer’s special request. They also serviced Montgomery’s Rolls Royce which had a Spitfire Merlin engine squeezed into it. They also serviced the car owned by Peter Sellers which also needed repair on one occasion after he had an accident after having a few drinks!
Three of Tony’s great friends were Bert Bowman who owned the Jowett agents Bowman’s Garage in Weybridge, Charles Male who managed the Jowett agents Autowork, Winchester and Dick Downes, who owned the Jowett agents Bartley & Co, Andover. They were part of a shooting syndicate and would go out on shooting parties on a regular basis. Another great passion of Tony’s was fishing and he did this regularly with yet another Jowett agent, Michael Squires of County Garage, Barnstaple. They went fishing for salmon on the River Torridge whenever they had a chance when they were probably supposed to be working somewhere else!
Chris was born in Oxford in 1941, which is where the family were living at the time, he remembers his mother telling him that she hid under the kitchen table with him when air raids were on. He later attended boarding school until 1958; he then went to work at County Garage Barnstaple where he worked until 1964. He remembers there was a complete wooden frame for a Bradford van in the roof space of the spares department which was still there when he left. He returned to the family business, White Rose Engineering where he worked until he retired in 2003.
Chris followed in the family tradition of rallying by taking his MGB GT on the Winchester Rally in 1966 with his brother-in-law, they also rallied a Ford Cortina GT. Unfortunately they rallied the Ford without a sump guard and on a special stage on the Isle of Wight Rally they damaged the sump and lost the oil. They had to be towed home by Chris’s sister and girlfriend!
A rather sad story Chris told me related to Stan Smith who was the owner of the Jowett agents, Modern Light Cars of Southampton. After his wife died it affected him very badly and later died in abject poverty. When his estate was wound up, it was found that it actually had a value of £1.5 million.
I hope you find this interesting...Noel Stokoe

[robert lintott]

Interesting update by Noel . It looks as if the Deroy trail is very cold .It was registered EKE 611. I have been trying ,unsuccessfully, to find out if the John Batten in their team was connected with Batten cars of Beckenham , Kent . They were a small maker of potent trials cars based on Ford V8, at least one is still active in VSCC competitions,

The comment on other Jowett agents is interesting . I dealt with Modern Light Cars in Southampton in the late 1950s with my first Javelin , they supplied me with a new crank when the original broke . The Technical Data Jowett file book I have came from The County Garage Barnstaple , there were three Squire partners in the firm . I do not have the address but will try to find it and visit the site etc . Bob

[Forumadmin]

I knew Michael Squires from Barnstaple and also got my first batch of spares for Jowetts there in 1968.

[robert lintott]

County Garage Barnstaple is now a large operation with agencies for Land Rover and other makes . They operate in an industrial estate which is probably not the location they had in the Jowett era . Their website indicates it might still be a family business or similar . I will visit sometime ,it is about 50 miles from here . Bob

[Forumadmin]

I remember the old County garage with green woodwork as being where the Green Lane shopping centre now is in Boutport Street. A mechanic who was working there had a brother with a farm building whose lease was up and he had to move the bits from at least 9 Javelins. So I made an offer of just a few pounds and filled up my Dad's second garage (that at the time was growing mushrooms). Those spares lasted many years as I used up blocks, gearboxes and heads in the student and early years. The rest have been mainly reconditioned. When living in a flat in Bedford many of the spares adorned it, eventually resulting in me being asked to leave!

My memory is not quite clear but I think the reason for going to the County garage and speaking to the mechanic was to try to find a selector shaft that had broken.