When I read that FC 7900, the Morris Cowley Special often referred to as “Old Number One”, would be making an appearance at Bluehills Mine during the 2025 Land’s End Trial, I thought it was time to revisit some of the facts and myths surrounding the very earliest MGs and their participation in MCC Trials….
Category: Trials History Research
Trials Trivia #8 – The Brighton to Beer Trial
This is something of a mea culpa post. I have referred, a number of times, to the Brighton-Beer (as it became known in its later years) as famously not starting in Brighton (Sussex) nor finishing in Beer (Devon) and, although this may have been true during the trial’s heyday of the 1930s, it was not…
Where is it? – #7
The car in the photo is the famous (at the time) Morris Special owned PreWar by C S L Burleigh and PostWar by Ashley Cleave. Burleigh seems to have used the car primarily for the MCC Land’s End Trials of 1937 to 1939, but Ashley Cleave was a regular competitor in many of the major…
Trials Trivia #7 – Vale Street
Those of you who were at the ACTC Dinner on 16th March, and were lucky enough to have been watching the video at the appropriate time, may have spotted an essential item of trials trivia, probably without even knowing what it was or why it was significant. The short clip showed at least one car…
Trials Trivia #6 – Higher Rill
This is, I’m afraid, one for the real historic trials sections nerds. Back in May 2022, Jonathan Toulmin and I were trying to confirm the location of a photograph, taken on the 1939 Exeter Trial, of his father, Maurice Toulmin, in the Cream Cracker MG TA Reg.No. BBL 78. It was noted as Higher Rill…
The Wharton Special
Ken Wharton was not the first competitor to drop an 1172cc Ford sidevalve engine onto an Austin Seven chassis as the basis for a trials special, but he was certainly the first to make the combination really work. He won a number of events in 1947, and then had an incredibly successful year in 1948…
Trials Trivia #5 – The MCC Devon Trial
Every trialler knows about the MCC’s ‘Big Three’ trials (the Cold One, the Long One, and the Rough One, to quote Peter Jones of MG fame) and the Sporting Trial (the precursor to the modern Edinburgh); and those with a reasonable knowledge of MCC History will have heard of the Spring Trial (1980 and 1981…
Where is it? – #6
UPDATE – 29 August 2023 This photograph is now confirmed as Eric Kay (of Cheltenham), with Howard Homer as passenger, on Lyn Hill (near Barbrook, North Devon). The photograph was taken on 16th April 1949 during the MCC’s 29th Land’s End Trial. I have to thank Roger Wrapson, of the Riley Register, for the information…
Trials Trivia #4 – Troll Miscellany
Peter James drives the T4, JOD 980, up Norman’s Hump (we think) on an Exeter Trial sometime in the late 1980s. With thanks to Mark Milne for providing the photograph. During the course of creating the original Troll T6 page I had a lot of correspondence from Peter James and David Alderson about the other…
Trials Trivia #3 – Scoring system history
Does anyone know when the 12 > 0 scoring system became the standard for trials? I’ve posted this question on the HSTA Facebook page quite recently, but am re-posting here, with updates, in the hope of reaching a wider audience. I know that the concept of sub-dividing sections was introduced in the late 1930s for…