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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Motorclassica Auction
• Sale Date:
  14 Oct 2017 ~ 6pm
• Lot #:
  26
• Lot Description:
  THE SYDNEY TO BOURKE RECORD HOLDING 1930 FORD MODEL A BOAT-TAIL
  Engine No: CA5803
• Notes:
  Henry Ford is acknowledged as the man who “put the world on wheels”, which is not an exaggeration as his company produced 15 million of the early Model T Ford first launched in 1908. By 1926 the Model T had been overtaken by the products of other manufacturer’s however and ultimately the obdurate Ford was persuaded that a new product was required if he was not to disappear into the oblivion. The result, first seen on December 2nd, 1927 was the Model A. The Model A was not revolutionary but more of an evolution of the Model T. The A, like the T, had a four-cylinder 3.2 litre (200cu) engine, though of a new design and more powerful. It featured a (by-now) conventional three-speed transmission, but like the T, still sat on transverse springs with high ground clearance to appeal to the rural customer. Like the T, the A too proved very popular, with some four and a half million units sold in the three years of production from 1928 to 1931. Much more pleasing on the eye than its predecessor it was also capable of a good turn of speed and could reach 60 mph. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, “Norman Leslie Smith (1890-1958), racing motorist, was born on 13 July 1890 at Enfield, Sydney, ninth child of native-born parents William Smith, labourer and later carpenter, and his wife Cecilia, née Kennedy. Brought up on a farm at Richmond, he was apprenticed as a mechanic to I. Phizackerley, motor car importer, and on 15 April 1911 married Harriett Ann Russ, with Salvation Army forms. Enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force on 25 September 1916, he embarked for overseas, but was invalided home from Cape Town, and discharged on 7 June 1917. He worked as a salesman for the Queensland Motor Agency before joining Dalgety & Co., Sydney, agents for Hudson and Essex cars, about 1920. To promote his employers’ cars, Smith began entering races and rallies. In 1919 he had won a hill climb at (Royal) National Park. Unbeaten in all the State’s major motoring trials in 1922 and winner of the Victorian alpine contest, he became known as ‘Wizard’. Next year he set inter-city records between Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, Launceston, Auckland and Wellington. Appointed motoring editor of the Sunday Times and the Referee in 1924, he performed stunt-driving feats in American cars, often wearing his business suit and Homburg hat. In 1926 he set a twenty-four hour record at the Maroubra Speedway and regained the Brisbane-Sydney record. Two years later he created Australian records for distances covered in six, twelve and twenty-four hours, and broke the long- distance record held by John ‘Iron Man’ Burton, when he drove from Fremantle to Brisbane. Determined to contest the world land speed record, Smith asked racing driver and engineer Donald Harkness to design and build a racing car, the ‘Anzac’, using a Rolls-Royce aero engine and a Cadillac chassis. Aware of its inadequacies, he concentrated on Australasian records and, while searching for a suitable site for his speed runs, set new inter-city records in New Zealand. When testing it at Gerringong, New South Wales, on 1 December 1929, he created an Australian record of 128.571 miles (206.909 km) per hour. Next month, at Ninety Mile Beach, north of Auckland, he set an unofficial Australasian ten-mile record at an average speed of over 148 miles (238 km) per hour. Using a borrowed Napier seaplane engine, Smith and Harkness began building a better racer, the ‘Enterprise’. Delays occurred when they disagreed about its design and Harkness became ill. Their differences came to a head in New Zealand in December 1931, when Smith altered the car. Harkness began legal proceedings in Sydney, but later settled out of court. On 26 January 1932, on a wet and bumpy surface, ‘Wizard’ Smith set an official world speed record of 164.084 miles (264.06 km) per hour. Although intending to challenge Sir Malcolm Campbell’s mile and five mile records, months of inactivity followed, amid adverse publicity. His challenge on 1 May 1932 failed when the ‘Enterprise’ broke down. Returning to Sydney, he sued Smith’s Weekly for alleging that he was a coward. Although he was awarded damages, his public standing remained low and, with insufficient funds, he abandoned plans for further challenges. In 1933 Smith twice reduced the Brisbane-Sydney record and, surveying the route for a contest in 1936, drove around the continent in 45 days. That year he joined Stack & Co. (Pty) Ltd, motor dealers; he retired as their import representative in 1957. He enjoyed golf and fishing. A persevering man, his short and plain physical appearance did little to offset his enigmatic, introspective personality and, paying insufficient attention to publicity, he was denied the rewards which his skills and achievements should have brought. Survived by his wife and daughter, he died at Kogarah on 1 October 1958 and was cremated with Church of England rites”. It was this same ‘Wizard’ Smith who in the late 1920s when visiting the Ford Agency at Bathurst in New South Wales set its proprietor, Norman Aubin along a similar track as a record breaking racing driver. Smith arrived in Bathurst having recently broken the Sydney to Bourke record in 10 hours 58 minutes driving a Studebaker Commander Six with which he held 53 of the 55 recognised Australian road records. The apocryphal story goes that when Aubin met ‘Wizard’ Smith he said jokingly that he would break that record in one of his Ford Model A cars. Joking apart Aubin contacted Ford and ordered a Model A chassis. He then asked coachbuilder William Green of Petersham in Sydney to build him an identical special sports body to that designed by and built for Ted Tunbridge another Ford Agent based in Wellington, NSW. It is believed that just the two bodies with this boat-tail designed were built. In November 1929 Aubin in this Model A and accompanied as navigator by Ted Poole who had acted as navigator for ‘Wizard’ Smith on so many of his record runs, broke Smith’s record from Sydney to Bourke by eight minutes. They covered the 512 miles at an average speed of 47.7 mph, an astonishing time when one remembers that the sealed road finished after just 80 miles. Elation was short lived however as just before Christmas on December 23rd of that year Perry Donnelly, driving a Whippet Six, smashed the record by 52 minutes! The New Year brought a renewed attempt on the record by Aubin, described thus by an advertisement for the Ford Motor Company of Australia which was run on January 26th 1930, “SYDNEY-BOURKE RECORD AGAIN BROKEN BY THE NEW FORD! 512 MILES IN 9 HOURS 47 MINUTES AVERAGING 52.32 MILES PER HOUR At 4am on Tuesday January 14th, a New Ford Sports Model left the GPO Sydney in an attempt to lower the existing record for the run to Bourke. At 1.47pm it arrived at the Bourke Post Office with a new record emphatically established. No other car has ever traversed the route in such amazingly fast time – 512 miles in 9 hours 47 minutes. Driven by Mr Norman Aubin and Mr A.E (Ted) Tunbridge, the New Ford clipped 11 minutes off the old record and created two new intermediate records in addition. It averaged 52.32 miles per hour over the total distance and its actual travelling time was 9 hours 22 minutes. This New Ford was a stock model with the exception that a 3.1 gear was used in lieu of a 3.7. No oil was added on the run. The radiator gave no suggestion of boiling. The engine never missed a beat. The bonnet was not lifted. The too-roll was not touched. A sensational feature of the journey was a crash into the fence at a well-known “bad” corner near Wellington, when travelling at 60 miles per hour. A damaged front wheel was replaced, and the Ford romped on to Bourke and victory, making up lost time; proving New Ford stamina”. The Model A was quickly returned to its starting point to be feted at the 1930 Sydney Motor Show, much to the chagrin of the Whippet agents. The record set on January 14th still stands, as soon after this the road record attempts such as this were banned by the NSW Govt due to safety concerns. The Model A was then sold to a new owner in Wagga, NSW and by the 1950s the car was in the Tumut region of the Snowy Mountains. In 1964 Martin McCarthy of Canberra, a former President of the Model A Restorers’ Club (Aust) discovered the car in Tumut where due to its colour scheme it was affectionately known as the ‘Silver Bullet’. In 1976 McCarthy began a long and thorough restoration with the record breaking car returned to its former glory towards the end of 1978. In recent years, the Model A boat-tail racer has been resident in a collection of Vintage cars near Bowral, NSW. The owner tells us the car runs very well indeed and is still a fast car. In 2013 the car appeared in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby filmed in Sydney. The offer of this car at auction presents a significant opportunity to acquire an historically important pre-war Ford race car with outstanding provenance. This vehicle will be sold unregistered
• Estimate:
  A$45,000 - 60,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Automobiles & Accessories

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.