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Friday, 12 May 2006 |
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Text and photos by John Sutton
Alta Car and Engineering Co. Kingston-upon Thames, Surrey 1931-1954
The company was founded by Geoffrey Taylor who was one of those inventive and dedicated Englishmen who was following the tradition of the gifted amateur when he started in his father's stables in 1928.
His first car was based on his an ambitious 1074 cm³ engine design which used an aluminium cylinder block and hemispherical cylinder head with the valves operated by shaft driven camshafts. The chassis was from the little ABC light car with leaf springs. It was capable of about 85 mph or less reliably 110 when supercharged. Replicas competed in races, sprints and rallies and one took the class record for the Brooklands Mountain circuit in 1934..
The company also made tuning equipment to help finance the car production and one of the more popular accessories was an aluminium cylinder head for the Austin 7.
In 1935 two further models were available with the engine capacity enlarged to 1496 cm³ and 1961 cm³. The camshaft drive also modified for chain drive.
For 1937 new chassis were constructed using sliding pillar independent suspension and coil springs all round which gave a useful reduction in weight. When supercharged the power output was in the region of 180 brake horsepower and many competition successes resulted in the hands of private entrants. These included George Abecassis, Beadle, Charles Mortimer, Miss D, Stanley-Turner, J. Wakefield and E. Winterbottom. A number of friends bought roadgoing versions, and one was Geoffrey Last, who was a well-known pilot who won the Kings Cup Air race at 176 mph, and made a record flight from Lympne to Cape Town in 3 days 17 hours and 37 minutes in 1936.
The company also made tuning equipment to help finance the car production and one of the more popular accessories was an aluminium cylinder head for the Austin 7.
In 1935 two further models were available with the engine capacity enlarged to 1496 cm³ and 1961 cm³. The camshaft drive also modified for chain drive.
For 1937 new chassis were constructed using sliding pillar independent suspension and coil springs all round which gave a useful reduction in weight. When supercharged the power output was in the region of 180 brake horsepower and many competition successes resulted in the hands of private entrants. These included George Abecassis, Beadle, Charles Mortimer, Miss D, Stanley-Turner, J. Wakefield and E. Winterbottom. A number of friends bought roadgoing versions, and one was Geoffrey Last, who was a well-known pilot who won the Kings Cup Air race at 176 mph, and made a record flight from Lympne to Cape Town in 3 days 17 hours and 37 minutes in 1936.
During the Second World the company survived on prototype of aeroplane parts. In 1945 another ambitious "GP" car project was announced. The chassis was designed to use rubber suspension because of its lightweight and self damping capacity. The result was a completely new design with aluminium crankcase and cylinder head above a cast iron "mechanite" cylinder block to take the strain of the two-stage supercharging. There were various delays before the car finally appeared in 1948 largely due to lack of finances, and the cost of development was too much for a small firm and even though George Abecassis found it hard to maintain the momentum the car was plagued with minor problems.
More successful was the 2 litre version of the engine running unsupercharged in a Formula 2 HWM. team car with complete reliability.
In 1951 the "GP" chassis was fitted with the Formula 2 engine and in 1952 a light and improved version was available but it was never successful. With the engine enlarged to 2.5 litres unsupercharged for the new Formula 1 in 1955, another car was constructed but never left the works. However the engine had attracted the attention of British Formula 1 contenders. .
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There was a shortage of suitable units available at this time and Connaught, from just along the Plymouth Road at Send, used it to great effect when Tony Brooks won at Syracuse in 1955 to give the first all Grand Prix British win since Henry Segrave in the 1920s.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 21 October 2006 )
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