Motormarques dug into its archives for photos of a Derby in Melbourne, Australia.Jean Pierre Bush, our correspondent from Chinon in France, sends us information about a little-known Marque - the Derby.   

From their beginnings in 1875 until their disappearance in 1970, Singers have earned a reputation for producing innovative, tough, and inexpensive sporting cars. One of their earliest successes was a motor tricycle with the engine fitted within the driven wheel. By 1905, they had moved up to four-wheeled horizontal cylinder engined cars.

Nota has been producing successful sports and racing cars since 1952. Guy Buckingham set up Nota in 1952, bringing expertise from English racing car development and the aircraft industry to Australia. Guy, an aircraft engineer, used aircraft technology to build triangulated multi-tubular space-framed racing cars, which, until this stage, had only been seen here in imported racing machinery. This innovative type of design brought Nota many successes and firsts in new car concepts - Nota probably building Australia's first space-framed cars. 

The Chamberlain brothers were the first to design, build and race an Australian racing car. Built in 1929, the Chamberlain Special (picture) with its spaceframe design and 2-stroke 1 litre engine, probably has the longest development and racing career of any race car. Now owned by John Hazelden it is still exercised at special events and is slowly being un-restored back to its heyday of 1948.

Rennmax (Renn German for race, Max from maximum) was an Australian racing and sports car marque built by Bob Britton in Sydney between 1962 and 1978. The first Rennmax chassis had running gear from a 1959 Cooper. It was fast and agile, and was capable of beating such machines as Lotus 20B, Cooper Climax and BRM. The first output was six Formula Junior and 1.5 litre cars. Then followed  nine Formula V cars during 1965 – 1966.

 The introduction of the J2 Allard to the Australian market was due entirely to the energy and enthusiasm of Rube Gardiner. In 1950 Gardiner traveled to the United Kingdom where he was appointed New South Wales distributor for The Allard Motor Company. Gardiner, through his Gardiner’s Motor Service at Stanmore Road, Petersham, in the inner western suburbs of Sydney, had been a supplier of Ford spare parts since 1935. After taking up the Allard distributorship, Gardiner acquired a new facility on the Princes Highway at Carlton in the Southern suburbs of Sydney. Philip Stanton Tracks  the Australian J2 Allards  as shipped to Australia by The Allard Motor Company  

Auspers were built in London by Australians, Tom Hawkes and Adrian Gundlach, the name Ausper, being an abbreviation of the name of their company, Australian Performance Cars.    

Charlie Whatmore, born in 1910, was a sports store owner in Brisbane with a penchant for motor racing, he made his road racing debut at Phillip Island in 1937 with a Ford V8 Special, also racing it at the inaugural Bathurst meeting, the 1938 AGP, and again at Bathurst in 1939 and 1940.Post war, he raced a Midget Speedcar at Brisbane's Exhibition Ground and then, again turned his attention to road racing, with the midget now powered by a Studebaker Champion motor and modified for the circuits, Charlie again made the trip to Bathurst in 1950 and also ran the car on Queensland circuits and hills.  

The Gladiator was built by Barry Taylor of Sydney in 1957 using the modified engine and gearbox from an MG TC he had raced at Mt Druitt earlier in the 1950's, a tubular chassis built by Arthur Rizzo using MG TF front and rear axles, suspension and brakes, and a special fibreglass Buchanan body. The car took its name and identity from the unit of the Royal Marines of which Barry Taylor was a member in WW2.  

The Lynx type 103 was one of the original "Ralt" type chassied cars with coil spring front suspension and transverse leaf rear, it was the first water cooled type cars produced.