Archive Issue 128

From Allis Chalmers: Great Britain: A newly-assembled Model WC tractor standing in the yard at Bacton Station in Herefordshire, ready for dispatch. The tractor is wearing trade plates, so it is likely that it will be driven on the road rather than being loaded onto a train for dispatch further afield. The Model WC and C were larger cousins to the Model B, and their curved, streamlined bodywork was a step forward from the hard-edged, utilitarian Model U. Allis-Chalmers was one of the first machinery firms to employ a design consultant, and the ‘B’ was styled by industrial designer Brooks Stevens. From the C.G. Smith collection, courtesy Ewyas Lacy Study Group

From In the Showroom: Racing and trials driver Dorothy Patten is pictured with her British Salmson 20/90 six-cylinder sports tourer, the first of twelve cars that were built of the type. The photograph was taken in the winter of 1935-1936, and since the model was introduced in late 1935 it might be presumed that Miss Patten was evaluating the car having recently purchased it from Sussex Motors of Hove. The coachwork is that of R.E.A.L. of Pope’s Lane, Ealing in West London. With her history of competing in the Monte Carlo, Alpine and other rallies and trials, the driver was highly regarded within the motor sport fraternity. Her reports on the car were so well received by the manufacturer at its Raynes Park factory in south-West London that she was adopted as the firm’s unofficial test driver. In 1938, the car was sold and taken to Kenya where it covered some 20,000 miles before the chassis was damaged. Thereafter the car changed hands, its whereabouts remaining unrecorded. Dorothy Patten’s private life is something of an enigma: she was born Alice Minnie Patten but as a young woman adopted her elder sister’s name, Dorothy. Coming from a working-class background, she married into aristocracy having met fellow rally driver Baron Rainer von Dorndoff. When the 20/90 was introduced, British Salmson motor cars had been in production for around a year and had already amassed a high reputation for their quality and performance. Before then, the company was an acclaimed constructor in Britain of French Salmson aero engines under licence, but with difficult trading conditions had turned to building cars of 12 and 14 horsepower. Although a wholly British subsidiary, there was a tightly woven relationship between British Salmson and Salmson in France, but nevertheless the former’s products were the very essence of Britishness.  Wheelspin Automedia