News and views

Firstly, Bill and I send you our best wishes for Christmas and the New Year, let’s hope that 2021 turns out to be better than this year!

Continuing our pictures from past events here is Mike and Jean Jakeman’s D0427 in 2017, during the Vintage Minor Register’s Summer Rally on the 23rd July that year – always held on the Sunday following Pre-War Prescott.

The scene is a stop on the route at Ashleworth Tithe Barn in deepest Gloucestershire and shows quite a mix of competitor’s pre-war cars. (thanks for the photo from Ian Grace of VMR).

Another snippet from Cathelijne Spoelstra is this advert found in the June 1949 edition of ‘Motor Sport’ magazine.
I wonder where that ended up and in which car!

You will recall I emailed everyone in late October about the 2 Ds for sale including D0298. This is currently on the high seas and should be arriving anytime soon in the States. Regular readers will recall that this D had the UK registration of TK 7177 and amongst other items was the subject of a jigsaw:

Back in 2013 a batch of about 12 were discovered and quickly sold (see Dispatches 34 and 38) well new owner Dennis Klemm would like to obtain one to go with the car – if you can help do get in touch with me in the first instance.

The other D for sale is D0431 ((See Dispatch 58 but pictures included here)) and this was also advertised in November’s ‘Safety Fast’. At the time of writing Roger Cooper (who is helping the widow to sell the car) has had no takers but this could be down to travel restrictions at present. Roger can be contacted on 01858 463417 or email rogercooper@talktalk.net

Also still for sale at the time of writing is the only D Salonette in the world – D0407 ; now on our website under cars for sale.

Dispatches

By the way I’ve had a couple of queries about finding past Dispatches on the website. If you click on ‘Dispatch’ you get the last half a dozen or so latest ones – if you drop down to ‘Dispatch Archive’ you get all the rest back to number one.

Floor boards and spring bounce clearance

I was asked the other month where the join was for the two pieces of floor board each side of the car i.e. how long was each piece. My reply was I didn’t know as both my Ds had one piece floor boards! However, consulting the Spares Booklet, part of page 23 reproduced here.

It clearly lists a large and a small for each side! Does anyone know the lengths of each? It also shows ‘pedal strip’ presumably a piece round the bottom of the pedals – has anyone got one?

Another interesting fact it raises is in the carpet listing – in that it shows a piece for the footwell for both the long and short chassis. I’ve always been under the impression that the footwell for the 7’ wheelbase cars wasn’t worth the effort and in my D0311 the footwell is just boarded over with the one piece floor. However the extra 2” in the later cars (7’2” wheelbase) makes use of the footwell practical and this I have in D0464.

The other question raised was that of the ‘spring bounce clearance’. Theoretically the rear spring could ‘bottom out’ and hit the floorboard. I have incorporated this for D0311 the main reason being that the rear seat facia board already had the cut outs for them as in this sketch opposite.

The corner of each floor board therefore looks like this opposite

The measurements suit D0311 but obviously you need to fit to your own car. The ‘side wall’ of the rise is made of 1/8” or 3/16” plywood whereas the rise itself is a piece of the floor board material itself. Finally, the above diagrams exaggerate the size but this photo of my installation in D0311 covered in suitably fitted carpet gives a truer picture.

Any comments or actual facts on any of the above would be welcome!