identify this car?

Can't help much with the car, but from the clothes of the woman pushing the pram I would reckon it was taken in about 1924 give or take a year.

Ron Robinson

R.N. Robinson ( snipped-for-privacy@frumiousbandersnatch.freeserve.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Blimey, Ron... I'm intrigued as to the logic!

I'd hazard a guess at the car being very late teens or early 20s, but no idea beyond that. Not really my bag.

American, British or European? My giess if American, is a 1922 Crawford 6 tourer. Radiator, headlights, dumbirons, roofline all look similar. Mike

Thanks for the replies! I forgot to add that it is a UK photograph so I guess that it's very unlikely to be an American vehicle. The vehicle could possibly be a van perhaps? Chris

If UK, maybe a Rover 45 Classic, circa 2001?

If not, I suspect the Rover came mainly from the same parts bin ;-)

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Chris Lewis" saying something like:

It's Spagthorpe Gangsta, circa 1926. Brought about by a short-lived attempt to sell cars downmarket, it wasn't really successful and sold in very limited numbers. Optional equipment included running board boxes for Thompson guns and a box-section chassis that was sealed at each end, thus making it capable of carrying approx 20 US gallons of rum.

Powered by the 'Octavia' range of engines; despite the name, they were not 8, but 9 cylinders arranged in 3 tiers of 3 rotary cylinders and fed by a bank of whirling carburettors, timed to each intake stroke by a toothed belt made of pygmy skin and lions' teeth.

Of course. I should have recognised the distinctive radiator. But are you sure it is not the 'Aeolus' model of 1923? As I am sure you know, this was named after the Greek god of the wind because in a rare attack of foresight the firm anticipated the petrol rationing that came seventeen years later and equipped this particular model with a device that cut the engine and put the gearbox into neutral whenever it detected a following wind, motive force being provided by air pressure on the back of the vast hood with which the car was provided. The fact that this never caught on probably had something to do with Spagthorpe's inability to find anyone who could make an electric starter at the price that they were prepared to pay for it.

Ron Robinson

A little known fact is that desmodromic valves were a £9/3/4 option on the 1926 Gangsta. They were a vast improvement over the Kirby grip valve springs offered on the standard model Only 4 examples were built, but none are known to survive. Spagthorpe was ahead of his time in many ways, but the formula for commercial success always eluded him.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Dean Dark wittered on forthwith;

Spagthorpe Gangsta it most certainly is, this particular example being fitted with the ultra-desirable "Cart-a-safe" trolley as demonstrated by the Gurkha in drag on the left of the pic. The Spagthorpe Gangsta in the pic also fitted with the overhead violin case storage option - always a good idea when the Cart-a-safe was rear mounted.

I respect Spagthorpes ideas for specialist market options, the Gangsta with the Cart-a-safe option being an excellent example of this way of thinking. The engineering solutions Spagthorpe used were always based on lateral thinking, the 9 cyl desmodromic engine being an excellent example.

A little known fact about Spagthorpe in the '20s was that the workforce was mainly staffed by ex-Gurkhas, the engine designers were all ex-mental patients, and that the interior trim choices for '26 were mainly from endangered species such as the Romford Swamp Rat fur glovebox lining.

Fitting number plates to the "Cart-a-safe" wasn't such a bright idea though, the owners of this particular example being arrested whilst using the Cart-a-safe with the reg plate attached. In court they blamed the makers for using Spagthorpes patented "Secure-o-fix" left hand thread chromium plated dome headed screws attached from inside the Cart-a-safe. The case rumbled on until 1957. Spagthorpe enjoyed a good legal battle.

This is merely a press photo from the 1926 Great Yarmouth Gangster Gazette.