Vauxhall J 14 information sought.

You don't say what year the Vauxhall J was, but a quick google suggests around 1938-48 (ish).

I have some motor engineer training text books dated around 1937. These are not vehicle specific - carbs are treated as Solex or Zenith etc without reference to which vehicles they were used with for example. It is a four volume set, so I haven't looked all the way through it for Vauxhall (and there is no index!)

But I have found a wiring diagram labelled "Vauxhall Twelve and Fourteen" and a cut-away drawing labelled "Vauxhall Three-speed Gear Box with Constant-mesh Second Gear"

Are these likely to be the Vauxhall J. And are they any use to you?

Jim

I think I may have owned one of these. Many moons ago a FOAF asked me to clear his garage - Standard Vanguard (beetleback) and a 1947-ish Vauxhall. Used the Vanguard to tow away the Vauxhall. Do I recall it had a rather nice small six engine, or was this another model? Wasn't it the first unitary construction in the UK, all others being separate chassis? Flogged it to a friend for a fiver, so only had it a couple of weeks and don't remember that much about it.

Doubt if this is of much help, but I recall it being a rather pleasant little car, given distinctly marginal brakes and roll angles only beaten by the Citroen 2CV. Oh, and gaps between gears of the Grand Canyon variety. But then, what else was available in the early post-war years? Do please preserve it - although "purists" of the vintage ilk might despise it, cars like this have a place in social history.

Regards, and thanks to Dave Plowman for helping me to get back on to this NG....

Geoff Mackenzie

Geoff

Welcome back - great to hear from you again.

I think Vauxhall were the first to make a completely unitary car in this country in any quantity, but by the time they got to the J others had joined the club. Many years ago a relation of mine used to have just pre-war Vauxhall 14 which was probably the model before the J, whose dates as far as I can ascertain are 1940 - 50. That had a nice small 6-cyl engine, but the chasms between the gears rendered it practically useless when they came to visit us on Exmoor.

The successor to the the J was the Velox (or Wyvern in 4 cylinder form) which had the rather endearing feature that if the brakes could be persuaded to work the result was that the nose of the car went up, not down. I think the J and its immediate predeccessors were the same - something to with Vauxhall using the Dubonnet front suspension system.

Ron Robinson

My father had an early 50s Cresta (ooooh!) for a couple of years that he bought second hand. I learned a couple of new swear words during that time.

The message from Not Me contains these words:

Something odd about the Vauxhall identification letters. The E series started in 1951. Incidentally I was under the impression that the cars prior to the E series all had a real chassis.

The Cresta was the de luxe version of the Velox. If Classic Car is to believed that variant wasn't introduced till 1954. My 55 Cresta came very close to killing me.

Sorry, I am keeping the books.

What I was offering to do, if you wanted it, was to scan the diagrams I found and send them to you. That is if you thought they were Vauxhall J diagrams, because the dates don't quite line up.

Jim