Beautiful! and thanks for sharing Nick. I enjoyed the you tube videos but they were so short. Can you share any history of the car? I just turned my dictionary to the word "elegance" and a pic of your car was there.
You sir, are my hero of the month!
Hero of the month hi praise indeed, I was just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to buy it. The real heroes are the guys in the 30’s who built these cars with just hand tools and a good eye, no cad, computers, CNC machines etc. Must make sure I don’t post anything on the politics thread and may hero status may make it to the end of the month
Not sure if this is what you were after, but here you go
Brough Superior cars were built by George Brough manly known for building what a journalist at Motor Cycle magazine termed at the time, the Rolls Royce of Motorbikes. George was a larger than life character, for example when asked how many cars he built he would say around 1000, it was more likely just over 100, all records were lost in the war. His own Brough 8 Cylinder car has a side step instead of running boards. This allegedly came about as a result of his liking to visit the local pub in the car; some say the landlady was another attraction for him, not for me to comment on that. Apparently one night after a fairly lengthy stay at the pub sampling it’s liquid wares, on the way home he failed to negotiate a railway crossing correctly making it necessary to remove the damaged running board, and replacing the boards both sides with a step.
It is often said that he was not a good engineer, as with both the cars and the motorbikes, he took the best bits he could find and put them together, personally I think this is a bit of an injustice. He was certainly ahead of his time when it came to publicity and marketing. If his bikes ever attended a race meeting unlike many other manufacturers, they turned up immaculately presented. He was also a very accomplished motorbike racer. His family made him give up racing after his bike went through the finish line at a fair rate of knots, unfortunately he was not on it at the time, and passed the finish a short time afterwards. In fact a well-known photo of him with two sticks talking to Lawrence of Arabia on one of the many Brough bikes he owned was taken shortly after this incident.
George decided to build cars in the early 1930’s, he built a couple of prototypes using meadows engines but felt they were underpowered, until he settled on the 8 cylinder side valve Hudson Engine, Chassis and running gear for production cars. Sales began in May 1935 and around 25 8 cylinder cars were built with around 13 known to have survived. The chassis with Hudson engines were bought in from the US, then despatched to a little known coachbuilder WC Atcherley (more information in the book WC Atcherley the lost coachbuilder) for the bodies to be fitted before being returned to the Brough works in Nottingham for completion. George was good friends with William Lyons founder of Swallow Sidecars Blackpool and therefore of obvious interest to a motorbike manufacturer. Swallow Sidecars became SS cars and after the war for obvious reasons changed name to Jaguar Cars. Some think William may have had some influence over the body design, in my mind it would not have looked out of place on a period Jaguar chassis.
Legend has it that after around a year Railton who were a bigger concern than Brough, who were also using a Hudson 8 cylinder engine in their cars complained to Hudson about them supplying a competitor and after 1935 Hudson only supplied the 6 cylinder car to George.
Possibly to counter any customer negativity towards a loss in power of the 6 over the 8, George built one 6 cylinder Alpine Grand Sports Supercharged Special bodied car nicknamed Girl Pat after a notorious boat of the time. The car survives and is actively campaigned by its owner mainly in Vintage Sports Car Club hill climbs. Around 75 6 cylinder cars are believed to have been built, 3 of which were saloons.
Just before the war George built his final car a Lincoln Zepher V12 cylinder engined Charlesworth bodied saloon. This always had cooling issues as the engine was set very low. It is owned by the same owner of George Brough’s car but has sadly not been on the road for many years. I saw it about 20 years ago and am really jealous of the owner’s 3 Brough’s she also owns a 6 cylinder saloon.
During the war George took out the rear seat of his Brough and used it as a delivery vehicle for up to 12 Rolls Royce Merlin engine cranks at a time, that his works had the job of machining. This car is said to have done over 300000 miles with minimum maintenance with no problems, and we think we are so clever now.
After the war George did not manufacturer any more Bikes or Cars, just continued servicing and maintaining his customer’s machines whilst also doing precision engineering for others.
My own Brough is a 1935 8 cylinder and I became the custodian after a long search for one in 2000. I was very very lucky. Fred joined the Railton Owners Club which covers Brough cars and contacted me as he was looking for a Brough car and I had built up some knowledge of most of the available cars in the UK and around the world, he owned a house in Tucson and spent summer in the UK and winter in the US. In 2000 he rang me as he had just returned to the UK, to ask if I had seen the Brough for sale in the Sunday Times, he had just found and purchased a Brough in the US that needed restoration if he hadn’t he said he would not be phoning me. To cut a long and at a couple of points painful story short I was able to buy the car.
Incidentally Fred’s Brough had an interesting history, he found it in Arizona, and its previous owner was apparently very pale. This fact was somewhat lost on me until he explained that most people in Arizona would not be particularly pale, the previous owner was pale due to his business dealings. As a result of these business dealing he had, what we would say in the UK, spent some time at “her majesty’s pleasure”. He was also concerned about shipping the car back to the UK in case customs had sniffer dogs and the previous owner had stored any of his business “products” in the car.
It has been a privilege to be the custodian of the car and has given me many happy memories especially when being used as bridal transport for family weddings and in the past paid for bridal transport. It is also been great to take to show’s as I am a bit shy when it comes to talking to strangers no problem when you have a Brough people come and talk to you. One highlight was an old boy of about 80 coming up and saying if my car had been the only one in the show it would have still been worth coming. Another was a discussion with an expert who was adamant the car was a fake as “Brough never made cars.”
It is a wonderful car to drive, it has a 3 speed reverse gate gearbox but the torque of the engine means in top you can go down to around 10mph and accelerate up to maximum, the period advertisement stated “90 in Silence” I think they must all have been a bit deaf in those days. Rolls Royce archives show they obtained a Hudson 8 Cylinder engine to take apart as they could not believe how smooth it was. Having owned a 1931 Rolls Royce 20/25 the engineering on the Rolls engine is far Superior to the simple side valve splash lubrication Hudson 8, but the Hudson matches the Rolls Royce in smoothness. It’s only Achilles heel is a very small radiator and an engine that produces a lot of heat. OK when on the move but if it gets hot and the engine cuts out for whatever reason it can be a nightmare, not helped by modern petrol to get started again. Never used to be a problem as usually you are on a minor road somewhere but I have noticed recently a lot more abuse being thrown my way by other impatient motorists who have been held up for 30 seconds or so.
Well if you have got this far you have done well, but in my defence I was asked
Pictures of the full Brough range can be found here.
Brough Superior Cars