Ecn-002 Solved: 1948 Grenfell Special

Ecnelis · November 19, 2010, 03:15:25 PM

The car (builder) and the year for 1 point, please.

DeAutogids · November 20, 2010, 03:24:12 PM

Apparently, with the license plate you can find out what this car might be...

Paul Jaray · November 20, 2010, 04:23:34 PM

Why spoil the fun?

DeAutogids · November 20, 2010, 04:57:04 PM

Just trying to be helpfull so maybe next time he willupload the car without the plate.
I am certainly not going to try and look it up in that way.

Carnut · November 21, 2010, 08:16:35 AM

Quote from: DeAutogids on November 20, 2010, 04:57:04 PM
Just trying to be helpfull so maybe next time he willupload the car without the plate.
I am certainly not going to try and look it up in that way.

Best send him a PM then..

It's actually not quite so easy as you might think anyway.
You need to know the make of car as well as the registration number to do it the easy way...

Ecnelis · November 21, 2010, 08:56:43 AM

I'll remove linence plates in future puzzles.

Let this one stay as it is.

Allan L · November 22, 2010, 07:53:44 AM

Quote from: Carnut on November 21, 2010, 08:16:35 AM
Quote from: DeAutogids on November 20, 2010, 04:57:04 PM
Just trying to be helpfull so maybe next time he willupload the car without the plate.
I am certainly not going to try and look it up in that way.

Best send him a PM then..

It's actually not quite so easy as you might think anyway.
You need to know the make of car as well as the registration number to do it the easy way...

And even then as the make is often incorrectly recorded or has spurious detail which must be used it isn't easy. (e.g. I found a car where the date was recorded as part of the make which was of the format "1912 Mors" - the date was wrong, as well!))

DeAutogids · November 22, 2010, 10:55:29 AM

Ok guys, the point was made and taken, let's concentrate on puzzling

I should've made a PB instead of this, though I think this was just a small pointer as has I've seen before here...

Ecnelis · November 22, 2010, 07:53:21 PM

Featured?

Ecnelis · December 03, 2010, 11:09:04 AM

Up to Experts!

Tom_I · December 03, 2010, 02:29:38 PM

This car is a regular competitor at hill-climb events, though it looks a bit different now, as it is painted silver, and has a different front grille and other changes.

It is entered in these events as a Grenfell Special, and is powered by a 3.9-litre Ford flathead V8 engine. It dates from 1948.

But here the confusion starts. It has been associated with Jack Granville Grenfell, the Brooklands-based tuning and supercharging expert, but I haven't found anything to convince me that that's correct. The black and white rear view of the car shown below appears on a web page with a brief biography of Jack Grenfell, but it's identified as his second 500-cc Special from the early 1950s, which is obviously wrong. That car was a single-seater racer, and looked quite different.

But that's all the information I have at the moment, and I'm not sure how accurate it is.

Ecnelis · December 03, 2010, 02:49:43 PM

My source also indicates this car as 1948 Grenfell Special with Ford engine, so it looks pretty solved to me.

Tom_I · December 04, 2010, 05:31:42 AM

And here's the car in action at Shelsley Walsh in May 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLkjGS-LkaI

Allan L · December 04, 2010, 06:32:13 AM

Well done Tom - good bit of film. The Grenfell sounds awful compared to the other two, but that may just be a poor exhaust pipe design.
O/T but nice to see the DADIO flash on Nick Leston's overalls. For those as don't know his Daddie-o was Les Leston, he of the shop where you bought the go-faster string gloves, wood/ally steering wheels and other motoring accessories, and who raced a Lotus Elite with DAD10 numberplates.

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Ecn-002 Solved: 1948 Grenfell Special