Solved NIC#704 - 1937 Batten Special

[nicanary]

Barclay

No.

PS I mentioned in an earlier post that the engine could be around 10hp - I have rechecked my source and the engine size is not quoted. Sorry if this did not help your investigation, but it was definitely Ford-powered.

[luisps]

Leidart?

[nicanary]

Leidart?

No - we've already had that question.

[Wendax]

Vale?

[nicanary]

Vale?

No.

[Paul Jaray]

Batten?

[Wendax]

Squire?

[nicanary]

Batten?

YES! Not a Squire, because it's a Batten Special. This photo was taken from an advert in a well-known magazine from 1955 and is therefore not readily available on the internet. It doesn't look anything like other Battens I've seen, but  a) I reckon a small maker like Batten would have built cars to order and this could have been a one-off commission and b) I see no reason why a garage would have not known what car they were selling!

The wording of the advert - " BATTEN SPECIAL - specially built for enthusiast in 1937 from Ford components. Terrific performance -value!!!!! £125.

When I first saw the car I thought it looked a bit too small for one of the V8 powered Battens and considered maybe it was 1172cc powered, but the ad does mention performance. Presumably the original owner wanted a drophead rather than a competition car.

Solved eventually.

[Paul Jaray]

Thank you!

[Allan L]

How on earth d'you get that, PJ?!
As said it's not like any other Batten one knows of and it looks to me as if they used a d.h.c. body from (say) an early '30s Lanchester on the Ford V8 chassis (wheels look like big Ford).

[Paul Jaray]

I used my index: I sorted all the names I have according to the hints I had.
The names were not few, (Andrè, Atalanta, Barson, Vale, Harker,  Lammas-Graham, Leidart, Squire, Salmon etc.).
After a rough selection, there were still 70 names.
I tried to narrow them down looking at what they did (3-wheelers, coachbuilt cars, specials, and so on) and many names were out.
When I had less names, I started again from the beginning and Batten was the 1st of the possible ones.

[Wendax]

Even without doing SQLs on data bases, just by going through the good old Culshaw / Horrobin book, Batten would have been my next guess.  8)