Sporting Vauxhalls, very few of them, mention Vauxhall and Sports car and they don't go together as well as Ford and Sports car, but when they were making sporting cars they were very good and took on the competition face to face.
When was the first Sporting Vauxhall, 1950's, 1960's, certainly they were around in the 1970's. They were in fact involved in trials and endurance events only a few Years after the company was formed at the turn of the Centurty.
The first real Sports Vauxhall is the car designed by a Mr Laurence Pomeroy, who designed a sporting tourer for the 1910 Prince Henry trials to be held in June in Austria.
The Vauxhall cars on the event were built to a new design by the brilliant engineer and were called the C10 model. Whilst the vehicles did not win the trial, they performed so well against other entrants with bigger engined cars that they attracted widespread interest and the company continued to develop them for their sporting and record breaking endeavours.
Soon known as the ‘Prince Henry’ Vauxhalls, the model became widely acknowledged as the first British Sports car and the first car in the world to exceed 100 mph with a 21hp engine.
The three litre engined Prince Henry Vauxhalls of 1910 -1912 went on to win many speed events at such places as Brooklands, Shelsley Walsh and Aston Clinton. In 1912 Vauxhall entered two Prince Henry cars in the 1912 Swedish Winter Trial. Of the total of sixty competition cars made, only four survive today, two running in the UK and two in Australia, but only one is on the road.
About 950 'Prince Henry' replicas were made by Vauxhall for public intake, production ceasing during 1915.
- This is the MATCHBOX car.JPG (80.52 KiB) Viewed 323 times
Lesney made a model of the above car for their 'Models of Yesteryear' range in 1970, shown below.
- 1970 issue..JPG (50.88 KiB) Viewed 323 times
GHOSTHUNTER.
