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Most of us on this forum are model car collectors and model car fans, many of us are also fans of real cars, but apart from the excellent thread by "Mike & Nico" showing some superb classic cars, the thread by "Misterpop" on our own real cars we have owned or do still own, there is not a general thread for 1:1 vehicles.

This thread can be used for any topics on real vehicles that have not been attached to existing threads like the recent Scamell recovery truck topic, if you want to talk about real vehicles at any level (Reg, your snapped timing belt could be discussed here if you want), or you want to ask questions about specific vehicles, then it can be in here.

I personally will not be putting Rolls-Royce in here, that has already been taken care of, thank's to forum member "Ergomatic", with his 'Pictures to Ghosty' thread, but I will be adding some old Vauxhall cars information and pictures, I could have just made it...'Old Sporting Vauxhalls Thread', but that would not be fare, it is your forum for your ideas and interests, so I expect to see some in-depth articles on the Ford Capri and why it can be beaten by a Vauxhall Magnum at the Traffic-Lights Grand Prix...

GHOSTHUNTER.

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.
Lesney made a model of the above car for their 'Models of Yesteryear' range in 1970, shown below.
GHOSTHUNTER.

The next proper sports car from Vauxhall will be the 30-98 HP, with it's origins derived from the 'Prince Henry'.

The 30-98 HP was Built from 1913 to 1915 and then again from 1919 to 1927, it was available as a basic 'Velox' with various body styles or the 'Wensum' which had bodies styled after motor boat launches, simply because the then works manager kept a motor boat on the river Wensum in Norwich.

A 100 mph top speed was again attainable from it's 4.5 Ltr side-valve 4-cylinder engine and with this performance, it was regarded by the motoring press as Britain's first true sports car.
The first commercially available model of the 30-98 HP car came from 'WILLS FINECAST' in 1971, as a white metal kit in 1/24th scale and one of the valuable claims from this model company (now called 'SOUTH EASTERN FINECAST'), is that their model kits have been in constant production and most of their original range are still available today.
GHOSTHUNTER.