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looking thing, bit of a beast, but then a lot of these old Brooklands cars
are. Built in the age of the big bangers, designed to go fast on the enormous banked Brooklands outer circuit. 100 foot wide banking you struggle to climb up, even in modern trainers and lots of room to fight a big car round the track at speeds well over 100 m.p.h. before the first world war. No antibiotics, crude anaesthetics, brave men. Throw it round nevertheless. This was the age of pioneer motoring, all guts and strong arms. But be under no illusions, the engineering might look heavy and metallurgy was still in it's infancy but overhead cams were not unheard of, nor alloy engines and gearboxes - indeed they had been around for years by 1918. Sidney Straker wanted to sell road cars, so he had to build a racing car that would be seen and noticed. His nephew Bertie Kensington-Moir had served in the Royal Navy during the war and zebra striping had been used as camouflage on the ships he had served on. What better way to get noticed? And it was!
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In 1920 the X2 Straker-Squire took one victory
after another in sprints around Britain and at Brooklands it climbed the test hill in 9.45
seconds, completely off the ground at the top. In 1921 the car was even more successful
lapping Brooklands at 103.76 m.p.h. But what was the background to this remarkable car? Sidney Straker, in partnership with L.R.L Squire got started in Bristol in 1901 making steam wagons, followed by petrol engined buses. In 1906 they negotiated a licence to make the French Cornilleau-Ste Beuve car which they named the 25hp Straker-Squire C.S.B. By July 1907 they were offering a 16/20hp car called the Shamrock which was their first own-design. However, their best know pre-war car was the 1910/14 15hp, a sporting 3 litre with a 4 cylinder side valve engine designed by Roy Fedden. After the war in 1919, they relocated to Edmonton in North London from where they announced a new model with a 6 cylinder 4 litre engine, still rated 20/25hp but with a single overhead camshaft driving exposed valve gear and having light aluminium pistons. The X2 was the racing version of this road car with a lighter sporting body and it was Sidney Straker's hope that the X2 would sell saloons for him. ...../ next... ---> |
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