You might remember from my previous posts on this forum that I have been researching the "Irish built" Warwick/Peerless for a couple years now. Significant progress has been made on this front including tracking down photos of the car in from of the Dublin Volkswagen factory (see attached). As my effort progressed I started to research other Warwick V8's in order to put together a more extensive family tree. In that regard I'm finding that many of these cars had unique traits based on order of production. In order to further support my research I'm looking to gather as many "PERIOD" photos of these cars as possible.
If you have any photos you are willing to share please post them here or email them to me at hjbolinger@aol.com.
great idea Jim and thanks for posting these. Please help Jim in anyway you can as this will help me and in general all of the P&W community and our history
Here's another shot of what I believe is the prototype car. It is a left hand drive V8 owned and driven by John Todd of New Jersey at the SCCA Nationals at Road America in late 1962. John was the "Student at Cambridge University who arranged for GM engines to be sent to Warwick" as noted in many of the marque histories. According to his brother, Dan who co drove the car at many events, the car was sent from the factory to the US in early 1961. It was raced extensively in 1961 & 1962 by the Todd's. The car ran at Sebring in 1962 but was a DNF with overheating problems.
From other shots I believe this was a converted 4 cylinder chassis. Note the early style hood scoops.
The next photo was taken in 1968 and shows the new owner, Robert Dean, who has recently purchased the car. I believe this car was the third produced and according to Dan Todd was sent to the US in early 1961 in the same container as the Todd's race car. This car is known to the club and has been under restoration in Virginia until recently. It has switched owners and now resides in Europe where the restoration is being completed. The car is a red LHD car with wire wheels. Both Dan Todd and Robert Dean report the car as having black interior with red piping.
Here are some more photos of a V8 car. The second & third ones were taken by Motor magazine in the London area on October 11, 1961. They show a LHD car with wire wheels and a light colored interior. Interior shots of the car show 30 miles on the odometer. The car has the later V8 style bonnet but additional mesh type material added to the bonnet and scoop opening. I believe this and the light interior are unique to this vehicle which I believe is the fourth car built. Addition photos of this car (20 plus) can be found on the Rev's Digitial library site (https://library.revsinstitute.org/digital/). When you get there search for "Warwick GT" and you will see many shots of this car and a 4 cylinder car.
The first photo was provided by Dan Todd, the brother of John Todd who was a student at Cambridge University and made the deal with GM to get Warwick Buick engines. It shows a V8 car which, according to Dan, was brought back by John when he returned from Cambridge in late 61. The car appears to have the same grill material and other similar features as the car photographed months before in London. The registration plate also ties to the Greater London area in the correct time frame. Is it the same car? I'm trying to get more photos from Dan that might show the interior to see if it's light colored.
Here another shot that I could use some help with. The photo was originally sent to me by someone who I can't remember. I have no information on this photo as far as time frame, location, etc. But it shows a V8 car. The car in the background appears to be late 70's early 80's. Any info would be appreciated.
Thanks Dave. The plate 75 RGB was held by the Peerless & Warwick factory. I have seen it displayed on many 4 cylinder and V8 car in both Peerless and Warwick form. I believe that even though the law in England tie a plate number to a specific car that they used the plate more like an American "Manufactures" plate and put it on whatever car they needed to drive that day. AN example of this is the first photos in this post of the Irish car show it with the same 75 RGB plates and it's a LHD drive versus this RHD one shown in the last photo.
Evening all. Up date on UK number plates. They do not belong to the car. They belong to the issuing government agency. At present they are called the Driver vehicle licencing agency DVLA. New cars are assigned a plate on first registration. It then stays with the vehicle, but can be moved to another vehicle with some rules,the main one it can't make the car apear newer than it is. They can can be bought and sold again government fees. The DVLA even have auctions for ones they hold and not issued. This is big business for the plates that look like names. words. Early numbers letter plates. Big money paid for them but still you are never able to own them. So peerless would just moved plates around on company cars. This was for technical reasons and not so quite legal reasons. There are more rules and regulations this is a quick guide
Here's a couple more photos of what I think is the second car. It was the factory demonstrator that was raced in late 1961 at various courses in England. I've also included an advertisement for an english magazine in early 1962 which I believe shows this car for sale. This would have been about the time the assets of the company were being liquidated.
thanks for posting those photos - what were they thinking with that remodelled front on the car in your first post?!
Earlier last year, an eBay seller put up a couple of boxes of racing photos he'd acquired as part of a "job lot". Cars were not his "thing" and the descriptions were rather lacking - I happened upon them by chance. I did manage to "snatch" a couple of them - but then the prices went silly (in my opinion, anyway). The images I've posted are the pictures he posted on his eBay listings - so aren't the greatest quality, I'm afraid. If I ever get the slide scanner fired up, I'll try to get you better copies of the two of these that I managed to acquire.
Unfortunately I have no dates for the meetings - I did ask the seller, but he said that all he had was what was on the boxes of slides. They were labelled "BRANDS HATCH LMC 1961" and "SNETTERTON RACE TRACK".
The Snetterton ones come from the meeting of which Dean kindly made available some Super 8 footage some time ago (from 5.13 in this video: https://youtu.be/RZR4BHJdETg?t=313 which the flier shows to be "Sunday July 9th" - which would make it 1961.
If anyone can make any suggestions as to the possible date of the Brands Hatch meeting (or can suggest what LMC might stand for, to help narrow down the options!), it would be helpful! Perhaps someone even has access to a programme for the meeting and we can verify it from the numbers given to the entrants? "MC" I assume stands for "Motor Club".....but the "L" is a puzzler - London?, Luton?, Liverpool (surely too far away to be running an event there)?, Lloyds (the underwriters - apparently they have/had an active motor club)? Another eBay seller is now selling prints of two of the photos from this series - of a non-V8 Warwick wearing the registration "75 RBH".
Thanks Tom for adding the photos. My GUESS (key word) is that photos 2,3 & 4 were taken at Snetterton on July 6, 1961. They appear to show Chassis #2 (factory demo V8) which was entered by Roland Hamm wearing #24. I believe this is early in the cars life because it has the small bonnet scoop and the slotted license plate area for an oil cooler. From my limited records this is the only race I show where a V8 car wore that number.
Photo 5 also looks similar but I can't be sure because the numbers are not clearly visible.
The first photo I believe is later due to the more standard bonnet scoop. I have no records showing a Warwick V8 entered with the numbers 93/94 so I have no clue where this one was taken.
I just took the body off the Irish build V8 car but have not taken any photos yet. It appears from my research the all of the modification took place from the firewall forward. This included a different tube configaration on the upper diagonal tube from the firewall to the front suspension tower area and a much modified front suspension cross member. There were also slight adjustments to the steering box mounts changing the angle. This allowed the steering column to pass through the larger diagonal tubes mentions above. I've attached a couple engine bay photos of the V8 that's now in Germany for review.
The body was also modified at the firewall to give clearance for the rear cylinder heads. Also the dashboards appear to be different since the location of the steering column is different.
The engine was a Buick 3.5 liter (215 cubic inch) all aluminum V8 that was introduced by Buick in the 1961 model. Due to casting problems GM gave up on the motor and sold it to Rover in the mid-60s. Rover used it in numerous vehicles. Due to it's light weight it was also used in many other cars like TVR, Marcos, MGB GT, Morgan's, Apollo's, etc. The reported weight (dry) with all bolt ones is 318 lbs. So roughly 80# lighter than the TR motor. Horsepower depends on state off tune. Buick offers two ways, a 2 bbl card and lower compression (145 hp) and 4 Bbl high compression at (180 hp).
I have a MGB GT V8 conversion with one of these motors. It totally transforms the car. It's not so much the horsepower increase as the torque increase that makes driving such a pleasure.
The mounts are on the side of the engine like most American engines of the period. On my frame they are about 3-4" behind the back of the suspension cross member. The exhaust manifold appear to be stock Buick units flipped side to side so the exhaust exits at the front of the engine instead of the rear. This seemed to be as common practice as TVR used the same idea in the Griffith (Ford V8 in place of a MGB motor).
Sorry I forgot to add the photos to the last post.
Photo 1) Chassis #1 (Todd car) at Sebring in 1962.
Photo 2) Chassis #2 (Factory demo car). I believe this is an early photo of the car as it has the small hood scoop like the Todd car instead of the later twin nostril scoop.
Photo 3) Chassis #3 (Virginia car now in Germany) These photos are after the owner at the time (Robert Dean) repainted the car in 1969.
Photo 4) Chassis #4 (Motor magazine car)
Photo 5) Chassis #5 (Irish car) After unloading at my shop in September 2018. The bonnet has been modified. What you see in light green is a splash panel made off another Peerless/Warwick that was fiberglassed into the bonnet starting at the hood scoop and going forward.