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This section looks at the Tourist Trophy Garage transporter that Mike used to move his Cooper-Bristol racing cars around in the early 1950s.
It's under development so if you have anything to contribute, please let us know via our Enquiry form.
Thanks!
One of the Cooper-Bristols that the transporter moved around, shown here with Mike and Brit Pearce in 1952
There is more about the Tourist Trophy Garage on our pages here.
Also, the garage had a Standard Atlas utility van, the subject of a restoration (replica) project that is being looked at!
The transporter was actually a converted wartime utility bus being a Bedford OWB with a Mulliner body type UB32F that
Leslie purchased from E. J. Baker of Farnham in 1952 and then converted.
Team Lotus also used a modified version of the same OWB in the 1950s as their transporter (see lower down this column).
KRF 119 is a 1943 Staffordshire registration plate.
Martin Ingle kindly gave us some more info:
KRF 119 BD OWB chassis number 13216 with a locally-built Mulliner utility bus 32 seat body was new 6/43 to Worthington Motor Tours
Ltd, Stoke-on-Trent No. 60. It went to Crown Coaches
Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne No. 60 in 9/46; to TD Barnes,
Aldbourne, Wilts in 6/48 as a 30 seater; to WA Perdue
(Chiltonian Coaches), Chilton Foliat, Wilts in 5/51 and
to Baker 4/52. It went for scrap in 12/57.
Two examples are shown below
including that of the Bangor Bus Company in fully restored condition:
And one in unrestored condition
During WWII, the Ministry of Supply authorised the construction of
'utility' buses from 1941 onwards. The only single-decker available then was
the Bedford OB, the chassis of which, as the OWB wartime version, differed only from
the earlier OB in that it had military-style head and side lights and no chromium trim.
A prototype was built in 1941, adding an offside emergency door plus upholstered
seats for up to 29 passengers. When in production, the vehicles differed in having a
central rear emergency door and timber slatted seats for 32
passengers, the biggest load that be built in with minimum knee room to
comply with the current Construction and Use Regulations.
In production from 1942 through to 1945, over 3,000 were built with a
Duple-designed angular-shaped body, most at
Duple in Hendon, North London, although production was
shared with Charles Roe of Crossgates, Leeds, SMT's Edinburgh
Workshops and Mulliners of Birmingham.
Wartime OWBs were delivered in an overall semi-gloss dark brown
finish, although many operators who could source paints refinished them. The OWB was
essentially a small operator's bus and they were supplied in ones
and twos according to needs.
Thanks to the Little Bus Company for the above information.
This transporter was also based on the same Bedford OWB model using one from Brown's Coaches of Darlington.
The bus was modified by Cliff Allison of Team Lotus to carry 2 cars, spares and mechanics in 1954.
This 1:43 model is currently (Feb 2007)
obtainable as a Limited Edition finished model from the St. Petersburg Tram Collection site in Russia -
click on the Racing Transporters link once there.
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With help from TT garage worker Frank Swan - who remembers it well - and other employees there,
Leslie Hawthorn had the OWB bus converted into a transporter by removing all of the seats and modifying the
rear-end so that it had two wide doors to allow the car in and out down metal ramps that slid back into the vehicle. They
also covered all the windows with hardboard, leaving the glass in place, finally adding a coat of dark-green paint to complete it (possibly
'Napier green' as this was the colour he painted their first Cooper-Bristol)!
The route display at the front top read 'Tourist Trophy Garage, Farnham, England' and above the driver's window was
added 'COOPER-BRISTOL'.
A rear view of the TT Garage transporter with its additional doors
Your first question will be = 'what the ***** has Colman's Mustard got to do with anything?' Doug Nye explains all in his book 'Cooper Cars':
"Mike's first European foray had been to the Belgian GP on 22 June 1951, and while the Chase car was
being carefully prepared for it, Leslie Hawthorn borrowed the prototype car from its new owner, A. H. 'Archie' Bryde, for the Ulster
Trophy at Dundrod. In practice there its water pump failed. There was no spare, but Mike discovered a Major
in Belfast who owned a Bristol road car. He and Jimmy Hall of Castrol talked the proud owner in to
'loaning' its water pump, and Leslie and Hugh Sewell rebuilt the engine overnight,
only to find its head gasket blown next morning.
"They filled the system with Colmans Mustard, and the leak dried up.... Mike lead early on before the
road dried and Taruffi powered his Thinwall Ferrari ahead. After a stop for more water and oil,
Mike was 2nd. The Major's waterpump was of no further use to anyone, but Bristol gave him a new one.
"Leslie Hawthorn might have been a tetchy character but he had a fine sense of humour. Now he had a 'Colmans Mustard'
advertisement painted on the the TT's converted Bedford bus transporter."
Some later views of the transporter (late 1952) with very much smarter signwriting - and two different versions! Does anyone have photos of the transporter that show more of this?
We believe the full version of the signwriting on the nearside may have looked something like this:
Although no models of the garage transporter itself are known to exist, it shouldn't be too difficult for an experienced modelmaker to fabricate one.
1:43 scale models of the utility bus itself are available, such as those shown below - the only problem area would be the
rear doors that Leslie Hawthorn added as these are obviously not there on the models:
The first three below originate from Russia on the St. Petersburg Tram Collection site and
appear to be available as ready built (and expensive) 1:43 models.
The one below originates from PD Marsh Model Railways and can be found on eBay although it doesn't look to have the
quality of the others.
Those shown below are from The Little Bus Company and are available currently as resin kits
from around £30 (they seem to sell out quickly though):
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