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Details
1903 WOLSELEY 10HP REAR-ENTRANCE TONNEAU
Registration No. XKO 61A
Chassis No. 319
Engine No. 311
Yellow and black with black upholstery
Engine: front-mounted horizontal parallel twin, 4½ x 5 ins. bore and stroke, 2.6 litres, water-cooled with pump, trembler-coil ignition, drip-feed lubrication; Gearbox: Primary drive by Reynolds, silent chain to four speeds and reverse, cone clutch, final drive by side chains; Suspension: front and rear, semi-elliptic leaf springs; Brakes: rear-wheel internal-expanding brakes and external contracting transmission brake. Wooden artillery wheels with beaded-edge tyres front, and solid rubber tyres rear. Right hand drive.
For the ten years from 1896 while the Wolseley Companies were experimenting with and then producing motorcars, there was one man who drove the whole enterprise forwards - Herbert Austin. Even when in 1901 the armaments firm Vickers Sons & Maxim bought the Wolseley motorcar business, set up the Wolseley Tool & Motor Car Co, and acquired and re-equipped the Adderley Park works to the east of Birmingham city centre for car production, Austin still presided, even if his title was only ever Works or General Manager.
After experimenting with a couple of different configuration tricars Austin devised a four-wheeled voiturette with a front-mounted horizontal single-cylinder engine. This had adequate water-cooling capacity with the radiator forming the 'bonnet' sides, primary drive by belt (that also served as a clutch) to a mid-car three speed gearbox, and final drive was by side-chains. The vehicle was tiller-steered and had relatively simple controls by the standards of the day, and this prototype performed well enough in the 1900 Thousand Miles Trial. The design that owed little to the ideas of others was put into production with the only major changes being a cone clutch and wheel steering - 5hp singles and 10hp twins of this pattern being marketed from 1901. At the end of 1902 The Motor-Car Journal reported that Wolseley 'has orders on hand for over 800 cars of different types, representing a value of about £300,000. The output of the works is now actually ten cars per week.'
Wolseley was just one of the two English manufacturers (Napier was the other) that exhibited at Paris Salon in December 1902, the first occasion that this had happened and described by The Autocar as being of 'historic importance'. It was at the Salon that this car was ordered, and the Wolseley Works Records show that it left the Adderley Park factory on the 26th February 1903 to the order of H.N.B. Good, The Abbey, Sutton Courtney, Berkshire. When the registering of cars was introduced under the 1903 Motor Car Act, the Wolseley '10hp Tonneau, yellow & black' was allocated the index mark BL-2 by Berkshire County Council. By the 1950s the car formed part of the collection of the Nuffield Organisation - William Morris, yet to be Lord Nuffield, having bought Wolseley Motors in 1927. Somewhat surprisingly the Wolseley was displayed at 'Morris Garages' - the MG premises not being the most obvious place to house a historic vehicle from the pioneer days. Whilst with the Nuffield Organisation the Wolseley participated only in the 1962 London to Brighton Run and eight years later it changed hands. Its first 'Brighton' in the present ownership was the 1971 event and the Wolseley was last seen on the A23 in November for the Centenary Run of 1996.
In the second edition of his monumental book Motor Vehicles and Motors (1906) the author, respected consulting engineer Worby Beaumont, wrote about Wolseley: 'The success of these cars is due to the thoroughly good design, material and workmanship of all the parts'. Beaumont endorsed his opinion by long-term ownership of a 1902 10hp - the car now in the keeping of the Veteran Car Club. The late Anthony Bird, who was one of the better informed motoring historians since he actually drove the cars that he wrote so well about, said in his 1966 'Profile': The Horizontal-engined Wolseleys: 'the cars soon earned the reputation for reliability which became the principal virtue of Austin's products when he set up in business on his own account. The horizontal-engined Wolseleys may not have been particularly fast (though they were by no means sluggards), nor were they notably refined in the manner of their going; but they went on doing what they were designed to do with rather less of the grief, rage, anguish and expense which several more ambitious motorcar designers of the time inflicted upon their hapless customers.' He could also have added that when properly set up and driven they are remarkably quiet in going about their business and inspire a feeling of confidence in both the driver and passengers.
The car is in good running order and with its original coachwork that was almost certainly made by Wolseley's own coachbuilding department is very smartly turned out. The colour scheme is to the original pattern, as is the upholstery, and the leather mudguards were a standard Wolseley option - often using elephant hide, but apparently not in this case. When new the car was ordered with pneumatic tyres at the front and solid rubber tyres to the rear, and it retains this specification.
The 'perfect' motorcar has never existed and never will, since judgements about motorcars inevitably contain a degree of subjectivity. Similarly the perfect 'Brighton' car does not exist, but if a top ten list of cars ideally suited for the event was drawn up, by any objective criteria a 10hp Wolseley would have to be thereon.
Registration No. XKO 61A
Chassis No. 319
Engine No. 311
Yellow and black with black upholstery
Engine: front-mounted horizontal parallel twin, 4½ x 5 ins. bore and stroke, 2.6 litres, water-cooled with pump, trembler-coil ignition, drip-feed lubrication; Gearbox: Primary drive by Reynolds, silent chain to four speeds and reverse, cone clutch, final drive by side chains; Suspension: front and rear, semi-elliptic leaf springs; Brakes: rear-wheel internal-expanding brakes and external contracting transmission brake. Wooden artillery wheels with beaded-edge tyres front, and solid rubber tyres rear. Right hand drive.
For the ten years from 1896 while the Wolseley Companies were experimenting with and then producing motorcars, there was one man who drove the whole enterprise forwards - Herbert Austin. Even when in 1901 the armaments firm Vickers Sons & Maxim bought the Wolseley motorcar business, set up the Wolseley Tool & Motor Car Co, and acquired and re-equipped the Adderley Park works to the east of Birmingham city centre for car production, Austin still presided, even if his title was only ever Works or General Manager.
After experimenting with a couple of different configuration tricars Austin devised a four-wheeled voiturette with a front-mounted horizontal single-cylinder engine. This had adequate water-cooling capacity with the radiator forming the 'bonnet' sides, primary drive by belt (that also served as a clutch) to a mid-car three speed gearbox, and final drive was by side-chains. The vehicle was tiller-steered and had relatively simple controls by the standards of the day, and this prototype performed well enough in the 1900 Thousand Miles Trial. The design that owed little to the ideas of others was put into production with the only major changes being a cone clutch and wheel steering - 5hp singles and 10hp twins of this pattern being marketed from 1901. At the end of 1902 The Motor-Car Journal reported that Wolseley 'has orders on hand for over 800 cars of different types, representing a value of about £300,000. The output of the works is now actually ten cars per week.'
Wolseley was just one of the two English manufacturers (Napier was the other) that exhibited at Paris Salon in December 1902, the first occasion that this had happened and described by The Autocar as being of 'historic importance'. It was at the Salon that this car was ordered, and the Wolseley Works Records show that it left the Adderley Park factory on the 26th February 1903 to the order of H.N.B. Good, The Abbey, Sutton Courtney, Berkshire. When the registering of cars was introduced under the 1903 Motor Car Act, the Wolseley '10hp Tonneau, yellow & black' was allocated the index mark BL-2 by Berkshire County Council. By the 1950s the car formed part of the collection of the Nuffield Organisation - William Morris, yet to be Lord Nuffield, having bought Wolseley Motors in 1927. Somewhat surprisingly the Wolseley was displayed at 'Morris Garages' - the MG premises not being the most obvious place to house a historic vehicle from the pioneer days. Whilst with the Nuffield Organisation the Wolseley participated only in the 1962 London to Brighton Run and eight years later it changed hands. Its first 'Brighton' in the present ownership was the 1971 event and the Wolseley was last seen on the A23 in November for the Centenary Run of 1996.
In the second edition of his monumental book Motor Vehicles and Motors (1906) the author, respected consulting engineer Worby Beaumont, wrote about Wolseley: 'The success of these cars is due to the thoroughly good design, material and workmanship of all the parts'. Beaumont endorsed his opinion by long-term ownership of a 1902 10hp - the car now in the keeping of the Veteran Car Club. The late Anthony Bird, who was one of the better informed motoring historians since he actually drove the cars that he wrote so well about, said in his 1966 'Profile': The Horizontal-engined Wolseleys: 'the cars soon earned the reputation for reliability which became the principal virtue of Austin's products when he set up in business on his own account. The horizontal-engined Wolseleys may not have been particularly fast (though they were by no means sluggards), nor were they notably refined in the manner of their going; but they went on doing what they were designed to do with rather less of the grief, rage, anguish and expense which several more ambitious motorcar designers of the time inflicted upon their hapless customers.' He could also have added that when properly set up and driven they are remarkably quiet in going about their business and inspire a feeling of confidence in both the driver and passengers.
The car is in good running order and with its original coachwork that was almost certainly made by Wolseley's own coachbuilding department is very smartly turned out. The colour scheme is to the original pattern, as is the upholstery, and the leather mudguards were a standard Wolseley option - often using elephant hide, but apparently not in this case. When new the car was ordered with pneumatic tyres at the front and solid rubber tyres to the rear, and it retains this specification.
The 'perfect' motorcar has never existed and never will, since judgements about motorcars inevitably contain a degree of subjectivity. Similarly the perfect 'Brighton' car does not exist, but if a top ten list of cars ideally suited for the event was drawn up, by any objective criteria a 10hp Wolseley would have to be thereon.
Special notice
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.