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Nick Feakes
USA
3372 Posts |
 Posted - 02/12/2009 : 20:28:52
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Philippe
I made a very small edit to your last post
Nick
The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. |
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Wild Bill
United Kingdom
22 Posts |
Posted - 13/01/2010 : 16:38:14
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Sorry to add to this thread only now, but I missed it while away over the holidays. I was wondering if anyone could please comment on three points that I would like to raise having read what's been posted.
The first deals with the statement that Henry Stone could not remember such a thing. In fact, on page 33 of "The Insomnia Crew" by Henry Stone (as told to Dick Knudson), Stone says "Walt Handley distinguished himself in the Mannin Beg one year by being the first man around. His standing lap was very very close to the flying lap record; that was in a special, lightened K3 that we built. Unfortunately Wally, with new tyres that hadn't been scrubbed, collected the lamp post on the entry to the Broadway Corner which was just after the pits. He bent the rear axle casing knocking it out of alignment with the frame, so that was the end of the race." The fact that he refers to building this special lightweight car seems to suggest something truly a bit more special than merely fueling a standard, pointed-tail K3 extremely lightly. I'm also sure that everyone would be very interested to see the photos mentioned showing the damage to the car during that race, and I would kindly ask the member with these photos to post them here. I would have thought that they might well show whether the chassis had been drilled with lightening holes or not if from them one could determine that the chassis had not been badly damaged in the accident.
My second point deals with the statement that Henry Stone could recall exactly the repairs made after the Handley crash when inspecting the bits in Switzerland. On the one hand, it is said that the damage was not terribly significant, supposedly involving mainly the replacement of a wheel and the rear axle case, so one might assume that the minor repairs made to the chassis would not stick in Stone's mind. On the other hand, surely the repairs made to the Pohl chassis following his crash during the Brno Grand Prix in 1937 were more significant and might well have masked or indeed been mistaken for any previous repair work. A photo of the car following this crash can be seen here: http://img.prewarcar.com/prewar/cars/MG_K3_crash_400RB.jpg . Also, this site corraborates that Pohl's race number for Brno was 10 as seen in the crash photo: http://www.kolumbus.fi/leif.snellman/gp376.htm#44 . Obviously the other parts of what Stone referred to as the "Eyston" car could well have remained whether or not the chassis had been replaced, which is what is actually being discussed here.
Finally, why is it so laughable to drill lightening holes in the chassis when this was used by other race teams at the time and was also used by MG in the R-Type which appeared shortly thereafter?
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McEvoy
United Kingdom
252 Posts |
Posted - 14/01/2010 : 22:43:54
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Interesting points Bill and just to keep the record straight the R type chassis was indeed kept as light as possible but not by drilling but by punched and swaged holes that were part of the frame manufacturing process.
Bob |
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Wild Bill
United Kingdom
22 Posts |
Posted - 15/01/2010 : 09:16:12
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| Yes, Bob, of course you are correct with the pressed holes being swaged to prevent cracking, as in aircraft manufacture, given that the chassis was electrically-welded sheet steel box-section instead of chassis rails. I should have been more specific here since the point that I was attempting to raise was that the weight savings of the actual material taken away from the chassis by the holes would also not have been significant in the R-Type compared to the overall weight of the car yet they still chose to use them. In fact as far as I know, the weight of an R-Type chassis was only 56 lbs., or roughly 4% of the entire car, and about half of that of the standard K3 chassis. In the end, any weight that one can save while maintaining structural integrity throughout a race car is good, no matter how little, as it all adds up. In my opinion, the presumption that a lightweight K3 chassis might have only saved 5-7 lbs. through the use of lightening holes (which I also think is a very conservative estimate) should not lead one to conclude that such a modification would not have been tried when the special, lightened K3 was built for Handley. |
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MaGic_GV
United Kingdom
868 Posts |
Posted - 15/01/2010 : 11:52:02
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Pictures in the book 'Grand Prix' by Lyndon show the car hitting the sandbags and bouncing back into the road - the nearside rear wheel clearly looking out of kilter but there is no evidence either way of further damage...however, it appears that the damage was severe enough to ensure he stopped there and then rather than continuing... for some reason my computer refuses to scan these pix in - perhaps Bill Gates has programmed in copyright rules!
A couple of points though - IF a lightweight chassis had been used and been successful, it surely would have been repeated or copied...? There other things that might be done to lighten a car, and if I was expected to pound round Brooklands or a stressful road circuit, I might not be too happy about too many extra holes!
Graham
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Wild Bill
United Kingdom
22 Posts |
Posted - 19/01/2010 : 13:55:49
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I, too, have considered why the lighweight chassis would not have been repeated or copied. Of course, firstly this special lightweight car might not actually have been considered as "successful" given that Handley only managed one lap during the race despite the fact that he posted very low lap times in practice, almost matching previous-winner Freddie Dixon in his specially-prepared Riley, and set a qualifying lap record of 74.82 mph. However, I believe the actual explanantion may well simply be one of timing. The 1934 Mannin Beg race took place on 1st June 1934. As far as I know, the last K3 to leave the factory after that date was K3030 only a couple of weeks later (guarantee plate issued 16th June 1934). Equally, after this date much of the factory development effort was focused on the new Q-Type and, later, the R-Type (not to mention the 1100cc Monoposto Magnette which was announced in March 1935). Of course, one cannot rule out that a lightweight chassis was not chosen for subsequent longer races such as the Brooklands 500 miles or Le Mans due to the reliability concerns you have mentioned, but properly-engineered lightening holes should not be a cause for concern in my opinion. More likely, the factory may well have decided that the weight savings did not justify the expense of time that such a modification would take on an already stretched race department, opting to prioritise other work.
I believe that the pictures from Lyndon's 'Grand Prix' are inconclusive and would still very much like to see any detailed photos of the chassis rails of Handley's car, either before or after the race, which have previously been alluded to in this post. |
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David.Hince
United Kingdom
3 Posts |
Posted - 20/05/2010 : 13:40:52
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| I gather that Coys have now sold the Gregory K3026 car. Apparently it's still in the UK, so perhaps soon we might see it back on the track. |
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etlanpa
United Kingdom
560 Posts |
Posted - 20/05/2010 : 13:57:44
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| Do we know how much for David? |
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sas
United Kingdom
73 Posts |
Posted - 04/11/2010 : 21:10:32
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Hello everyone and this MG K3 thresd.
I am only posting this to bring it close to the:-
Fake Cars thread, started on 22 Oct 2010 so that all interested parties can refresh themselves with the posts here, if needs be.
Sean |
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