Vanderbilt Cup Races

Amazing photos of the mystery car and its history. Great work! Did the accident occur in South Carolina? Sad story in 1933.

From Mystery Friday Foto #47 Solved: A 1930s English automobile ID plate made for the son of William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.

Thanks Howard for solving the mystery of the Adelphi sports clubhouse in Bayside for me. Gene Perry

From Database of the 97 known Long Island Motor Parkway License Plates- Updated: 3/15/2024

From Ariejan Bos:
This is an interesting one. I immediately realized that this was an English registration. It was issued by the City Council of London between December 1929 and March 1930. That’s far beyond my territory of car knowledge, so I had to use a different approach. I googled chassis and engine number and to my surprise this site surfaced:

http://www.vintagebentleys.org/carpages/gc3661.php

 
“This 1930 Bentley by Gurney Nutting is a Weyman Sportsman’s Coupe built to special order for Lieutenant Commander Glen Kidston to drive in the 1930 Monte Carlo Rallye and other adventures.

Kidston was one of the famed ‘Bentley Boys’ having co-driven the Works team car with Woolf Barnato to 2nd place for Bentley at LeMans in 1929 and winning in 1930, again with co-driver Barnato.

With the introduction of the Speed Six, the company went one stage further in providing customers with a serious contender for motor sports events. The main difference to the standard model was the fitting of twin carburettors. Usually the Bentley Speed Six was built with wheel bases of 138 inches. There are also a small number of Speed Sixes with a wheelbase of 152 1/2 inches. A change of the front springs and depending on the redesign of the front axle fixing, led to the abandonment of the version with the 138 inch wheelbase. Only the 140 inch variant remaining. For participation in the 24 hour race at Le Mans one chassis was built with a wheelbase of 132 inches.”

Year: 1930
Make: Bentley
Model: Speed Six Weyman Sportsman Coupe
Engine Location: Front
Drive Type: Rear Wheel
Production Years for Series: 1928 - 1930
Coach Work: Gurney Nutting
Weight: 4700 lbs | 2131.9 kg

This will satisfy you to completion, I suppose. Certainly a car belonging to Vanderbilt standards!

Best wishes,
Ariejan

From Mystery Friday Foto #47 Solved: A 1930s English automobile ID plate made for the son of William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.

I have 8 post cards from the October 24 1908 race, is there any value in these.

From Vanderbilia Postcard Series #1: The Locomobile Postcards of the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup Race

Love the title; “Fast Brass”

From Alco Black Beast on display on the "Fast Brass" exhibit at Savoy Automobile Museum in Cartersville, Georgia

Most of the original buildings of Air Cooled Motors in Liverpool, NY just north of Syracuse, NY still stand. If you crawl under a Tucker and look up at the base of the engine you will see the name Franklin cast into that.
Carl Doman and Ed Marks were the two chief Engineers at Franklin in Syracuse,NY and formed Air Cooled Motors after the Franklin car ceased production in 1934. I owned a 1931 Franklin for over 40 years and drove it tens of thousands of miles. I was active in the research of Franklin history and knew Carl Doman and Ed Marks. Carl for only a brief time as he passed away very early. His son Dave Doman was an engineer at Ford in Michigan and was an active member of the Franklin club. He and I were good friends . Mr. Marks ( you never ever called him Ed) was full of information if you knew how to get him to talk. I organized for years the annual reunion of former Franklin employees when the annual Franklin Club car meet was held. Got to know a lot of people who built the cars and then engines at Air Cooled Motors. I have lots of stories I recall of their experiences. Dave Doman was a great guy - he and I and 3 others went to a house in north Syracuse decades ago to look at a barrel of new old stock Franklin rampant lion hood ornaments that were owned by the family of a fellow who worked for Franklin. The club bought them and resold to its members. Many still had the casting sand in them . Yes another story! I bought two car heavy lap robes from the same family that were new from the 1920s and used in cars of that era to keep the passengers warm due to lack of heaters! The trip to get those was most interesting as was the ability to pay for them even at a very reasonable price as there were 100 of them!

From Update-Cradle of Aviation Archives: The 1948 purchase of Aircooled Motors, Inc by Tucker Corporation from Republic Aviation

I have a picture somewhere of my grandpa in a Tucker Special race car. His name was Charles Hampton Davidson. I also have a photo or two of him with a bunch of guys working on a car inside of a garage. I will try and locate them & attach them & send them on.

From Mystery Foto #3 Solved: The #66 Tucker '48 Special Racer at the 1947 Indy 500

I have a picture somewhere of my grandpa in a Tucker race car. His name was Charles Hampton Davidson. I also have a photo or two of him with a bunch of guys working on a car inside of a garage. I will try and locate them & attach them & send them on.

From Mystery Foto #3 Solved: The #66 Tucker '48 Special Racer at the 1947 Indy 500

Prior to the Aircooled motor, Tucker apparently built a couple of water cooled 6 cylinder motors, one of which can be seen in the Museum of American Speed in Lincoln, NE.

From Update-Cradle of Aviation Archives: The 1948 purchase of Aircooled Motors, Inc by Tucker Corporation from Republic Aviation

Such a significant and pleasing connection between our combined lives for Tucker and The history of Long Island!

From Update-Cradle of Aviation Archives: The 1948 purchase of Aircooled Motors, Inc by Tucker Corporation from Republic Aviation

Well here goes with a couple of educated guesses and a wild guess or two. The registration, chassis, and engine numbers belong to a 1930 Bentley 6.5 litre Speed Six Weyman Sportsman’s Coupe built by Gurney Nutting coachbuilders. Winner of the 1930 Monte Carlo Rallye, the original owner was Glen Kidston. Current owner might be his nephew, Simon Kidston. Found most of that info by spending way too much time on internet searches but was unable to determine the Willie K. connection or the plate’s purpose. Looking forward to the answer.

From Mystery Friday Foto #47 Solved: A 1930s English automobile ID plate made for the son of William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.

No clue. Looks like an early old-style Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) plate, still riveted onto automobiles today, to identify automobiles and help deter against auto theft.
Likely original owner here was Willie K.
Possibly Garden City registered vehicle with license plate No. 3661.
Looking forward towards this mystery’s answers

From Mystery Friday Foto #47 Solved: A 1930s English automobile ID plate made for the son of William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.

One more opinion - From “The Automobile” of August 21, 1909.

From Greg O's Garage: Why Do We in the U.S. Drive on the Right Side of the Road?

This post is in fact incredible, the picture feature and the video is really awesome. really enjoyed to see these historical pics

From Mystery Friday Foto #23 Solved: A 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR W196S on top of the Mercedes-Benz "Blue Wonder" hauler

Thanks for the much needed update to this important inventory of LIMP license plates.

From Database of the 97 known Long Island Motor Parkway License Plates- Updated: 3/15/2024

David, some photos without the circles.

From Kleiner's Korner: Road Signs Erected for the 1905 and 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Races

Before and after (2020)

From Mystery Friday Foto #46 Solved: A 1936 Long Island flyover surveying the Hempstead Plains by the Braman-Johnson Flying Service

Mazel tov Howard.  Well deserved!!!

From Chrysler's Chrysler awarded "Best in Class- Classics Closed" at the 2022 Hilton Head Island Concours d'Elegance

Art-
If you have clean copies of the photos with the road sign (no circles drawn on them)? If so, some AI colorizing “magic” may be able to take best guess about about dark color on the road signs. (The cirles are adding color noise that is unseen by the naked eye.) A hint of what is possible is attached. (One photo is from 01/03/2015 post.)

From Kleiner's Korner: Road Signs Erected for the 1905 and 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Races

Nice find.  Thank you to the Rosenbum family for making available!

From A large collection of Long Island Motor Parkway License Plates rediscovered