IF YOU’RE A COLLECTOR OF BRITISH CARS, have I ever got a deal for you! Well, not me, actually, but The New England Classic Car Company. “For more than 50 years,” Marc notes, “we have been dealing in classic sports cars, vintage and historic racing cars with sales throughout the United States, Canada, and the world.”
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From time to time, the company very kindly sends me emails describing its offerings. And among MGs, Triumphs, and the occasional (and tempting) Morris Minor Traveler woody wagon, what do I find in its latest selection but a 1952 Dellow Mk IIB!
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Readers of SimanaitisSays may recall my affinity with the marque: See “The Dellow Sports Car,” “Steering Wheels I’ve Loved,”, and “An Ultimate Ice Cream Car.” As I’ve noted more than once, a Dellow is so English it makes one’s teeth ache.”
Here are tidbits on the writeup accompanying The New England Classic Dellow Mk IIB.
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Marc’s Third Dellow. “This is my third Dellow,” Marc says. “First a Mk I (40 years ago), then a Mk IIB (25 years ago), and now a second Mk IIB. And considering the extreme rarity of Dellows (207 Mk I, II, and III and a few later prototypes….not many, 1949 through 1956), something very special. In fact, the editor of Road and Track magazine wanted to purchase my Mk I, drive it across the country and use it to basis for an article for their magazine. Ultimately, I declined.”
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With only minor corrections, I remember it well: I wasn’t the editor, but merely engineering editor of R&T. At the time I was considering the drive of an Austin Mini Moke “From Sea to Shining Sea.”
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What the hey, the Dellow even has doors.
My Route. I had ideated this Dellow adventure to the point of having picked U.S. Rte. 6, which wends its way from Provincetown, Massachusetts, to Bishop, California. Among other locales, it meanders around my native Cleveland (indeed, having academic-year summers off I occasionally worked in a friend’s pizza shop on Rte. 6).
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From 1936 to 1964, Rte. 6 was the longest highway in the country. My proposed route would occasionally encounter updated numbering, but the spirit of the Grand Highway of the Republic would have still been there.
I forget why I didn’t follow through with the adventure. (Perhaps a rare lucid moment?)
By the way, Wikipedia cites George R. Stewart, author of U.S. 40: Cross Section of the United States of America, having said, “Route 6 runs uncertainly from nowhere to nowhere, scarcely to be followed from one end to the other, except by some devoted eccentric”
Do you suppose Stewart knew about Dellows?
Dellow Fun. Marc gives an excellent history of the marque, together with plenty of photos of the Mk IIB in New England Classic inventory: “In the 1920s and 30s, popular forms of British car competition were hill climbs or Trials. Hill climb is pretty simple….. start with a hill. As for Trials, a curious form of (very popular) motor sports with its venue on a muddy, bumpy, farm’s property…. An activity engaged in by, among other enthusiasts, a certain Ken Delingpole and Ron Lowe.”
Ford-powered—and the Mk IIB is Supercharged. Dellows had Ford 100E drivetrain, brakes, and suspension. Marc’s example has the factory optional Marshall supercharger.
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An Original Dellow Speedometer. Marc’s Mk IIB has all new interior and trim, new (expensive) stayfast cloth top, side curtains, and tonneau cover, rebuilt cable operated brakes, all working gauges (including a perfect original Dellow speedometer), original chassis VIN plate, working turn signals, folding windshield, racing belts, electric cooling fan for hot weather use, inside and out, the car is spotless.”
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And the Rocket Launching Tubes. Originally, Dellow chassis were junked Austin 7’s. When Austin 7s ran out, Delingpole and Lowe turned to salvage 3 1/8-in. chrome moly tubes, the result of scrapping WWII coastal defense rocket launchers.
Marc notes that the Mk IIB has “perfect chassis tubes, one of which still retains the original Ministry of Defense ID sticker.”
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And if that doesn’t make an Anglophile’s teeth ache…. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024