Description
Few cars have come to light as spectacularly as this magnificent veteran, which was discovered during World War II when a German bomb destroyed the stable where it had slept on blocks since 1912. With only four new owners, this powerful four-cylinder 4078cc De Dietrich is identical in specification to the factory racers built for the 1902 Paris-Vienna Race.
The Autocar raved about the 16 hp De Dietrich (Turcat-Méry system) when the first examples arrived in Great Britain in the autumn of 1902: “These beautiful vehicles are the result of the great firm of De Dietrich and Company, from Lunéville, a firm of rolling stock and locomotive builders whose name is a household name in technical circles on the continent. Like now
An early customer for this newcomer to the British market was the Hon Rupert Guinness, heir to the Earl of Iveagh, who in the spring of 1903 took delivery of this 16 hp De Dietrich from the Burlington Carriage Company of Oxford Street, London, which imported bare chassis from Lunéville and fitted them with their own bodywork. Former owner Francis Hutton-Stott stated in 1953 that this was the chassis ordered from Turcat-Méry in April 1902 by “Mr Guinness the brewer”. Presumably the execution of the order has been delayed due to the time needed to set up production in Lunéville.
Burlington's handsome four-seater fitted to the Guinness car had a removable tonneau section that could be removed to turn it into a racing two-seater. It was exhibited at the Cordingley Exhibition of March 1903 at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, where The Autocar described it as "one of the finest examples of bodybuilding in the show" (but attributed it to the wrong coachbuilder, leading to an abject apology in show). subsequent issue which correctly credited Burlington with “the splendid turnout of the whole vehicle”, accompanied by a photograph of the Hon Rupert Guinness at the wheel).
In 1903, when an awning and windscreen were fitted, the De Dietrich was used as a wedding car for the Hon Rupert and his bride Gwendolen, daughter of the 4th Earl of Onslow. Three years later he used the De Dietrich, fitted with a closed landaulet body, in his campaign when he stood as a Unionist candidate for the east London Haggerston constituency.
But in 1912 the De Dietrich, refitted with its original tonneau body, was driven into the stable at the Hon Rupert's house, Pyrford Court at Woking in Surrey, and placed on blocks. It would remain there until 1940, when a bomb destroyed the stable during a German air raid. The car was undamaged and was moved to the Guinness Dairy Farm in Old Woking, where it stood out in the open, “a resting place for the birds of the air and a plaything for the local brat”.
Restoration began in 1946, when the car was completely rebuilt by Teddy Pilmore-Bedford at Catford and Leslie Paget at the Wimbledon Motor Works, and made its debut at the VCC Oxford Rally in May 1950; it successfully completed its first Brighton Run in November that year.
Owned by Hutton-Stott, the De Dietrich took part in several Brighton Runs, took part in Edwardian races and parades at Silverstone and Castle Combe, and recorded the fastest time of the day in the 1954 VCC Bexhill speed trials before being displayed in the Montagu Motor Museum in Beaulieu.
Hutton-Stott kept the car – which he claimed had been a spare car for the works team in the Paris-Vienna race – until 1965, when it was sold to fellow enthusiast Frederick Michael Willcock of Pulborough, Sussex. Michael Banfield acquired the car in November 1970 at a Norman Cole auction at Alexandra Palace. In his ownership the car has been extensively restored and is now resplendent in royal blue, with a beautiful pair of Polkey paraffin headlights and rare matching side lights.
A powerful four-cylinder chain-driven four-seater with a fantastic provenance, this car ticks every Brighton Run box. It is, as Bill Boddy wrote in 1961, “a wonderful reminder of both the now legendary town-to-town races held at the turn of the century and of the kind of car in which the more sporting members of the aristocracy liked to burn down the roads the early days of motoring.”
