1921 Horstman 10½hp Super Sports
The only known surviving Super Sports

Registration No: TA 1798
Chassis No: 2335
MOT: Exempt

• Thought to be one of only a tiny handful of Horstmans built between 1914 and 1929 to still exist
• Offered with current V5C, buff logbook, historic photographs and the original owner’s handbook
• Recently subject to some partial recommissioning
• The only known surviving Super Sports

• Featured in the May edition of Classic and Sportscar with a complimentary report

“Looks like a picture, runs like a poem, started by a worm.” So said Horstman of their charming light cars, advertising the fact they were started from the driver’s seat by a pedal which acted on a worm thread on the propshaft – no need to jump out and swing a handle. But if that does not sell it to you, perhaps you would prefer this: “The fastest British light car.” That claim was established in the wake of the Junior Car Club’s inaugural 200-Mile Race at Brooklands in 1921, when Douglas Hawkes’s racing Horstman finished fifth, beaten only by three Talbot-Darracqs and a Bugatti.

The son of a Prussian watchmaker in Bath, Sidney Horstmann was an incorrigible innovator who almost literally reinvented the wheel. His motor engineering career began in 1900, aged 19, and he filed a raft of patents prior to unveiling his own light car in 1913, which was lauded for its novelty, quality and sophistication. Horstmann designed his own 995cc engine with a detachable cylinder head, overhead valves and fully-enclosed valve gear. The sump acted as a stressed member in a structural undertray that met the chassis rails around the bulkhead, and it featured a three-speed gearbox and his famous starting worm. Building such advanced machines from scratch ultimately proved too expensive, so after the war they bought in Coventry-Simplex proprietary engines. Also, the name was changed to Horstman, as a precaution against anti-German sentiments of the time.

Sidney Horstmann was approached by Douglas Hawkes to construct a small racing car for the 1921 Coupe des Voiturettes at Le Mans, and that led to a four-car team being prepared for the JCC 200-Mile Race in October. It was comprised of Hawkes’s Anzani-engined car and three with Coventry-Simplex power, though only Hawkes ran the full race. From the racers was conceived the spectacularly rakish Super Sports, introduced for 1922. Available with either a 1,498cc, 11.9hp Anzani or a 1,341cc, 10.5hp Coventry-Simplex motor, it was expensive at £500, but with a lightweight polished alloy body and external exhaust, it was indisputably one of the best-looking sports cars of the vintage era, though the worm-start was sacrificed in the name of weight-saving. Alas, Horstman was always on the brink of receivership and less exotic models carried the marque on until production ceased in 1929.

The early history of the sole-surviving, 10.5hp Horstman Super Sports is not known, but the Devon registration ‘TA 1798’ dates from August, 1921, suggesting possible prototype origins. Ownership records begin on 12th February, 1925, when it belonged to a Mr. Harries of Rose Hall in Exning, Suffolk. In 1928, it passed to John Hill of Wootton Bassett, who kept it until 1964. The new owner was Geoffrey Plaister, also of Wootton Bassett, who cared for it until his death in 2017. After a period of storage, it was recently loaned to the Great British Car Journey museum, where it was partially recommissioned, albeit with a remote fuel tank due to the permanent tank being in need of cleaning. Although it has been running, further work is required to make it roadworthy. Only a tiny handful of the 1,400 or so Horstmans built between 1914 and 1929 still exist, and the Super Sports is undoubtedly the best-looking and most interesting. It is to be sold with the current V5C and the buff logbook, historic photographs, 1925-28 tax discs, the original owner’s handbook, plus assorted general articles pertaining to Horstman. It was also featured in the May, 2025, edition of Classic & Sports Car with a complimentary report.

For more information, please contact:
Stewart Parker
info@handh.co.uk
07836 346875