NK Connaught A Type Single Seater

Lot details
Registration No: UN-REG
Chassis No: AX
Mot Expiry: None

Continental Cars, to be known as Connaught, was founded in 1945 by two ex RAF flyers, Rodney Clark and Mike Oliver. Mike Oliver was a gifted engine tuner and their intention was to prepare and sell high performance cars, which they based on the standard Lee Francis 14hp chassis, but new cars were indeed scarce. Kenneth McAlpine, a wealthy amateur racer, bought the first L2 sports car and in time became their Patron.
The real success of Connaught was with its Formula cars which were superbly made and handled well and in 1955 at Syracuse, Tony Brookes beat a strong field to give Britain its first Grand Prix victory in more than thirty years. Unfortunately Connaught, who were always short of money, folded in 1957 and the assets were disposed.
Chassis number AX, as it has always been known, has the normal short 6'1" chassis - (there were only two 6'6" long chassis cars, AL9 and AL10) - was bought by Jack Horton who already owned chassis number AL10. As he already had a track car he decided he wanted to have a lightweight car purely to compete in hill-climbs and so bought this unused chassis, we believe at the auction in 1957. He already had copious amounts of correct and authentic Connaught spares and he used these to complete this car fitting a short sprint fuel tank in the back rather than the twin tanks to the sides. He designed, manfactured and fitted his own style of bodywork and raced it very successfully with the Armstrong pre-selector gearbox and the De Dion tubes and wishbones and was then competing in both AX and AL10. Unfortunately he frightened himself in AL10 and sold it to Alan Cottam and kept AX until that went to Dan Margulies, the well known racer and motor dealer, in about 1963.
Dan raced this car on many occassions and indeed has confirmed recently what a very good and fast car it was and he has sent several articles, which are contained in the history file, which confirm that he won several times as well. Dan sold it to Hugh Clifford before it was passed onto Dennis Kitchener who only used it once at Silverstone and blew up the engine. That was in 1969 when he sold it to the present owner.
It was rebuilt and stood in his very private collection until 1983 when it was completely rebuilt again, with new wheels, but this time it was with the intention of being raced. It obtained its FIA papers in 1984 and then raced very successfully with Brian Turner at the wheel in 1984/5/6 after which it returned to his collection. In 1999 it obtained new FIA papers and was race-prepared for the Goodwood Revival Meeting in the September where Peter Hall drove it to an extremely creditable ninth place having started last on the grid after the magneto had failed in official practice.
The car has, during its present ownership, been always maintained by Hall & Hall and is in very nice condition throughout. It comes with various spares which will help the new owner prepare and race the car in the coming Seasons. During our research, and conversations with previous owners, it has become clear what a good and very quick car this was.
It has won many times and indeed will do again.

Please Note:
Further to speaking with John Horton, the son of Jack Horton, we have the following information which is of interest.
John confirmed that we have mixed a couple of stories in our catalogue description and indeed his father Jack had had an accident in AL10 and he decided that he needed a De Dion tube so sent John to see Ken Flint who lived on the Wirral and who had bought a significant amount of spares at the 1957 sale. When John arrived he noticed that Ken had two short A type chassis -
(N.B. These must have been lots 718 and 719 in the auction and these were photographed in front of the B type chassis on the day. Lot 718 was this chassis which was brand new and still in his red oxide primer from the factory whilst the other one lot 719, which was described as 'used' in the catalogue, was being converted to a sports car with a 2.4 Jaguar engine.)
- was indeed the one to which we refer to today as 'AX' and he decided to buy that for £125.
It was some while later, probably 1959 or 1960, that the Hortons decided to build a new car and AX is probably 99% original Connaught because the only parts they were missing were the front wish-bones which they manufactured themselves. They thought about making it into a two-seater sportscar, in fact the bulkhead is slightly wider than AL10, and when they bought AL10 from John Coombes it had a brand new factory engine with it and another one in bits - it was the one in bits that they re-built and put into AX during its build.
The engine was fitted with twin Webber carbs instead of the four AMAL carbs and as we said although the car actually has no chassis number as such it has always been known as AX and is to the same specification as chassis numbers 3,4,5,6 and 7.

Please also note:
Many historians state that there was no number 2 chassis built but I find this totally illogical as they started at 1 and otherwise went straight through. However because of the catalogue we do indeed know that there were two 'spare' chassis built. It is suggested, no more than that, that there maybe some credence in the suggestion that these had originally been chassis numbers 9 and 10 but were left alone when they decided that they needed longer chassis i.e. AL9 and AL10.
Whatever they were they were indeed correct and factory manufactured chassis so as the build was done with all Connaught parts this car is about as correct as a racing car can get. The only thing it did not do was be built by the factory at the outset and race at that time.
It did race not long after and that is well documented.
So it would seem to me that the only question left is - Is it chassis number A2, A9 or A10?
I'll leave that one to you!