Ian & Ivy Moore
'A Formidable Partnership'

Although employed by Rolls Royce, he joined an evening class at the Derby Technical College to give himself some additional workshop time. Later, the couple moved to Spondon, on the outskirts of Derby. Together, Bill and Ivy raced their stable of cars throughout Britain and Europe, until they called it a day at the end of the 1954 season. As well as competing at club events they would travel to all the major trophy meetings, regional finals and National speed finals that would involve huge amounts of travel during a season. Further afield, a regular trip was to Italy, starting in 1952 for the first ever European Championships at Monza. This trip also included an International event, where Ivy used the number 11 car to gain second place in the 5cc class and Ian his Number 12 to tie for second in the 10cc class. Recently, it has come to light that in 1955, a car built by Alf Lee, Bob Crouch and George Reid was sent over from Australia for Ian to proxy run at the European Championships, which were in Monza that year. This was reportedly not a great success, and probably the last car he ever ran.

Sunderland 1951	Blackpool & Fylde Club track at Stanley Park Aerodrome		Ivy 'Pushing off'

Bill and Ivy remained childless and were to divorce in the mid 60s, although, by a strange turn of events, they did end up living as near neighbours in Devon. Remarkably, Ivy continued to do Bill’s laundry, even though she had remarried. Ian W. (Bill) Moore died in 1994, with Ivy outliving him by nearly 10 years, dying in 2003.

During the time he was active in the sport, Bill built 13 identifiable tether cars. Six of these were described in detail in constructional articles published in magazines, along with full sized plans available for those wanting to build a replica ‘Moore’ car, but what of the others? This leads on to the matter of the chronology of the numerous cars he built. The first was built around 1934 and his last, number 14, in 1952/53. No number 13 existed, and only 10–14 were identified by their numbers, whilst some of the others having names that they were commonly known by. It would seem therefore that there are 13 cars to account for, although several have had more than one incarnation. Using contemporary reports and articles we have attempted to identify and put the cars in what we believe is the correct order.

CAR #1 was built around 1934 whilst Bill was still at school. This was to represent a Bugatti, similar to the full sized examples he had seen racing at the nearby Donnington Park. The use of small IC engines was in its infancy and certainly beyond the reaches of a schoolboy, so motive power was by courtesy of a very large clockwork gramophone motor as was common at that time. Having the driving wheels turning at a sedate 78rpm was not going to satisfy his evident urge for ultimate speed, so the governor had to go. The first competitive race of Bill’s career was round a pole in his school hall where 2 fellow pupils, with a model of John Bolsters ‘Bloody Mary’, provided competition. The result of this race is not known.

CAR #2 In 1942 the Aeromodeller magazine had announced a competition for model racing cars, which had attracted Bill’s attention. Parts and equipment were almost non-existent at that time, so a Brown Junior was hijacked from one of his aircraft to provide the power plant. For the running gear, a set of ‘ash tray’ tyres was pressed into use, with the drive via a set of bevel gears liberated from a gas meter (hopefully not connected at the time). In this configuration the car could not be coaxed beyond 20 mph and so at this early stage in his car-racing career, the name I.W. Moore did not feature amongst the prize-winners. This foray into cars was short lived and for the next five years he remained committed to aero modelling, gaining something of a reputation for the high quality of his work, which was to be a feature of his car projects as well.

CAR #3 This car was built late in 1947 at about the same time the Derby club was being formed. With this came the first mention of ‘Mr Moore’ in the specialist magazines, when the Club press officer remarked that the car ‘was particularly beautiful’. The shape was similar to the MCN special, although smaller, with the layout following contemporary designs, using a Mills engine driving directly through just one of the rear wheels that also contained a clutch. Tether car racing was changing significantly by this time, which could have been why this relatively pedestrian car was abandoned. This lead to Bill designing and producing the first of his truly competitive cars, and the first to be recognisable as a ‘Moore Car’.

The most obvious aspect of the MG was the very low and smooth Railton designed streamlined body shell. Although the body shape seemed to offer plenty of room, the shallowness of it caused difficulties. Eventually a scale of 1/8th was chosen which would allow room for 3½" wheels and the rest of the running gear without compromising the scale appearance. This gave a wheelbase of 12" and an overall length nearly double that. There was still the problem of the motor, which would have to be mounted horizontally to stay within the body shell. A spur gear layout with a backbone type chassis finalised the design concept.

The choice of power unit was unusual being a 10cc Lapwing. Gerald Smith offered his engines with a variety of mounts, but one alternative included a dural channel, which picked up on bosses on the cylinder and the crankcase studs to allow the engine to be mounted horizontally. The conventional lugs were redundant so these were removed during the building of the engine

The chassis was constructed from 1¼ x ½ inch dural with separate blocks for the ball races bolted on. To allow for the small diameter tracks then in use, the chassis was built in two halves overlapping in the centre, where a locking bolt running in a slot to allow for steering held the two pieces together. The body comprised two side members with the wheel bulges carved from hard balsa, and the ‘decking’ between them planked from cigar boxes. The headrest was carved from the solid. As was normal for the period the whole body was covered with parachute nylon doped on. The superb finish was the result of 9 coats of dope, 6 of filler and 16 coats of green cellulose, rubbed down between every coat. Detailed finishing included a leather-covered seat, steering wheel, instruments, flags and a lining flash. A neat self-closing hatch was provided to get the push stick on to ‘something solid.

The ‘Moore MG’ made its first public appearance in June 1948 being entered for the Russell Trophy at the Eaton Bray Whit weekend meeting. The car was not yet a runner but it did score 65 points in the concours section, beating Lucy Gascoigne’s similar model by 15 points. Having taken 7 months to complete, the first runs under power took place in August of 48. After a number of runs it became apparent that the initial choice of gear ratio was not loading the motor sufficiently so a smaller axle gear was chosen which would give a ratio of 1.66:1. As this would involve moving the engine, chassis number one was consigned to the scrap pile and an entirely new chassis was designed and built. Chassis number two followed the same general form, but this time cast in two halves from aluminium.

Having machined the castings, the car was quickly rebuilt with modifications, which included an aluminium under tray that was ultimately to prove its Achilles heel. Back on the track, the MG was consistently lapping around 75 mph, and in this form was about to embark on an illustrious career. In response to reports that the Model Car Association would now be fully recognised, Bill decided that a British commercial engine should feature in the record book at the earliest possible stage. The MG was a little short on top speed and so the record attempt was to be for 5 miles, which involved increasing the tank size to take a quarter pint of fuel. January 16th 1949 was a windy and miserable day, but bowing to pressure from other club members, Bill sent the car on its way, and 4m 18s later the five miles was completed at an average speed of 69.77 mph. A new record had been established. To put this into perspective, however, Peter Hugo had already recorded over 66 mph for this distance with his Dooling car, but this had included stops for refuelling.

The MG continued to run throughout the 49 season, but whilst it was still one of the best looking models on the competition circuit, its weight and physical size were a distinct handicap. The airfoil shape, combined with the full under tray, endowed the car with a most undesirable characteristic, which was its willingness to become airborne. With little in the way of suspension the car was always at the mercy of any bumps on the tracks and would readily leap into the air, completing half a lap at waist height on one notable occasion. It was very quickly obvious that some ‘heavier metal’ was required, so a new car was formulated. The Gardner MG was described in the March issue of Model Car News and offered for sale in November 1949 and sold to Colonel Hedley-Briggs of the Leicester Club. Where is it now?

At this stage, a quirk of fate was to change the future of ‘Moore Cars’. A friend in the States sent him a Dooling 61 to ‘play with’ and so the new car and all the subsequent 10s were to use this same power unit. With a clean sheet of paper several possible chassis layouts were looked at. He considered that the contemporary American cars had excessive ground clearance, dictated by the driveline and the 3½" wheels that were standard. To reduce this he angled the driveline downwards so that the motor could sit much lower to the ground.

An early trial showed the tether brackets to be far too low and so these were sawn off to allow a new set of stainless steel brackets to be bolted on. The new brackets were bent upwards to bring the tether height slightly above the axle line. In all other respects, the car was conventional. It carried a pair of cells in a combined battery box cum coil mount. An ignition ‘knock off switch’ was fitted but no fuel shut off. Early British cars had featured elaborate suspension systems, but these were quickly abandoned for the out and out speed machines. The Special followed this trend, with the rear end of the car being a solid live axle with 3½" ZN semi pneumatic tyres and the front axle given limited movement via a rubber bush.

In the Anglo Swedish invitation meeting the car recorded its best ¼ mile speed at 108.5 mph. Close, but still needing that extra few mph. Answer, yet another car.

Following the lead from Gerry Buck. IWM entered the Drysdale Trophy as a ’one man team’ running both the Gardner MG and the Special, which involved stopping one car, changing the line to the next car and pushing of to complete a single timed run. The trophy was his by a margin of 2 seconds. The ‘Moore Special was described in the July 49 issue of MCN.

Car #6 Not for the first time, the bulk of a ‘Moore’ design ended up in the scrap bin. During the 1949 season Bill was reminded pointedly and repeatedly that he had been promising to build Ivy a car. She was keen to join him in competing at the numerous meetings they attended. Conscious of his promise, he had obtained a McCoy 29 some time previously for this very purpose, but having not yet got ‘round to it’ the McCoy had been passed on. The ETA 29 was available again and so this British motor was the basis for the first of the Moore 5cc cars. Working from the manufacturers figures and estimated speed, the gearing and tyre size was calculated and design drawn up accordingly. By now pattern making was second nature and soon he had a spur mount cast up and machined. Unfortunately, at this stage he came to realise that his ‘guestimation’ over the gearing and tyre size was very seriously wrong and that it was not going to be worth continuing with the car in this form. The act of scrapping this project led directly to one of the most successful cars from the Moore stable.

The layout was conventional for a spur drive car, with the lower half of the pan very shallow and beaten out of 14 SWG aluminium, with the much deeper top from 22 SWG. For the first time, a ‘pan handle’ appears on a Moore car. Otherwise, with the exception of the fuel ‘knock off’ the interior of the car is very uncluttered and ‘business like’. Dooling F front tyres were pressed into service on the rear, whilst the front wheels and tyres were purloined from the 10cc Special and mounted on a ZN type drop axle.

The car was to provide the backbone of the Moore stable for the rest of their careers. It was able to run consistently in the 90s and recorded a whole raft of trophy and competition wins. In 1951 Ivy pushed the open 5cc record to 97.83 mph with the car. As often as possible, Bill used to prise it from his wife’s grasp for various events, including another one man team effort in the Drysdale Trophy.

The car was described in Model Maker in January 1951 and featured as a fully detailed constructional article from August to November 52.

Next →

©copyrightOTW2012