July 2026

SAM and the BTCG have been invited to put on both static and live displays of tethered cars during the World Scale Championships at Buckminster this month. We were tasked with presenting all aspects of tethered car racing, historic, modern FEMA and British classes. Several months of planning went in to organising a team who would be prepared to be on site for two days mid week and had access to suitable cars for the display in the hangar and running on the track. That left us with the task of choosing a representative range of cars from the previous seventy five years.

Sitting down and making these choices brought a very stark realisation to light that, unlike many sports, the development of tethered cars was confined to just a few stages, and not constant or linear as might be assumed? The interest in tethered cars in the UK was brought about by the wartime ban on model flying and organised hydroplane racing. All the early cars had to be built from scratch as there were no commercial components available, wooden chassis, wooden wheels and tyres made from rubber rings. Within a couple of years, enthusiasts and experienced model engineers were constructing purpose built cars, vaguely representing full sized cars, helped by the supply of parts coming by courtesy of the US forces here. Towards the end of the 1940s commercial interests were supplying kits and finished cars, but with a few exceptions, these were scalish and not intended for out and out racing.

The next phase was the rise of the American style proto car, imported or home built along with the multitude of Moore #7/ZN style spur drive cars. These basic designs would reign throughout the fifties to the end of racing in the UK and beyond in Europe, until the introduction of fully sprung suspension systems and more streamlined bodies in the early 60s.

The introduction of the tuned pipe in the late 60s heralded a new phase of performance and design, but here development was so rapid that by 1972/73, every element of the modern FEMA car was in place. A car recently obtained from 1973 illustrates this precisely, as apart from adding damping to the suspension, the migration of the front wheels together and extended bodywork to enclose the tuned pipe and accommodate the rule change to an integral skeg, nothing significant changed in the next fifty years, (except the speeds attained). So seven cars would illustrate thirty years of development from 1943-1973. Six cars the modern FEMA classes, along with a selection of 2.1s and 2.5s for the modern British and that was much of the display sorted.

To complete the story, 1.5cc and 2.5cc classes in the UK and Europe were dominated by Oliver cars and Oliver powered cars until 1959, so a range of these was desirable, and given the nature of the event, a selection of scale and scalish cars would cover just about every aspect of tethered cars as we were tasked to do. A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this opportunity to present tethered cars to a greater and new audience.

One of our regular correspondents has kindly sent a number of items to feature in Pitboxes, which we will include over the months. The first is a precursor to a larger article in production as it features a commercially produced car built entirely from a moulded, composite material.

The Photo celebrates one of the great philanthropic members of the tethered car community who commissioned an almost entire range of tethered car motors, as the options in some classes were becoming almost non existent. Sadly, controversy surrounded one of the motors, so this is the only glimpse of 'what might have been'.

Congratulations to Oliver Monk for setting a new 2.5cc Class 2 British record in Pecs, Hungary this month at 263.031kph. Aaron who stepped in to horse when the resident horser was injured, also stood on the rostrum with a third. In 30+degree heat a real challenging event, so well done to both of them. 

Early notice: Peter Hill has arranged for the second Retro Club Revival meeting on the 16th August.

Final farewell:

I am not the wordsmith that Hugh is or the great retainer of memories and data that he absorbs like a sponge, so it is with great sadness that as his health is declining rapidly we have decided that this is our final publication. To thank everyone who has assisted, helped, provided and just been there for us would risk missing out someone. So to all of you we send out heartfelt thanks, we've had a great time. Lynn.

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