Home     Updates     Hydros     Cars     Engines     Contacts     Links                              Contact On The Wire

　

Ron Thrower, his cars, and a remarkable discovery.

Ron Thrower was a high profile British tethered car racer during the mid 1950s, but only had a short lived career before racing in the UK faded away. Apart from mentions in the specialist magazines and a number of articles that he published in Model Maker, that was as far as our knowledge extended, until a visit to an enthusiast on the South Coast in 2016.

That set in motion a series of events, which has resulted in this article. Amongst the items we were shown was a large cardboard box that had been bought from a model shop in Oxford, some sixty or so years previously.

In the box were Ron Thrower's 2.5cc Oliver 'Bottom's Up', which we discovered he had used to finish second in the 1954 European Championships, and his 1.5cc prototype GRP car that was described in Model Maker in 1957.

Apart from being allowed to take the photos that we published in Pitbox in 2017 we could do no more, until 2023 that is. Having been told previously that the owner was hanging on to his tethered cars we were contacted to say that he had now decided to sell all his cars, which included the entire box and all it contained, allowing us a closer look at the contents.

This has enabled us to explore the career of Ron Thrower further, along with the cars that he raced and built. It has also enabled us to add an entire postscript that ties in with another article published in Model Maker, but with nothing tangible to back it up until now. Ron Thrower was one of the new breed of tethered car racers in the UK in the 1950s, just sixteen years old when he started with the Edmonton Club in 1952, by his own admission not an apprenticed engineer and neither did he have any sort of workshop other than the kitchen table.

His first car was built with a bent up sheet chassis and a second-hand 2cc ED Comp Special running through brass bevel gears. These lasted all of four laps, requiring an entirely new car with a clutch and steel gears. His first official event after joining the Edmonton Club was a Pioneer Club meeting at the Horticultural Halls. After four meetings he had managed to get the car up to 35mph, but he had been truly 'bitten by the bug' and so began the pursuit of speed, which required more serious hardware, which he could not afford.

Edmonton members were very much at the forefront of tethered car racing by then with double European Champions Jim Dean and Stan Drayson, the Snelling Brothers, who were British record holders, and also very closely involved with the development of the Oliver twinshaft engine from its inception. They were also responsible for persuading the Olivers to develop the ball bearing Tiger MkI. Another prominent member was Paul Zere of ZN Motors who was to become another integral part of Ron Thrower's future career. It is obvious from contemporary reports that the Snelling brothers were also instrumental in encouraging and helping him.

Ron started racing seriously in 1953, his first reported meeting being the Meteor Club 'Coronation' event late in 1953, travelling up to Staffordshire with a contingent from London.

He was running a 1.5cc Oliver 'Bottom's Up' fitted with an ex Snelling MkII Tiger motor, the car being prepared by Paul Zere.

Right: Ron at Meteor with 1.5cc 'Bottom's Up' prepared here by Zere

Just a few months later, Ron was lining up with Europe's very best competitors at the 1954 European Championships being held at Woodside near Luton. This was Ron's first major meeting, and a notable debut for an eighteen year old as he finished second in both 1.5cc and 2.5cc classes. He was beaten both times by Stan Drayson who was using Ian Moore 'Shadow' type bevel drive cars, one being the original Ian Moore car. In 1.5cc Ron was just 0.29mph behind Stan in 1st place. Ron had two Oliver 'Bottom's Up', which would probably have been given to him by either the Snellings or Zere? Another eighteen year old at the same meeting who was to achieve so much a few years later was Roland Salomon who had hitch-hiked from Switzerland.

Ron creating his fuel brew at Woodside Ready to start his 'Bottom's Up'

Over the next few years, Ron and Jim Dean largely assumed the mantle of 'racing correspondents' in Model Maker with numerous articles on building, and preparation of high speed cars and engines, Jim's largely based on a great deal of experience and success, Ron more on enthusiasm and observation. The tethered car racing scene was changing significantly by the mid 50s, many of the early clubs having folded and pioneer racers retired, as outright speed and racing became the aim. Developments in the smaller classes abounded both at the Edmonton Club and up in Sunderland where the limitations of the Oliver twinshaft were being addressed. Essentially this was because as engines revs increased the tyre sizes had to decrease until ground clearance was almost non existent. Traction and stability with the diminutive Oliver cars also a problem. To overcome this there were all sorts of cleverly engineered solutions with geared drive twinshafts, suspension, twin wheels and more, but a simpler route was to use a standard Oliver aero engine on a spur mount driving through reduction gears.

Although Ron's 1.5cc car held the British record for a while at 74mph and his 2.5cc had registered 85mph he stated that road holding was not the strong point of the Oliver cars and he 'was far from convinced that the move towards geared drive cars would be a winner'. His youthful enthusiasm and criticism of what others were doing probably did not endear him to some fellow competitors who were working on the alternative designs? However, he was of the opinion that there was still mileage in the twinshaft if he could design a car with a longer wheelbase, a far more streamlined shape along with a lower and smaller cross section. A slight flaw in his thinking was that the design would work best on a smooth track with good traction, which he acknowledged did not exist in the UK. Twinshaft and other small cars were a bit lively on British tracks and could often be found with large lumps of lead bolted in to the pans

Rather than produce patterns and have castings made or go to the trouble and expense of beating the pan and body from sheet aluminium, Ron embraced the new technology of composite materials by opting for 'fibreglass'. His design was to be made entirely from GRP, Glass Reinforced Polyester, with an aluminium sheet core for strength and for fixings. By the time Ron had published a long article about the design and building of the car in 1957 it and the Oliver Tiger twinshaft were history as he had abandoned the whole project and also gone the geared route. As far as was known, only Ron's own car was known to exist until 2021 when a second appeared in the USA, believed to have been made by Ron for Bill Bennett of the Maidstone Club. In a strange quirk of fate, this car was sold shortly after and made its way back to the UK.

The missing 'Away' in the title refers to Roland Salomon's 'SuperSabre' car
The GRP car in 1956 Ron at Blackpool Nationals 1956

Now that Ron's car had surfaced, it seemed appropriate to give it a run at Buckminster. Unfortunately, the 'Bottom's Up' car could not be run in the state it was found as the MCA had banned cars that exhausted directly on to the track, a rule that is still adhered to in the current Buckminster regulations. The 1.5cc car seemed a realistic proposition, especially as it also has a large lump of lead to keep it under control.

Jan Huning was asked if he could lend assistance as he is a whizz with Olivers, but even his ministrations could not produce so much as a 'pop' from the motor, no matter what he did with the compression screw.

This required investigation, where a strip down revealed a chamber of horrors. At some point the thread in the head had stripped so a steel insert had be threaded in, which in turn was threaded ¼" x 32tpi. Screwed in to this was a standard glow plug with the core removed and a brass 6BA screw inserted. Unfortunately, this was so short that the contra piston could never be set, so no go.

Then a dilemma, entirely rebuild the head or keep the modification and extend the insert to give a decent amount of adjustment or make a new, Oliver style screw? To maintain a degree of fidelity, a longer insert was made, but for the second test session a proper compression screw was fitted.

Whether it would work would have to wait until the next trip to Buckminster in September. The strip down also revealed that one side of the crankshaft was missing a collet so that the wheel was pulling up directly on the bearing. Either it was put together that way as a quick fix in the 60s, or someone has had a fiddle?

Ron's own 1.5cc car as featured in Model Maker
Believed to have been built for Bill Bennett of the Maidstone Club 2.5cc Tiger MkII

To be continued. Part II next month including the GRP back on the track

©copyrightOTW2024