Osian's Auction Catalogue Automobilia The Art of the Historical Vehicle | October 2018

Automobilia: The Art of the Historical Vehicle 19 1939 SS 100 Jaguar Marking the first use of the Jaguar name, the SS Jaguar 100 was arguably the most famous and the most desirable of all the cars that William Lyons’ SS Cars had produced before the start of WW II. In production from 1936 to 1939, the 100 of the SS 100 came from the car’s ability to get to a top speed close to (and later, more than) 100mph (160 km/h). A real flagship product from SS Cars, the SS 100’s 2.64 meters wheelbase was essentially a shortened version of the one designed for the SS 90 saloon from 1935. Initially powered by a 2663cc in-line six, the engine, though based on a pushrod unit made by Standard Motor Company, was extensively reworked into a more powerful overhead valve one. Talented engineer WilliamHeynes worked on adapting the SS 90’s chassis and changing the head to an overhead valve unit, and another brilliant engineer, Harry Weslake worked on the critical design of the cylinder head and combustion chambers. The car on these pages, a 2 1/2 Litre SS 100, chassis # 49043, rolled out of the SS Cars factory on the 23rd of May, 1939. The car apparently had been ordered by SS Cars’ India distributor French Motor Car Company, of Calcutta. In a shade of gunmetal grey, with red leather interior, the car must have arrived in Calcutta in 1939 itself, before war broke out. Apparently the car was used initially as a demonstrator, and at some point French Motor Car Company must have found a buyer. The car’s early history though remains a mystery. But a black-and-white photo from about the late 1940s shows a SS 100 in competitive action, right in the centre of Calcutta! Into the 1950s and later there are several images of this SS 100 being raced on the tracks of Alipore, Kanchrapara and Barrackpore (the many circuits used in and around Calcutta). The car came into the ownership of Calcuttan Bijoy Kumar Burman, “sometime around 1963 or 1964,” as his son Dr Rohit Burman remembers. From what Rohit can remember, his (late) father Bijoy Burman never raced the SS 100. But the SS 100 did get raced extensively during the 1950s, and the driver most associated with it was a certain Eddie Isaacs, who won the Calcutta Grand Prix in 1955 and 1957 in this SS 100 (beating, amongst others, the Lancia featured elsewhere!). In fact, these victories confirm that the SS 100 must have been a very competitive sports car (given that an Allard J2 and an Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Monza were two of several serious racers in the Calcutta scene), as well as reflecting the success the SS 100 had had in Europe. When Bijoy Burman, who was working for automotive lubricant company Castrol, was transferred to Delhi in 1966, he took the SS 100 with him to the capital. Rohit remembers the car being entered for one of the early Statesman rallies in Delhi. And when the Burman family moved to Bombay, the SS 100 came with them. The SS 100 remained with the Burmans in Mumbai, a proud member of the family, till 2003, when the complications of maintaining a mechanical treasure, forced an aging Bijoy Burman to sell the car to Bollywood movie star – and true-blue enthusiast – Jackie Shroff. Since the car has been with Jackie, it has starred at several events in its livery of white exterior and black interior. A few years ago, Jackie had the car repainted a very dark green. 1948 Invicta Black Prince The Invicta Car Company was founded by Captain Albert Noel Campbell Macklin, a highly respected English motoring enthusiast. Learning from his earlier attempts at making cars, Macklin became inspired by the desire to offer motorists ‘effortless performance’, and so develop a car with enormous pulling power, as well as great handling. After developing a 2.0-litre Coventry Climax-powered Invicta prototype, which then went on to house a 2.5-litre six-cylinder Meadows engine subsequently, Macklin progressed to 3-litre and 4.5-litre cars. The 4.5 engine in the S-Type Invicta had such enormous reserves of torque that drivers could select top gear (fourth) at just 10 km/h and accelerate cleanly and rapidly all the way to its 150 km/h top speed. With the 4 1/2 -Litre there was a choice of short (3.0-metre) and long (3.2 metres) wheelbases, as well as high Type A and low Type B chassis. The sporting low chassis was arranged by using underslung rear springs. The S-Type low chassis was a model that became famous as the first English car to top the ton, that is, 100mph (160 km/h), making it one of the faster cars of its time (the 100mph bit earning it the sobriquet of S100). Despite making a headline grabbing car and in spite of a string of successes in track and rallying events Invicta’s days were numbered. Shrinking demand post-Depression had Invicta closing shop by 1935. Though Invicta had closed shop in or about 1935, the brand was rejuvenated in 1946. Relaunched as the Invicta Car Development Company, the Black Prince (as the new model was named) featured a state-of-the-art twin overhead camshaft 3.0-litre six from Meadows once again. Other advanced features included all-round in- dependent suspension by torsion bars, built-in jacks and a battery charger, an electric immersion heating for oil and water, a Smiths heater and a radio. But the technological talking point of the newmodel was the gearbox. A fully automatic transmission, the Brockhouse Hydro-Kinetic Turbo-Transmitter offered an infinite variety of ratios controlled by a simple forward-and-reverse switch. Problem was that the gearbox hadn’t undergone any protracted testing or development. So going forward was no problem, but the pawl catch that engaged reverse was notoriously liable to fail, which happened to most cars soon after delivery. There was also this issue of the price: at £3,890, the new Invicta was almost a thousand more than the Bentley Mk VI! But that didn’t seem to deter Jayachamaraja Wadeyar, the Maharaja of Mysore, who