Hello David,
No there aren't two of the Brooklands Straker Squire's only the one, X2, which I owned for a number of years and rebuilt completely. I put the stripes back on which had been off the car for about 30 years and owned it when you saw it at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. I didn't paint the radiator at the time but I see that the present owner has done so. The reason that the undertray stripes do not match the ones on the body work is because I didn't repaint the undertray when I did the rest of the car. The incorrect width and angle of the undertray stripes were painted on by a previous owner, Adrian Lidell, in the 1970's.
It may interest you to know that the width of the black and white stripes are not only different to each other in order to get the visual effect right but that they actually get thinner as they progress down the length of the car. The fist time that I marked them out, using two original photos from the Brooklands days, and with even width black and white stripes, I found that I had not only got the incorrect total number of stripes but the white stripes visually looked two thin. After a lot of calculations and to get the correct visual effect and number of stripes--because remember I was working on the original body so the total length had to be correct--I came up with this formula for the stripes:
Starting from the front, and you may have noticed that there is a little black triangle on the front of the radiator cowl which is 2" to its "point", the first black stripe was 11.8cm wide, then next white ones was 15.8cm, then B11.6cm, W15.6cm, B 11.5cm, W 15.3cm, B 11.4cm, etc etc until you get to the end. I made one mistake in that I didn't know how the stripes finished at the tail of the car when viewed from the rear and in later years found a contemporary photo of the car, viewed from the rear, it had a black circle, like a target.
And if you are going to make a slot model of the car as in 1921 with the six exhaust pipes down the outside, rather than one underneath as in 1919, then look closely at the photo that is on the web of it going around the banking and you will see that five pipes come out the side of the bonnet and one, number five cylinder in fact, comes out behind the bulkhead line; if I remember correctly they also go straight back without the kink that the pipes have at present.
I was a most exiting vintage car to drive and made a superb sound, especially over 4000 rpm which was approaching 95 mph, but was rather hair raising in modern traffic with only rear wheel brakes.
Hope that helps and good luck with the model.
Nick Howell
No there aren't two of the Brooklands Straker Squire's only the one, X2, which I owned for a number of years and rebuilt completely. I put the stripes back on which had been off the car for about 30 years and owned it when you saw it at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. I didn't paint the radiator at the time but I see that the present owner has done so. The reason that the undertray stripes do not match the ones on the body work is because I didn't repaint the undertray when I did the rest of the car. The incorrect width and angle of the undertray stripes were painted on by a previous owner, Adrian Lidell, in the 1970's.
It may interest you to know that the width of the black and white stripes are not only different to each other in order to get the visual effect right but that they actually get thinner as they progress down the length of the car. The fist time that I marked them out, using two original photos from the Brooklands days, and with even width black and white stripes, I found that I had not only got the incorrect total number of stripes but the white stripes visually looked two thin. After a lot of calculations and to get the correct visual effect and number of stripes--because remember I was working on the original body so the total length had to be correct--I came up with this formula for the stripes:
Starting from the front, and you may have noticed that there is a little black triangle on the front of the radiator cowl which is 2" to its "point", the first black stripe was 11.8cm wide, then next white ones was 15.8cm, then B11.6cm, W15.6cm, B 11.5cm, W 15.3cm, B 11.4cm, etc etc until you get to the end. I made one mistake in that I didn't know how the stripes finished at the tail of the car when viewed from the rear and in later years found a contemporary photo of the car, viewed from the rear, it had a black circle, like a target.
And if you are going to make a slot model of the car as in 1921 with the six exhaust pipes down the outside, rather than one underneath as in 1919, then look closely at the photo that is on the web of it going around the banking and you will see that five pipes come out the side of the bonnet and one, number five cylinder in fact, comes out behind the bulkhead line; if I remember correctly they also go straight back without the kink that the pipes have at present.
I was a most exiting vintage car to drive and made a superb sound, especially over 4000 rpm which was approaching 95 mph, but was rather hair raising in modern traffic with only rear wheel brakes.
Hope that helps and good luck with the model.
Nick Howell
