Who were they ? 1946 drivers

[Felix Muelas]

My friend -and ocassional poster on this Forum- Alessandro Silva, one of the few researchers that permanently makes me take my hat off (for those of you not familiar with his work, or that might think I am exxagerating, please take a look at his The race when Nuvolari waved the steering wheel at the crowd and a forgotten Championship that we had the honour of hosting for him) is seeking help to try to trace some biographical data about a couple of drivers that were active in 1946.
I had the idea that the members of this Forum might help him with some information about them.
This is the list...who were these people?

(Of this first group, Alessandro knows major racing stats)

Bob & Geoffrey Ansell GB (owners of Mas. 4CL 1567 and ERA R9B)
George Bainbridge GB (raced the Ansells cars)
Olivier (Fernand) Bianchi, F
Alexandre Constantin, F
Henri Durand, F
Roger Hillier, F
Ernst Hürzeler CH
Jean Judet F
Dioscoride Lanza, I
Pierre Larrue, F
Jean Lumachi, F
Henri Marin F
François Michaud F
Giacomo Palmieri, I
Pietro Palmieri, I
Giorgio Pelassa, I
Ugo Puma, I
Victor-Henri Servé, F
Lord Selsdon, GB
Philippe & Eric Verkade, NL
Josef Vojtechovsky, CS?
Gordon Watson , GB (Bugatti driver, later Alta 69-IS)

(Of the following group, supposedly all British drivers, only some racing stats are known):

John Appleton (builder of Appleton Spls)
? Buck
C. Davenport
Owen Finch (raced Kennington’s Amilcar)
J. Greig
Ian Metcalfe
C. Miller
Charles ‘Chas’ Mortimer (raced Alta 53S in ’46)
Ian Nickols (owner of ex Parnell Magnette)
V. Patterson
Gerald Sumner
R. ‘Bobby’ Sumner
R.V. Wallington (owner of Alfa-Aitken)
Hamish Weir (Magnette owner)
John Williams (Alta owner)

Gentlemen, what do you know? As Alessandro puts it "every information shall be properly acknowledged".

Thanks in advance

Felix

[TimD]

Well, I daresay I can come up with some bits and bobs about the ones that ran at Brooklands.

These will be Selsdon, Appleton, Nickols, Metcalfe, Mortimer and Weir, I think.

But as an opener, many people will be familiar with an old bit of archive footage of an ERA somersaulting through straw bales at an early Silverstone meeting. It gets shown every time a documentary producer wants to illustrate driver safety/postwar motorsport/dawn of Silverstone/crash barriers etc! Well, that was Geoffrey Ansell aboard R9B, and car and driver were more startled and bruised than permanently damaged.

Be warned with Owen Finch and Amilcars. According to Autocar in a 1948 "Talking of Sports Cars" he ran two Amilcar C6's, so it wasn't necessarily always Kennington's car.

[Felix Muelas]

Tim, I was actually thinking about you being the one that would start the ball rolling ! Not only "thinking", I actually told Alessandro !

As for the "opener" I don't think I have ever seen the footage, but a sequence of pictures instead (from the top of my head maybe in Maurice Hamilton's "British Grand Prix") and I would love to.

OK, so I understand some of the "Brokklanders" might appear neater after your treatment. Do you think you will find some time for it?

BTW, after our surprising Goodwood meeting (does coincidence exists at all?) your account shows 2-0 in your favour. I would have to work on balancing that a bit

Un abrazo

Felix

[Felix Muelas]

Originally posted by TimD
Well, I daresay I can come up with some bits and bobs about the ones that ran at Brooklands. These will be Selsdon, Appleton, Nickols, Metcalfe, Mortimer and Weir, I think.

Dear TimD,

Just a reminder, you know, a bit on the Rosemeyer tradition

Whenever you feel like

Felix