Vintage Thing No.113 - Triangle Skinner Special

The Triangle Skinner Special awaits its turn in the paddock at sunny Wiscombe Park this year.

The Triangle Skinner is yet another special to which John Bolster introduced me with his classic book Specials. It seems incredible to me now that it began life as a 1931 Morris Minor and the side valve version at that, which was built to sell at £100. Nowadays, it sports a straight eight Hudson engine of 4168cc.

Little remains of that 847cc Morris Minor. It was rather a special Morris Minor, for it was a publicity stunt that used special steel cylinder blocks albeit of the same 57 x 83mm dimensions as the iron production variety. These allowed lubrication pressures of 70 psi and had a bevel drive for a vertically mounted supercharger. Equipped with a Powerplus blower and single seater bodywork it was campaigned by Bill van der Becke (who is also famous for the Becke Powerplus, which used a Wolseley ohc engine) and was officially sanctioned in a weak moment by Sir William Morris himself, the idea being to create a 100 mph motorcar out of one that cost £100 and did 100mpg, although not whilst doing the ton. Obviously. Or with a blower.

From the other side, the Triangle Skinner Special still looks good.

It enjoyed a career at Brooklands and without blower but with a single SU managed 107.4 mpg. In supercharged form it fought its way up to over 103 mph and the slogans ran "£100-100mph-100mpg". You couldn't make that sort of claim nowadays but the campaign was the genesis for this special so it's quite alright by me.

By 1933 the car had been sold to Carl Skinner of the SU (Skinner's Union) carburettor firm and he rebuilt it as a hillclimb and sprint car. In this form it was called the Red Special as opposed to the White Special, which was also part of the Skinner equipe as well as being Morris Minor based. The special steel blocks were prone to cracking between the valve seats and the bores so he cast around for a suitable replacement.

It's here that things become interesting. Carl Skinner already had a road going special in the form of a rakish coupe fitted with a Hudson engine. This car was for many years part of the Automobilia collection at St Stephen here in Cornwall but was crammed in beside other exhibits so I don't have a photo of this machine, although I saw it there frequently. From memory it was called the Skinner's Union Special and was painted cream with light brown mudguards and running boards. The museum was later sold and the collection dispersed and I don't know what happened to this car. If anybody knows, perhaps they can let me know by e-mail or leave a comment.

Hudson engines were the Rover vee-eight of their day, finding their way into Railtons and Brough Superior motorcars. Historian Michael Sedgwick dubbed such early production hot rods "Anglo-American bastards" since they benefited from Yankee power and lightweight British chassis and bodywork. I still say they were more like "love-children."

The Triangle Skinner may have a big engine but is surprisingly small

Skinner obviously thought highly enough of the Hudson engine to squeeze it into his hillclimb car, which involved mounting the radiator way further forward. Carburation was conspicuously achieved with four SU carbs and class awards were won in pre-war events at Shelsley and Prescott.

After the war, Ted Lloyd-Jones bought the Skinner Special and he rebuilt the car with a brand new specially made chassis and a Vauxhall 14 gearbox. The new chassis kept the all-round semi-elliptic springs but the front axle came from a Morris 10 so virtually nothing now remains of that £100 Minor. Consequently, it became the Triangle Skinner Special, named after Lloyd-Jones' garage business, the Triangle Service Station in Southampton

Legend has it that the engine later blew up in Jersey and in disgust its new keeper, Arthur Owen, buried it in the sand on a nearby beach. After that it grew a Jaguar engine and then a 6-litre Cadillac V8, although it seems it never competed in the latter form.

The Triangle Skinner Special's savior proved to be Michael Browne who bought the car in 1970 and restored it over 5 years with a  Hudson engine that had once powered one of the specials built by the Bolster brothers. 

Let's just have another look at those carbies

Incidentally, Peter Skinner's sister Barbara married John Bolster and received a 1934 Morris Minor as a wedding gift from Lord Nuffield and this car later became the White Skinner Special mentioned above.

It later passed to Andrew Harding who contacted Burlen Fuel Systems who own SU today about the history of the car and to cut a long story short it is now back in the ownership of the Skinner's Union company and regularly campaigned in VSCC events.

This is what the Triangle Skinner Special looks like from a rear three quarter view. Funny how those 4 SUs always steal the show.

I like this car because it's so much of an engine on wheels. As I've said before I prefer two seaters (shared experiences are so much better I find) but for competition a frightened passenger or riding mechanic does not help one's performance. Four carbs in a row out-psyche the vintage opposition and any straight eight on short pipes is bound to sound glorious.