162 | THE GOODWOOD REVIVAL SALE
Consequently, the Aston-Butterworth programme did not in period
achieve their full potential. Montgomerie-Charringtons American
blue-and-white liveried car offered here ran as high as seventh in the
1952 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa before a bungled refueling stop in
which the wrong mix was loaded. At Chimay in the Grand Prix des
Frontieres, while Bill Aston retired his car, Monty placed third despite
running out of fuel on the final lap....Butterworth continued to develop his air-cooled Åat-4 engine through
the 1950s ¶ ultimately providing a swing-valve variant which powered
a celebrated Elva sports-racing car driven by the great Archie
Scott-Brown. That car, with its cylinder head clearance humps was
nicknamed 'Sabrina' after the celebratedly pneumatic British movie
starlet of the time.While Bill Aston retained his single-seater until 1959 before selling it
to Dickie Metcalfe, who had it converted into a pretty Climax-engined
sports-racing car, this Montgomerie-Charrington Aston-Butterworth
was acquired by VSCC Cooper-Bristol star Bill Wilks.When 2-litre unsupercharged Formula 2 was adopted as the World
Championship-qualifying class of single-seater road racing for 1952-53,
this fascinating air-cooled Åat-4 cylinder Aston-Butterworth was one of
the most exotic and unusual cars in contention.
The Aston-Butterworth was created by private owner-driver Bill Aston,
combining a front-engined Cooper Mark 0 chassis ¶ similar to those
used for the more familiar 6-cylinder in-line-engined Cooper-Bristol
¶ with daringly extrovert engineer Archie Butterworths new 19 cc
Åat-4, eventually swing-valved, racing engine. Offering around 140bhp
this power unit drove via an MG TC-type gearbox to an ENV final-drive
offering quick-change drop gears to permit speedy ratio-changing to
match different circuits.
A friend ¶ Robin Montgomerie-Charrington ¶ ordered a second
Aston-Butterworth which is the car now offered here. These two new
air-cooled Formula 2 cars were probably the lightest in the class.
<nfortunately, Archie Butterworth inQured himself badly when he
crashed his experimental 4-wheel-drive sprint car at Prescott hill-climb,
disrupting engine development.
152
The ex-Robin Montgomerie-Charrington
1952 ASTON-BUTTERWORTH
GRAND PRIX MONOPOSTO
Chassis no. NB42
- World Championship Grand Prix entrant
- Cooper chassis
- Ultra Lightweight Åat-4 racing engine
- Eligable for the worlds leading
motor sport events