102 | THE GOODWOOD REVIVAL SALE
Just postwar, he had been invited to Qoin Monaco Motors at Watford as
managing director, appointed by founders Peter Monkhouse and Ian
Connell. Both were established racing drivers and created the company
to prepare racing cars for private owners. 0n 194 Welsh enthusiast
Dudley Folland bought Peter Monkhouse’s share. He had been at
Cambridge <niversity with Connell pre-War when he raced under the
pseudonym ‘Tim D. Davies’ to avoid family alarm.
He entrusted the very car now offered here to Monaco, wishing to run
it in the first postwar 24-Hour race, to be run at Spa-Francorchamps
in Belgium. A measure of the respect in which this car and team were
held is well illustrated by a letter on file from then Aston Martin company
owner Gordon Sutherland saying that the car should be treated as a
works entry with the firm’s full backing.
In his brilliant autobiography ‘The Certain Sound’ (Automobile Year:
Edita, 19 1) John Wyer recalled: ̧0 am amazed at the light-hearted
way in which we undertook what was really quite a serious operation.
Our team consisted of exactly five people ¶ Dudley and his wife Joy,
Ian Connell, my wife Tottie and myself....Joy and Tottie were in charge
of time-keeping and catering, Ian was second driver and second
mechanic and 0 was team manager and first mechanic. Only Dudley, the
owner, was not expected to do anything except drive.”
Their trip began inauspiciously as they missed their ferry, crossing finally
to Dunkirk, where the war-damaged lock gates had jammed, delaying
them a further four hours. The pavé road from Dunkirk to Ostend
then split the Aston Martin’s special 2 -gallon fuel tank ¶ a Monaco
Motors replacement for the standard 15-gallon type. Limping the car to
Brussels they found a tinsmith to repair the tank. After his first practice
lap at Spa, Dudley Folland then reported clutch slip. John Wyer tried
the car to confirm the problem. He then stripped the clutch, found
it had been over-oiled and fitted a new clutch plate which cured the
problem. In second practice the car ran perfectly.Wyer wrote: ̧0n the race things went unbelievably well... 0 had decided
in advance how fast we could safely run for 24 hours and Dudley and
0an simply drove at that speed and took no notice of anybody. We had
a very large fuel tank and could run for four hours without stopping. To
our surprise we quite soon found ourselves in the first ten and then in
the first five.