Gordon England in newspaper clippings.

The following have been kindly passed on to me by Douglas Alderson who has recently completed an online catalogue of pre-war car dealerships (see: https://prewardealerships.wordpress.com).  During his research he came across the following GE related news clippings.

 

They are published with the copyright information in the description, many thanks to Douglas.

 

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Silent saloon for sale at Beaulieu

Ex GE Registrar Damian Gardner-Thorpe passed on these photos of what appears to be a GE Silent Saloon for sale at Beaulieu Autojumble this year.

Dave Martin also wrote to me about this (and another) car:

 

“In 2000, when I ran the Fabric Saloon Register, I had an appeal for details of fabric saloons published in the Classic and SportsCar mag. I had 1 letter and it was from the owner of UC 9503.

He told me he was a V.S.C.C. member and had bought the car in 1983 and thought it was a Gordon England saloon. He said the chassis was rusted and he was going to replace it. The numbers given were Chassis 58054 and engine M 54053. Date of first registration was 13th March 1928. The fabric was said to be “Mustard”, which I think was an original Gordon England colour. The wings were black painted.
Although I replied to his letter, I was never able to get a picture of the car and so there was always a bit of a doubt as to whether it actually WAS a Gordon England saloon.
So you can imagine how pleased I was to see photos of the car to confirm that it was a Silent saloon.
The name of the vendor and the phone number are not the same as the 2000 owner, although the area code is. 
As I told you some time ago, up until 1968, there was another Gordon England Silent saloon extant and in completely original condition. This car was pictured in Dec 1968 Motor Sport, page 1137 and the details are as follows; Owner, Paul Nicholas of Enfield, Middx.(who also owned the 1925 pram hood XY 9796, shown on the inside cover of the Profile Publications booklet on the Austin Seven). He won several prizes at Beaulieu in the 60’s with this pram hood. I was never able to trace Paul Nicholas, but the Silent saloon reg no. PN 341, is now on a Jag!
Chassis 44176, Engine M 44493. The car was collected from the factory in August 1927 and kept for 41 years by the original owner until sold to Paul Nicholas in 1968.
Could it still be around? It looked too good to scrap in the photo. Maybe you have better contacts and will be able to find out what happened to this very rare car. Let me know if you do.
Hope all this is of interest.
Regards
Dave“