Ashley 1172 Roadster
Registration No. DHP 747
I was introduced to this Ashley 1172 Roadster by Richard Wright in March 2014 when he emailed me after seeing the website.
My father and I built a Ford 8 special with the Ashley open body fitted to it. This would have been in 1960/62 years. I have photos of the donor car being stripped down and the finished special, would further details be of any interest .
Regards Richard.
I replied that I would be very interested and we emailed each other a number of times exchanging details over the next couple of months.
I then misfiled the emails and it is only recently that I rediscovered them, so I hope this page makes up for the delay,
The following photo's show the donor vehicle
before and after the body removal.
Richard gave the following details about the construction
of the car that he and his father built.
(coincidentally at about the same
time as my dad and I built my Sportiva).
As far as I can recall the body shell came in a cream colour, most of the stuff that we did to the chassis was all the normal basics like chassis boxing, panhard rod, independent front suspension, 4.7 to 1 crown wheel & pinion, etc.
Engine much the same, twin SU carbs, 4 branch exhaust gas flowed ports.
The paint job was our first attempt and done with an old worn out compressor.
The body was fitted with a tonneau cover and hood.
To get the hood to work when erected it had to be braced between the top of the windscreen and the rear seat, otherwise it would pop the screen out.
The car was sold on to Monkspath Garage, Shirley, Solihull, Warwickshire in early 1962?
I think they made their own body shells and sold kit parts for Ford Specials.
I think they made their own body shells and sold kit parts for Ford Specials.
I found this 1959 advert for Monkspath Garage on the internet, which shows a good cross section of their products at that time,
plus a few prices.
After the Ashley 1172, Richard moved up market:
I forgot to say I also owned around 1964, a MG Midget Mk II which was fitted with an early Ashley Hardtop.
I forgot to say I also owned around 1964, a MG Midget Mk II which was fitted with an early Ashley Hardtop.
So Richard still kept in contact with an original Ashley product.
Many thanks to Richard and his dad for an interesting feature of
Ashley history.
Many thanks to Richard and his dad for an interesting feature of
Ashley history.
If you have any other information after 1962
about this
Ashley 1172 car
Registration No.
DHP 747
(originally registered by Coventry C.B.C in March 1938)
please email me on
[email protected]
or use the contact page on this site to contact me