Ashley 1172
Registration No. SAD 878
In June 2014 I was
contacted by Jeremy via my website contact page,
telling me of his one time ownership of an Ashley 1172:
Ivor,
You may be interested in a special I bought new and unfinished in 1960. It was built by a Gloucester engineer, Michael Meredith around 1958. He did not complete it, but with a tank full of fuel and a new battery, I drove it back to Sussex for its maiden voyage..
The chassis was a copy of a Lister or Tojeiro fitted with a tuned MG XPEG engine. Double wishbone front suspension and DeDion rear with an ENV cwp. I rather think Michael intended to make his own bodywork, but decided an off-the-shelf plastic shell was a quick answer.
He decided upon the Ashley 1172 which was specially built with a short wheelbase - this may be seen from the photos. Ashley SAD 878 carried me around the country for several years, but the MG engine kept breaking (crank shaft twice and finally, piston disintegrated taking it off the road).
It was nearly reborn with a Chrysler hemi, Moss c/r box, 8" front, 17" rear wheels, ventilated brakes etc. but I chickened out realising the outer shafts in the DeDion tube would probably shear with the hemi's torque.
I sold it to an Englishman, who then he sold it to a Swiss guy who uses it regularly on the road and in competition.
There is a very small chance that Michael still has the Ashley Laminates invoice for the body & detachable hardtop, (which I hardly ever used, making it a bit draughty).
Regards,
Jeremy
You may be interested in a special I bought new and unfinished in 1960. It was built by a Gloucester engineer, Michael Meredith around 1958. He did not complete it, but with a tank full of fuel and a new battery, I drove it back to Sussex for its maiden voyage..
The chassis was a copy of a Lister or Tojeiro fitted with a tuned MG XPEG engine. Double wishbone front suspension and DeDion rear with an ENV cwp. I rather think Michael intended to make his own bodywork, but decided an off-the-shelf plastic shell was a quick answer.
He decided upon the Ashley 1172 which was specially built with a short wheelbase - this may be seen from the photos. Ashley SAD 878 carried me around the country for several years, but the MG engine kept breaking (crank shaft twice and finally, piston disintegrated taking it off the road).
It was nearly reborn with a Chrysler hemi, Moss c/r box, 8" front, 17" rear wheels, ventilated brakes etc. but I chickened out realising the outer shafts in the DeDion tube would probably shear with the hemi's torque.
I sold it to an Englishman, who then he sold it to a Swiss guy who uses it regularly on the road and in competition.
There is a very small chance that Michael still has the Ashley Laminates invoice for the body & detachable hardtop, (which I hardly ever used, making it a bit draughty).
Regards,
Jeremy
We exchanged an email or two and Jeremy also attached his photo's and gave me website details for the current Swiss owner, Antoine, so that I could contact him direct for the latest information on the car.
The photo's below are from Jeremy from the 1960's
so no digital images hence a bit hazy.
I then emailed Antoine to see if he was interested in contributing to the webpage info with new details and photo's of his car and got this nice reply back.
Dear Ivor,
Thank you for your email and congratulation for your website!
Restoration has been completed nearly 5 years now, I use the car for rallies, hillclimbs, track days and even some times to go
to work.
As you can seen on the picture, the car now has a low windshield (I made it), it used to have a hardtop with removable windscreen (as on the old pictures), but it was lost at one point before I purchased the car.
The car has now a tuned 1500 MG engine, all around drum brakes, MG 4 speed gearbox (I added an overdrive to give longer legs on motorways.)
As you have read on the website, it is probably not its original body, but I thought it was nice, and as I don't know how the original one was and it is quite expensive to built one, I just restored it and put it back on the chassis.
Let me know what you want to know and what kind of pictures you want.
Best regards
Antoine
Thank you for your email and congratulation for your website!
Restoration has been completed nearly 5 years now, I use the car for rallies, hillclimbs, track days and even some times to go
to work.
As you can seen on the picture, the car now has a low windshield (I made it), it used to have a hardtop with removable windscreen (as on the old pictures), but it was lost at one point before I purchased the car.
The car has now a tuned 1500 MG engine, all around drum brakes, MG 4 speed gearbox (I added an overdrive to give longer legs on motorways.)
As you have read on the website, it is probably not its original body, but I thought it was nice, and as I don't know how the original one was and it is quite expensive to built one, I just restored it and put it back on the chassis.
Let me know what you want to know and what kind of pictures you want.
Best regards
Antoine
The website Antoine mentioned has the following photo's, some of which appear to be as purchased and others during restoration.
I have also found a few photo's via the internet of Antoine's Ashley at the events shown below:
There are also some photo's on the Ollen-Villars Historic Hillclimbs website of the Ashley.
(also all the other cars that entered the event - it's worth a look)
I am not sure what event these next two photo's come from and the website was a bit hard to follow, but it is clearly the same Ashley.
I hope that Antoine will keep my emails full of any further events past, present and future with photo's to liven up the website with
current deed's.
current deed's.
Well it's now May 2016 and this
Ashley 1172 Roadster is For Sale on
www.carandclassic.co.uk
the following Photo's were shown on their website
Ashley 1172 Roadster is For Sale on
www.carandclassic.co.uk
the following Photo's were shown on their website
Photo's Courtesy of Antoine and Carandclassic
I have no idea if the Sale was successful or not and I never heard from Antoine so I guess an email might be worth a try.
Check back sometime and see.
If you have any other information about this
Ashley 1172 car
Registration No.
SAD 878
(originally registered by Gloucester C. C.
in April/May 1956)
please email me 0n
[email protected]
or use the contact page on this site to contact me