The Media Archive for Central England is the public screen archive for the East and West Midlands. An independent charity and company based at the University of Lincoln, MACE acquires, catalogues, preserves and makes widely available moving image materials that inform our understanding of the diverse cultures and histories of communities between the Lincolnshire coast and the Welsh border.
This film is part of Free
Griffith: Motorcycle Trials and Shelsley Walsh
Speed daredevils on two and four wheels.
From the collection of:
Overview
You can almost hear the noise as these 1920s daredevils tackle motorcycle polo and a two-wheeled Grand National complete with jumps captured on film by Gordon Griffiths from Hereford. We then move to Shelsley Walsh in Worcestershire for a September, 1929 meeting at the famous hill climb. Once the road is clear of horses, it's four-wheeled horse power that's on show with vintage super-cars from Bentley, Bugatti and Mercedes Benz hammering up the ascent.
As the caption tells us, the Mercedes Benz car we see being driven by Earl Howe at Shelsley Walsh had the previous month won the Ulster TT, a motor race run at Ards in Northern Ireland. For that event it was the German driver Rudolf Caracciola behind the wheel and not the racing peer. The 5th Earl Howe, born Francis Curzon, had been the MP for Battersea South and was also the co-founder of the British Racing Drivers' Club.
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