Boulton Charles D.

[Leigh Trevail]

Charles D. Boulton is another of the names that crop up in race reports from the 1950’s, but very little is known of him. His name is usually associated with a Healey Silverstone or a Connaught (A7) which he raced in 1954/55, but Mike Oliver who worked for Connaught himself said “Charles Boulton is a bit of a mystery man”. The Connaught was at Jim Keeble's workshop in Ipswich when the premises caught fire, but it is not known whether or not the car was damaged in the incident. The Healey was previously campaigned by Peter Riley and Boulton’s results are shown below.

Boulton owned a workshop on Sandy Lane off Landseer Road, Ipswich. His foreman was Peter Clapham who navigated for Boulton on rallies. Boulton moved his business to Evergreen Garage in the Village of Crowfield north of Ipswich. Peter Clapham and his brother Eric took on the original workshop renaming the business Peteric.

At Evergreen Garage Boulton had a rolling road and worked on racing cars for others as well as dealing in Lotus cars and spares, I was told that he was good friends with Colin Chapman.
　
　
　
HEALEY SILVERSTONE
REG. NUMBER ………DVG 807
CHASSIS NUMBER…….E 74
ENGINE NUMBER……..B 4704

1954 Redex National Rally driver C .Boulton
1954 Ten Test rally driver C. Boulton and P .Clapham
1955 RAC international rally driver C. Boulton
1955 National Cats Eyes Rally driver C. Boulton
1956 National Cats Eyes Rally driver C. Boulton
(Thanks to Chris Berens for this information).

On the 30th May 1955 Boulton drove the Connaught and a Lotus at Davidstow in Cornwall, so it looks as though he had access to all three cars at once. It is not known which model of Lotus this was.

I have been told that he later rallied an M.G.A, this is all I know about the man, can others add too it!