Crossthwaite & Gardener

[Marshal]

I had a fantastic time yesterday visiting the premises of the racing car restorers Crossthwaite and Gardener (The people who have re-created the Auto-Unions for Audi, amongst many other things).

Its amazing how many historic cars have effectively new engines, transmissions, gearboxes and even chassis fitted.

If anyone is interested I'll try to make the time and write a fuller report.

Cheers.

[TimD]

Yes please, Marshal. That would be fascinating.

I was looking at their photo portfolio of the Auto Union at the Beaulieu Autojumble in September. There was nowhere obvious to rest the album, so they propped it on the perfectly crafted ash frame of an HRG sports car they were building. Had a close look at that frame while I was at it, and it was flawless.

I'd love to have that sort of skill. It would be great to hear of what sort of projects they've got on at the moment.

[Sparky]

I used to wonder at the originality of historic 'stuff' - racing cars, aircraft, buildings...

I was reminded by an old friend of the totally original axe, that had four new handles and six new blades.

It's not necessarily the physical, but the emotional that stirs the memory.

I suppose history never ends for old race cars. If historics are raced today, they will need maintenance and repair equal if not more involved than in their heyday.

I remember Stuart Turner being interviewed about his time as competitions manager at Ford, and what he thought of the current fascination with matching numbers and original paint-codes.
He joked that, if todays owners of these 'classic' rally cars knew what went on, they'd be amazed. Bodyshell swaps, engine replacements, even complete chassis number and number plate changes were commonplace.

As I said, it's the countenance, not the sum of parts that endears us to an historic racecar.

And I'd love to hear about your trip please!

[Marshal]

Ok I'll make the time, I just hope I can do the subject matter the justice it deserves.

[djb]

Sparky, I agree with your view, while it may be neat to think that an old "whatever" is really just as it was years ago, I think it is more important to have the things rolling so that people can see and learn about them. (within reason of course, here in Montreal there are very few older cars, but the Beetle engined and chassied MG-TC's or TD's that you see once in a blue moon put me off, always have.)

Makes me think of when I was a kid in Ottawa, my best friend and I hung around alot at the Aviation Museum there, and would sometimes get invited (or sneak) into the closed storage and restoration hanger. Among other interesting aircraft gathering dust in there was a ME 109 in Spanish livery. Apparently it had a Merlin engine in it, and because of this, for years and years it sat unseen by the public because it wasn't "original" enough. My view was, and is, clean it up, repaint it if you want and get it out there beside the Hurricane, Spit and Mustang to make a historically correct group of aircraft from the war.

[KC]

Autoweek magazine did an excellent article on them when they were buidling the Auto Union GP cars for Audi. They do fantastic work and I envy you.

[Marshal]

As promised a report on my day,

We arrived at a very wet and cold Crossthwaite and Gardener at 10.30 on Sunday morning and collected a very welcome coffee. The office reception area is in itself a fantastic place for a racing enthusiast, with a Manx Norton and Bugatti pedal car as decoration, along with a fine collection of pre-war racing pictures adorning the walls. As you might expect given the work they have done recreating the Auto-Unions that those cars were prominent, but there were also pictures of pre-war Mercedes, and their drivers, including a signed picture of Manfred von Braustich.

A brief 5 minutes was spent catching up with Marshalling friends when John Gardener of Crossthwaite and Gardener arrived to show us round. First off we went to the machine shop where an impressive array of machines, including new technology such as spark eroders and 4-axis cnc machines help recreate things better than they ever were in the old days.

First up was a brand new Aluminium Jaguar XK engine block casting, which was being machined for use in a lightweight E-Type. The first one of these engines they reconstructed was for Neil Corner a couple of years ago, they now have orders for 4 more.

The amazing thing about Crossthwaite and Gardener is the breadth of different things they do, one machine was making a steering box for a Ferrari, the next a transmission shaft for a Mercedes SL 190 road car. Also knocking about were crankshafts for Type 61 "Birdcage" Maseratis, inlet manifolds and cylinder heads for BRM P25s, all sorts of Coventry Climax bits and new front uprights for Nigel Corner's Ferrari Dino.

On the way through to the assembly shop we passed a Lagonda V12 engine which was had been remanufactured for fitting to the mid 50s Lagonda sports racing car (basically a modified Aston Martin DB3S chassis). This engine originally featured twin magnetos, which moved in the opposite direction to each other. The decision had been taken to use Lucas distributors instead, but there was a problem. Lucas have never made a distributor which turns the "wrong" way, so Crossthwaite and Gardener had to fabricate a mirror image Lucas distributor to fit!

Through into the assembly workshop there was a Fiat 650 Abarth bare shell awaiting attention, a Brabham F2 of the mid 60's, a Jaguar D-Type, a Birdcage Maserati and a Lancia DiLambda were all in various states of disassembly. Also there was a bare rectangular frame of tubes, which was the basis of a D-Type Auto-Union. Also in this area were a set of Bugatti Type 59 wheels, which are amazing bits of design. They are spoked, but only radially to take side loads. The normal tangential spokes, which take torque (accelerating and braking) loads, are replaced with an Aluminium disc which fits inside the rim, and is held in by matched teeth on the rim and the central disc. Apparently accelerating or braking is a bit disconcerting as the whole assembly chatters as the teeth move slightly against each other!

Upstairs from the assembly shop is the engine build area, which had a couple of V16 Auto Union engines awaiting rebuild after use. Other assorted engines being worked on included the Ferrari Dino engine out Viscount Cowdery's 50's sports racer (this was the original engine being rebuilt, the car is currently fitted with a new one made by Crossthwaite and Gardener) and a straight 8 engine out of a Bugatti Type 50. This engine had an incredibly complex gear system for driving the camshafts, as well as a monoblock (i.e. there is no separate cylinder head). This arrangement means that to rebuild the engine you need set up the timing with the camshafts and gear to drive them first, then grind in the valves, before you start thinking about the bottom end of the engine. Apparently if you burnt out a valve on the road car (a not uncommon occurrence in the 30's) you started the repair by taking off the back axle!

All in all it was a fantastic and fascinating morning, and I'd like to thank my marshalling colleague who set up the event, and of course John Gardener of Crossthwaite and Gardener for getting out of bed on a Sunday morning to show us round his remarkable workshops.

[TimD]

Wow!

Thanks Marshal, that sounds awesome. I wish I could have been there.

So many cars being nurtured and fettled to entertain us in the coming seasons. That's a truly happy thought.

And my favourite? The thought that a Lagonda DP115 V12 sports car might be up and running again soon. Even with a mirror image dizzy aboard! Those Lagondas were always the pariahs of the fifties sports-racing scene. They just didn't go at all well when they were new, and their last, ignominious public performance was in that awful feature film "Checkpoint".

I trust that with Crossthwaite & Gardener fettling, the Lagonda will join that great tradition of originally unsorted cars that make a glorious, competitive comeback in historic events.

Also great to hear that there are bits being made ready for Nigel Corner's Ferrari. You can't keep a good man down for long.


Thanks once again, Marshal. That was great!

[Marshal]

Yes, John Gardener was particularly scathing about the design of that Lagonda engine, a number of fundamental mistakes were made during the basic design, which they have done their best to get round, I guess we'll see the fruits of their labours later this year. In fact the only thing which seemed to have caused them more problems was the BRM P25, which needs Titanium valves if you are going to make it work reliably!

[djb]

I can't imagine the money that is involved in projects like these. Just the man-hours from the skilled craftsmen must add up to a pretty penny...definately not a poor mans hobby.
When you mentioned the Auto-Unions, you stated "recreating"-were these projects building up entire new frames and bodies from scratch, or were they using existing cars, or a mixture of the two? While I am familiar with most of the names of the cars you saw, for all of you fellows who are much more informed of the various eras that these cars come from, it must have been a very very enjoyable visit. Are their clients generally individuals, or are the majority such as the Audi reference?

[Marshal]

The Auto-Unions were mainly built from scratch, but a few of them have some original parts. Mostly though the work is carried out for private individuals, which makes you realise there really are some very rich people out there...