HomeSeveral of the pre-war names came up, so I thought I'd have a look at some of the facts from this period.
I'm afraid that it's all armchair research; whilst the opinions are mine, the broad facts have been abstracted from British Trial Drivers, 1929-39 by Donald Cowbourne.
It's not all plagiarism as I supplied him with some of the information back in 1997! Looking at 'our' hills, the ones that we have marshalled in recent years, Tipley seems to be post-war discovery, Simms was first used in 1933 and Windout in 1937. By the way Windout is pronounced 'wind' as in clock, not gale-force.
The facts and figures for the Class III Three-Wheeled Cyclecars can be summarised thus :-
S = Silver Award B = Bronze Award
| Year | BSA | Morgan | Others | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | P | S | B | Start | P | S | B | Start | P | S | B | |
| 1933 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 0 | - | - | - |
| 1934 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| 1935 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1937 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1938 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | - | - | - |
| 1939 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
The BSA drivers were Bert Perrigo (S), GF Povey (B) and GA Norchi (B) all driving 4-cylinder trikes and one has to assume that Bert failed on Simms, as it was a killer from day one.
In consolation the Morgan trikes did no better, but 59 out of 250 cars got up; a RWD BSA was entered, winning a Bronze, presumably not one of the 59!
For 1934 the drivers were Bert Perrigo (S), GA Norchi, EF Cope (B), AJF Leek (B)
and JH Doncaster.
EF Cope was running on a straight 1075cc, so no doubt his failure
to do better than bronze sowed the seeds for the following year.
The 'Others' in the
table were Raleighs, which didn't do too badly.
In 1935 a special Simms Hill Trophy was awarded to everyone who got up, but, sadly,
no BSAs in spite of EF Cope having his extra engine of 250cc in the tail driving
the back wheel.
He bettered his score of the previous year and got a Silver and LA Tidy
got a Bronze.
One of the Morgan drivers did get up Simms, but must have failed elsewhere
as he only got a Bronze overall.
There was no event in the calendar year of 1936 because the date was slipped by a few days from December 1935 to January 1937. EF Cope was the only BSA and he finally got up Simms, cleaning everything and beating the Morgans for a Premier Award. What is more he did exactly the same thing in 1938, again being the sole BSA entry.
By 1939 EF Cope's result seemed inevitable - he again won a Premier Award over all the
other Threewheeler competition.
For this year Simms was optional, which seems strange
until you read the rules, which allowed you to drop a failure on another hill from your
score-card if you did get up it.
We don't know if EF Cope went up it or not in achieving
his Premier Award, suffice to say that no other trike did.
The other BSA was driven by
PG Geare who got a Silver.
The 'Others' in the table were yet another BSA Trike entered
by BDS Ginn as Menace - it had a shaft arrangement driving the rear wheel,
but only the standard 1075cc, and a funny thing called the Ulster Barrow built from
Raleigh and James parts with an Austin 7 engine, an arrangement that seemed to work
as it got a Silver.
So in the late 1930s EF Cope was a star beating all-comers, In those 6 years no-one else won a Premier Award in a trike. He climbed Simms in 1937, 1938 and probably 1939, only being equalled by a single ascent by a Mog in 1935.
Looking at the wider world of trialling EF Cope also did many Edinburgh and Land's End
trials and having won Premier Awards in the 1938 Land's End and Edinburgh trial, plus a
Premier for the Exeter early in 1939.
His greatest achievement was undoubtedly winning a coveted triple trophy, we think it was
either 1938 or '39, this trophy consists of a silver signpost with three signs pointing to Land's end,
Exeter and Edinburgh, this trophy has been striven after over the years by many, but obtained by a very few
triallists, and in a letter to Roy Gillette (on this web-site) he relates how he regarded it as his finest
and most valued trophy.
Frank's trike probably no longer exists (see his letter), but if it was ever found
the finder would possess a unique piece of BSA history.
