Vintage Thing No.26 - the Howard Pass Vincent powered Morgan

As a result of correspondence about VT8, the Vincent-HRD A series, I came across this device. It's the "plumber's nightmare" A series Vincent HRD engine plumbed into a Morgan three-wheeler. I'd seen a later Vincent engine in a Morgan for sale once and the combination - inevitably known as the Mogvin - looked just right and produced a very desirable piece of rolling sculpture. This device has something else again. It doesn't look so elegant but it has a knobbly, technical look that the later more streamlined Vincent engines don't offer.

It was built by a chap called Howard Pass and the photograph above was taken by Jeff Smith at a bent sprint at Curborough on 29th July 1973. The engine depicted had already enjoyed an illustrious history before being fitted to the Morgan.

It had originally powered a Vincent HRD owned by St John Horsfall, who is better known for exploits with Aston Martins. He also worked for MI5. On his Vincent-HRD, he set fastest time of day in atrocious weather conditions at the first post-war sprint meeting at Filton aerodrome run by the Bristol Aeroplane Co. Motor Sports Club in 1945. Jeff tells me that Horsfall's bike was broken up in the 1960s when it went through the hands of breaker Tom Somerton. I wonder if this was because the gearbox gave up?

The engine was later bought by Howard Pass who had already blown up one A series engine in his Morgan. He raced the rebuilt Mogvin or Vingan or Morcent or Vinmog throughout the seventies and into the eighties, sometimes passengered by Julia Errington. She modestly described herself as Howard's bit on the side. I assume they raced on circuits together because whenever I've seen Morgan three-wheelers at hillclimbs they don't have passengers. Reading between the lines, she was a very brave person. Eventually the engine blew up again but this time it was resurrected with some reproduction A series crankcases.

The reason Jeff knows all this is that he's tracing the history of all A series Vincent-HRDs with a view to writing a book on them. So if anyone out there knows anything about A series Vincents let me know and I'll pass your information on to him.

Jeff has a particular interest in the Howard Pass Morgan. The fist engine Howard blew up was reclaimed and now resides in Jeff's very own Vincent-HRD, on ethat rejoices in the brilliant name of "Glitterguts". I asked Jeff if this name came about becasue of an engine blow up where all the exotically polished internals came unexpectedly in to view but he said no.

Glitterguts was owned in the late 50’s by one Geoff Bilbruck of Hillgate Motors. This company carried out chrome plating and Geoff plated every bit of the bike he could and painted what he couldn't plate red. Glitterguts was the 5th A Rap built (in 1937) but a subsequent owner removed the original engine and put it in a later chassis, painted it red & chromed everything else to make another Glitterguts and this lives in Switzerland. The original chassis for Giltterguts lives with Jeff and is fitted with the first engine Howard Pass blew up. This is was 6th from the end of production in 1939, so Jeff's beast is a very early chassis with a very late engine.

I'm beginning to understand what a monumental task Jeff has taken on in tracing the histories of just the 78 A series Vincent-HRDs - three bikes and a Morgan all mixed up. But out of those four vehicles three remain today.

As the Burman gearbox was the Achilles heel of the A series Vincent-HRD, putting it into a Morgan three wheeler seems an excellent way of prolonging an orphaned engine's usefulness, even if an engine blow-up was ultimately inevitable in the hands of Howard Pass. He had a lot of fun with his machine, though, and I like his special, which believe still exists in Kent.