Tethered cars from E & M

The E&M car was considered to be something of a rarity at one stage but recently a number have come onto the market which has depressed values significantly. Below are some of the examples that have been offered for sale.


2004 Christie's sale: £4230	'Antiques Road Show' £1350 in 2008	£1500 in 2008 for this example.

A private collector owned both these cars but decided to sell one on. The 'wreck' is now undergoing serious surgery.

Serious sheet metalwork in progress to build a new body.	2008 Just £880 for a complete and original car. A fickle market?

Little is known about the Experimental & Model Company other than its address in Coventry and that the man behind the venture was a Mr. Knowles. Only one car was ever produced by E&M, the Maserati illustrated here, which was launched onto the market in 1947. The car was sold in kit form, and with the exception of the Stentor engine and ignition components, everything else was produced specifically for this model. The car was advertised through to the autumn of 1948 but then nothing more is heard of E&M until 1954 when the 'Model Maker' carried an article about wheels and tyres being available from them. These were the same as were offered with the kits, so may well have been surplus stock from the original production.


Front wheel drive, bevel gearbox.	Front and rear castings and aluminium channel.	Clutch and 'supercharger bracket'.

The front end of the car is held together by two bearing carriers which clamp the side members to the front casting. The gearbox has a bronze bearing on the input shaft but the front axle runs in the aluminium casting. Only the solid coupling holds the gearbox in place.
The drive from the three-shoe centrifugal clutch goes through a fixed bearing directly to the gearbox. With the engine mounted rigidly in the rear casting and the gearbox in the front casting, getting the driveshaft to line up and rotate freely is a nightmare. The original plan gives the option of a universal joint between the gearbox and the driveshaft but as this would then allow the gearbox to rotate on the axle it is a far from satisfactory piece of design.
At the front of the rear casting is what was grandly termed a 'supercharger bracket'. One assumes that the supercharger would be driven from the flywheel by a rubber wheel as seen on some early American cars. Quite how this would be connected to the venturi which is on the back of a 'Stentor' one can only guess at.
While most of the examples above have the 'Stentor' fitted, the 'Road Show' car has a 'Mechanair' and one turned up on eBay with an ETA 5R diesel. The 'wreck' had an extensively modified Westbury 'Ensign' roughly lodged inside it which could never have worked. The E&M clutch is designed specifically for the 'Stentor' with a precisely machined collet that tightens onto the crankshaft so that the flywheel does not clamp against the brass prop-driver which also serves as the contact breaker cam on that particular motor.
The front axle is mounted rigidly but the rear axles are sprung mounted on the two pillars that can be seen by either side of the engine. The axle mounts can rotate on these pillars and are connected to each other across the car with a plate that is used to adjust the steering of the rear wheels. An adjuster slides in a slot in the rear casting and is tightened to lock the wheels for the desired circle the car is going to be run on. A pack of thin NIFE cells sit in a carrier to the right of the driveshaft with the coil and condenser in clamps on the left and a fuel tank sits just behind the front radiator casting. The 3.75 x 5/8th solid tyres that cost just 2/- (10p) in 1954 were mounted on two-piece cast aluminium hubs, most of which had false finned brake drums on the inner half.

The kit was available fully machined and ready to assemble with hand tools for £13-2-0, but if you had a lathe and workshop facilities the kit was just £11. Quite how much work and machining was required for this option was never revealed. All parts were also available separately.

Thanks go to Gary Maslin, James Rowley Hill, Chris Cole, Alan Whitehead, and Ron Reiter for information and photo's