Economy and elegance: the glamorous ladies who loved the Rytecraft Scootacar

In "Scoop", a novel by Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1938, there is a character named Mrs. Algernon Stitch. In the first chapter we learn that she "buys the latest model of mass-produced baby car; brand new twice a year" and uses them to avoid being stuck in the London traffic blocks by mounting the curb and driving on the pavement. At one point she says "One of the things I like about these absurd cars is that you can do things with them that you couldn't do in a real one."

From Wikipedia: "The character was inspired by Waugh's friendship with the well-connected socialite, Lady Diana Cooper. Mrs. Stitch appears as a "fixer", a well-connected member of British, and especially London society, who can make things happen for people. This activity is known to all as "The Stitch Service".

I wonder if there are any photos of Lady Diana Cooper in a "baby car".

Ah, but there is a Friday-lady connection... The Sabu photo appeared in the Buckinghamshire Advertiser on 12th February 1937, captioned: “Two aspects of motoring. Foreground is Sabu, the “Elephant Boy,” in the car in which he spends much of his spare time speeding round the estate at Denham. Background is provided by Marlene Dietrich’s 57 h.p. V-16 Cadillac capable of over 100 m.p.h.” Dietrich, with her 1934 Cadillac Fleetwood Town Car, had been visiting Denham Studios to film “Knight without Armour” from August 1936. The car is still a museum exhibit.

Sabu was the orphaned son of a mahout killed in the service of the Maharajah of Mysore. He was at Denham studios because director Robert Flaherty brought him to finish Elephant Boy in late 1936, after completing most of the film in the Mysore jungle. Flaherty bought Sabu the Scoota-car to drive about the studio lot and he was still driving it when contracted to Alexander Korda to film the Drum the following year, on an annual salary said to run to four-figures – perhaps enough to buy the Cadillac.

Re Scoota-cars: they were designed for, possibly by, Mr. J. W. Shillan. Born in 1891, he led a very entrepreneurial life, seemingly not trained as an engineer but working first as an office boy at the London Corn Exchange before military service and medical discharge in 1917. Post-war, he sold car accessories for an American company before getting into boating and fun-fair industries. He was a pioneer user of boat outboard motors in Britain during 1920s selling Elto outboard motors and speedboats, which he marketed by racing, speed record tempts and publicity stunts. The first to jump a speedboat through a wall of fire in 1928, he raced them against express trains, de Havilland-flown aircraft and royalty, racing Amy Johnston in her Tiger Moth, Jason’s Quest, in August 1930. His sister was a motorboat racer and he married a Scottish lady motorboat enthusiast in 1932.

Shillan’s early speed boats were made under the Right or Wright name at a British Motor Boat Manufacturing Company (BMBMC) boatyard in Ipswich – the root of their brand name. He was the MD of the “Rytecraft” company when it first demonstrated its “one horsepower car” on a public road in 1934. He had offices at 77, Britannia House, Ampton Street, near Kings Cross, London W.C.1. and a factory at Gray’s Inn Road, as well as later in Banbury (the Britannia Engineering works and several other sites) and possibly in Southport. Ultimately all sites were divisions of Shillan’s Engineering Company Ltd.

The cars were possibly based on the design of a Dodgem-car, electric versions of which BMBMC made for its fun-fair supply division, Rytecraft Rides, but there were suggestions that they were an English-made version of an American design, as some such already in use at English pleasure beaches before 1935 were said to be American.

Possibly true, because Shillan, had an interesting history visiting America and retained many manufacturing and personal contacts there, making fifteen commercial visits between 1932 and 1944. In December 1930, his boat-pilot Charles Harrison had set a world speed record at Cowes of 52.089mph in Shillan’s 12ft Elto-Rytecraft speedboat. Buoyed-up, he entered a 12ft Rytecraft hydroplane, “Non Sequitur XI” powered by an Elto racing outboard engine, in the 1932 Miami Beach Regatta and his pilot, again Harrison, came second having been balked by a false start but was awarded the Best Performance Trophy.

Shillan’s micro-cars were first on sale for £70 from mid-July 1934, with a 98c.c. Villiers 1-h.p. motor, one-pedal control via a centrifugal clutch and automatically applied brakes (perhaps an ex-Dodgem-car safety feature), no springing and capable of 15mph. They were intended for private use, entertainment or advertising but immediately ran into local authority disputes over their “illegal” street use for the latter and were banned from carrying adverts in one seaside town.

The first car was not built for Vauxhall, having a simple peaked rectangle radiator cowl and it had two larger headlights but Vauxhall and possibly Chrysler Airflow look-alikes came soon after for promotional use. A Scoota-car with a Vauxhall-fluted bonnet toured dealerships between 1934-6. Late in 1934 Nottingham Forest captain, Tom Graham, drove it up and down Castle Boulevard in Nottingham for the local dealers. Ukulele-playing film-star George Formby drove one in Lancashire in March 1935.

Confirming their origins as fun-fair rides, Eastbourne Pleasure Gardens had a “Brooklands” track with motorised “Rytecraft Scoota-cars”, as well as “Scoota-boats” on its lake in 1935 – the latter first appeared in 1932. An electric generator-driven fairground speedway track, with eight streamlined racing Scoota-cars on an 85 by 40-foot track, could be bought before WWII. At the time, Rytecraft also made portable 14-18ft, 2-seater folding canoes (“Folcanu”), motorised and sailing dinghies, small cabin-cruisers and twelve-foot mahogany speedboats, one of which was shown at the 1937 London Motor Show.

Clearly intended for serious road use, from April 1936, the new 8ft long by 3ft 6ins wide Scoota-car had a 250-c.c. Villers engine installed in the rear with a three-speed and reverse gearbox. The engine and gearbox were mounted on a sprung subframe with chain drive to the axle and they had a 70mph speedometer – there, it was wryly suggested, to let you know how fast you were going when the brakes failed on a hill. These cars came with a two-seater body, some as a soft-top coupé and had improved lighting. Basic cars were £80. At least one had a mock Rolls-Royce radiator fitted. There were also versions of Scoota-Standard 5-cwt delivery trucks and vans with a 2.5-h.p. motor, said to give them 80mpg. The 2.5-h.p. version was recognised as a legitimate passenger car by the Ministry of Transport only in 1938, allowing Mr. S. F. Wills, a learner driver in Kent, to pass his test in one with dual control in July that year.

By 1940 they cost £95 but under wartime restrictions it’s unlikely many were made after then, when the firm began selling road safety equipment in the form of the “Rytecraft Safety-Line automatic white-line road marker”, which came out just in time to do good business making London’s WWII blackout driving safer. With three factories in London and several relocated to Banbury, they were flexible enough to make a variety of essential wartime products: marine engine propulsion units for Bailey-bridges and barges, lightweight R.A.F. lifeboats, 250/500lb bombs, shell fuses and other military equipment, as well as the B.M.B. light pedestrian-controlled cultivator/tractor and its farm implements.

Immediately post-war although Shillan reported they were too busy, short of space and skilled staff, and profitably occupied making light agricultural equipment and marine motor products for export, the last new Scoota-cars were on sale in 1946. As Britain’s largest pre-war fun-fair ride maker, BMBMC soon restarted manufacture of Scoota-car, Auto-Skoota and Scoota-boat entertainment rides, which they exported and exhibited at the 1946 Chicago Exposition. By then, production was spread over five sites in Banbury and three in London.

Shillan sold BMBMC and the rest of Shillan Engineering to Brockhouse Engineering in 1946-47 and “retired” to the Bahamas, where he sponsored low-cost housing estates and holiday camps among his continuing business interests.

Lovely Irish terrier, looks like he enjoyed his spin. Finn, our Irish terrier, certainly did.

The number plate on the Cadillac could be a French TT (Transit Temporaire) used for short-term customs duty and purchase tax exemption.