Frazer Nash Mille Miglia: one size fits all

By Julian Balme

Features

| 12 Oct 2023

Classic & Sports Car – Frazer Nash Mille Miglia: one size fits all

There’s a much-used phrase: they were far simpler times back then.

A fine illustration of that is this Frazer Nash Mille Miglia.

Imagine owning a car today that was capable of competitively contesting not one, but two sporting disciplines.

Half Toyota GR Yaris, half Aston Martin Vantage GTE – they simply don’t exist.

A Frazer Nash Mille Miglia finished sixth in the famous Italian road race in 1951

Yet back in 1954, this particular roadster took on both the RAC Rally and the British Empire Trophy at Oulton Park within weeks of each other.

It wasn’t alone, either.

In the early ’50s, mass-produced sports cars such as the Jaguar XK120, TR2 and Healey 100 were all expected to be equally at home charging up Rest and Be Thankful or dodging the oil drums dotted around Silverstone’s airfield circuit.

There was certainly no need for a two-car garage.

This one-of-two ‘wide-bodied’ Frazer Nash has plenty of space in the cabin

Not that the average austerity-ravaged British driver of the post-war era could afford such a high-ticket item as the tailor-made Nash.

If a TR2 at £900 all-in was seen as an indulgence, then the £3307 (£2250 less 10% ex-works, plus 66% Purchase Tax) price-tag of the Mille Miglia was a sign of good fortune beyond the wildest imagination of the majority of the nation.

The fast and glamorous XK120 roadster was barely £1500; could a handbuilt car from Isleworth really be twice as good?

‘On the move it feels 10 years younger than its true vintage, and closer to a well-built Lotus of the late ’50s than its contemporaries’

To be fair, it’s not dissimilar to comparing a suit bought on the high street with a bespoke item from Savile Row and, truth be told, the Frazer Nash was probably closer to a Jaguar C-type in its attributes, value and scarcity.

You can almost envisage the company’s owners, the Aldington brothers – Harold, known as ‘Aldy’, Bill and Donald – dressed in beautifully cut, double-breasted pinstripe suits with tape measures draped around their necks, enquiring: “Would Sir prefer his Frazer Nash to be a High-Speed, or a Fast Tourer?”

To most, the distinction in description would be negligible, but their fastidious eye for detail meant that each model did exactly what it was described as doing.

A retrofitted windscreen was replaced by an aeroscreen for the Frazer Nash Mille Miglia’s 1953 circuit debut at Goodwood

Hence: “If Sir wanted to enter a Formula Two race as well as a sports car race, then he would be better off with our High-Speed or Competition model.

“But should Sir want to carry a passenger, maybe contest a rally and enjoy a little more civility, we would recommend our Fast Tourer or Mille Miglia.”

Charming though this would-be scenario may be, it wasn’t conducive to building a lot of motor cars.

Although subject to conjecture, it’s generally given that only 85 examples of all models emerged from the firm’s Falcon Works premises after WW2, and certainly only 14 of the Mille Miglia (including three variants) – of which the car featured here is one of the last.

Much of the boot is taken up by the spare wheel

The overriding philosophy, though, was that a Frazer Nash was a sports car capable of being driven to the circuit, raced at the sharp end and then driven home.

There was no nonsense about not letting a customer have the latest factory upgrades – these were positively encouraged, not least because the emphasis was very much on supplying a vehicle for the discerning privateer rather than selling cars to sponsor the works entries.

Besides, Aldy’s competition days were all but behind him.

The Frazer Nash Mille Miglia’s big Bristol engine requires an intake above the carburettors

As a young salesman working for Frazer Nash Ltd, Harold had mixed with the Brooklands set and subsequently caught the motorsport bug, becoming a useful pedaller both at the Surrey Mecca and further afield on trials such as the Alpine, where he scored a trio of successes netting the Coupe des Glaciers on each venture between 1932 and ’34.

By that time he, along with brother Don, had become joint MD of AFN (formerly Frazer Nash Cars) and, after witnessing the success of BMW first-hand, signed an agreement to become the Eisenach company’s exclusive agent in the UK.

Better known as a motorcycle manufacturer to British enthusiasts, the marque’s imported cars were branded Frazer Nash-BMW and badged accordingly, initially with the 315/319 and then the 328.

The Bristol engine’s firing order is recorded on a plaque in the Frazer Nash Mille Miglia

It was the latter that would become so influential to the brothers’ future, but not before the Second World War had intervened.

Like any great tailor’s work, the Aldingtons’ products possessed a distinctive cut, and from war’s end until the mid-’50s they used more or less the same materials: a universal chassis and a Bristol 2-litre engine.

An early derivative of this six-cylinder powerplant had been the pearl at the heart of the BMW 328 and, with hostilities over, Aldy was determined that it should propel his future endeavours.

But to do that he needed both a manufacturer and an engineer to develop not only the engine but the chassis, too. Within no time at all, he had both.

The 2-litre Bristol ‘six’ is smooth and torquey

The relationship between automobile and aircraft makers intensified following the war, particularly where outright performance was craved by the former, either in design principals or simply the type and quality of metals used.

Conversations between Aldy and the Bristol Aeroplane Company, which was looking to expand its portfolio by manufacturing cars, quickly culminated with the acquisition of AFN in July 1945.

A conflict over the type of cars the two firms wanted to produce meant the marriage lasted barely three years, but it was incredibly beneficial to both parties, the development and manufacture of the 1971cc Bristol engine being at its core.

‘The philosophy was that a Frazer Nash was a sports car capable of being driven to a circuit, raced at the sharp end, then driven home’

A lot of the modifications incorporated into the unit had been pioneered in Germany with BMW’s factory 1940 Mille Miglia entries, an example of which had been raced by Aldy in Hamburg.

He had suffered a crash with the Touring-bodied white sports car but, before it could be repaired and sent to AFN, Hitler had set about Poland.

Legend has it that Aldy returned to Germany, hot on the heels of the Allies and while still on active duty, to recover the car and bring it to England under the guise of it being his own.

Peter Reece racing this Frazer Nash Mille Miglia in the 1954 British Empire Trophy at Oulton Park © Frazer Nash Archive

It took him a little longer, but he also managed to persuade Fritz Fiedler – formerly in overall command of the car side of BMW, where he specialised in the development of chassis, suspension and aerodynamic design – to come to Britain, too.

In 1947 he joined AFN Ltd and, although he worked as a consultant on Bristol’s Type 400 project, most of his work was at Isleworth with the Aldingtons’ team.

The following October, the first post-war Frazer Nash model was presented to the public at the London Motor Show.

This Mille Miglia fresh out of the AFN factory in July 1952 © Frazer Nash Archive

Very much a clear descendant of the ‘White Car’, as the ex-BMW works 328 became known, it featured a narrow two-seater body sitting on top of, according to Doug Blain in a 1965 edition of Road & Track magazine: ‘A 5.5in silicon-manganese tubular frame with the same high-mounted transverse-leaf front suspension, but brakes and rear springing were improved.’

As on the Bristol, torsion bars replaced the 328’s cart springs, with a central A-bracket location.

The brakes were hydraulically operated Alfin drums with ventilated backplates.

Rack-and-pinion steering remained, but the gearbox, back axle and dampers were built and uprated by Bristol.

The fuel-filler cap sits behind the passenger seat

As for the engine, with fresh UK castings and a 9.5:1 compression ratio, the straight-six gave 120bhp at 5500rpm, netting the High Speed Competition Model immediate success on the race track.

Painted bright red, the fourth chassis was entered into the 1949 Le Mans 24 Hours for Norman Culpan and Aldy who, then aged 47, would make this his final race.

They finished third, whereupon the car was rechristened the Le Mans Replica, the cycle-winged torpedo immediately becoming the marque’s poster child.

Revealed as the Fast Tourer in 1948, this streamlined Frazer Nash was renamed Mille Miglia the following year

It also started a trend whereby the company’s competition successes would be celebrated in the naming of their subsequent models, hence the Sebring, Targa Florio and Mille Miglia.

Designed by ‘Dr’ Fiedler (he wasn’t a doctor, but the team in Isleworth all referred to him as such), an early prototype was built in 1947 and sent to Italy to be bodied by Touring Superleggera of Milan, then subsequently displayed at the 1948 Geneva Salon.

Straight off the stand it was sold to the Shah of Iran (and hasn’t been seen since), but, unlike its sibling, it wore an all-enveloping body and would be a portent of the Fast Tourer, revealed at the 1948 London Motor Show.

‘The Mille Miglia featured a low, streamlined body style and is acknowledged as being the prettiest of the various models’

It was renamed the Mille Miglia for the following year’s Earls Court event, but that was slightly premature given that it was 1951 before Franco Cortese would be a class runner-up and finish sixth overall with a Frazer Nash in the Italian road race.

Unlike the Le Mans Replica, the Mille Miglia featured a low, streamlined aluminium body but on the same A-shaped tubular chassis that was, on the first four cars, extended under the rear axle to lower the overall height.

The delicate lines cleverly concealed the tall Bristol engine, needing only a small intake over the high carburettors, and it is universally acknowledged as being the prettiest of the various models – the stylists of the subsequent MGA clearly agreed.

For a car rooted in the 1930s, the Frazer Nash Mille Miglia feels surprisingly modern

All but two cars (including this one) carried the spare wheel in the front nearside wing to give more luggage capacity in the boot – a neat design solution adopted by Bristol four years later on the 404.

Registered YMC 81, this Mille Miglia was completed and photographed in front of AFN in July 1952 before dispatch to a mysterious firm called AS Orr & Co in Manchester (the company was wound up in 1991).

Even more mysteriously, the car was returned to AFN the following May having not appeared in any sporting events.

The Frazer Nash’s dual personality means that you could comfortably drive it home after thrashing it up a hillclimb

That all changed with its next owner, Jack Broadhead.

He would compete with it in rallies along with Peter Reece, who also got to use the car for circuit racing.

At that stage, this particular Mille Miglia didn’t look nearly as stylish as it does today.

Painted Bristol Maroon and with a dark brown leather interior, it was fitted with an Austin rear axle (an item adopted by later Nashes) and wore the same manufacturer’s bolt-on steel wheels, plus an upright afterthought of a windscreen and an even more ill-considered soft-top.

This Frazer Nash has a pleasingly busy competition history

Not that these last two were seen on the car for long.

Apart from the London Rally of 1953 and the following year’s RAC Rally, the gawky windscreen was replaced by a cut-down aeroscreen for serious competition work, such as its circuit debut at Goodwood in the 1953 Nine Hours.

Teamed with Gil Tyrer, Reece brought YMC home in 14th overall and seventh in the under-2-litre group against some formidable opposition – most of which were in their class, which included five Nashes.

The thin-rimmed wheel augments the Frazer Nash’s already accommodating cockpit

Within a month, the Reece/Broadhead pairing had taken a class win in the London Rally with YMC, and 1954 started with a similar programme: the RAC Rally in March, and the Oulton Park Empire Trophy in April, with Reece finishing sixth in the first heat of the latter but retiring from the final.

By July and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, YMC had acquired a set of wire wheels and the engine had been uprated to BS1 specification.

Not that it resulted in success – the Nash failed to finish – and by the end of the year the MM’s frontline duties as a racing car were over.

A simple set of dials adorn the Frazer Nash’s exquisite dashboard

Numerous keepers followed, but it was in the mid-’80s, when owned by keen Nash fancier Frank Sytner, that Mille Miglia chassis 166 was reinvigorated with a new dark-green paintjob and a matching leather interior.

At some stage the wire wheels were painted the same deep green.

No two Nashes are the same – as a works brochure proudly states, ‘all bodies are Frazer Nash designed, built and finished, entirely by hand at our works’ – but of the 11 true Mille Miglias, YMC 81, in its current livery, is one of the most handsome.

The gearbox is a minor weakness in the Frazer Nash Mille Miglia’s near-perfect package

The earlier cars looked squashed, with incoherent front-end styling, but by the end of production, the craftsmen at the Falcon Works had perfected their art with this example, one of two ‘wide-bodied’ cars.

This not only improved the overall proportions, but also gave the cabin more room.

The 64-million-dollar question was always: ‘Does it drive as well as it looks?’

In short, better.

Few people got to find out in period, and just as few get the chance these days, so it is an illuminating morning when I finally get behind the wheel of my first Frazer Nash.

The chassis plate documents the morphing of Frazer Nash into AFN

Slipping into the cockpit is much the same as putting on a suit jacket – I don’t have to look in a mirror to know it fits perfectly.

Unlike in so many cars of the era, and aided by the cutaways on either side, my knees aren’t up against the underside of the dashboard, and my long legs are amply accommodated in the footwells of the roomy but homely cockpit.

The pedals are close, as you’d expect of a competition car, yet not so tight that they can’t be operated with a sensible brogue.

The 2-litre Bristol engine sounds great, especially above 4000rpm

Straight ahead there is the most wonderful, thin-rimmed steering wheel in front of an engine-turned dash that again delights with its symmetry and layout.

It hasn’t even fired up yet and already I’m smitten.

I haven’t had a lot of experience of the 2-litre Bristol engine, yet I’m blown away by just how great it is.

The three twin-choke Solex carbs deliver without fuss, whether hot or cold, and once you get it above 4000rpm it just sounds glorious.

‘Weighing in at 1850lb, everything is light, precise and beautifully balanced’

It’s never going to pin you back in your seat, but the combination of torque, smooth power delivery and plain driveability makes it feel quite modern – and certainly not a product with its roots in the 1930s.

In fact, that’s the overwhelming impression of the Mille Miglia once on the move: it feels 10 years younger than its true vintage, and much closer to a well-built Lotus of the late 1950s than its contemporaries from the likes of Jaguar.

Weighing in at 1850lb, everything is light, precise and beautifully balanced.

The steering is delicate and direct, and there is never any doubt over it pulling up straight or the brakes losing their bite.

The Frazer Nash’s superb road manners are aided by its delicate steering

The handling is exemplary, although being confined to the public highway, we weren’t about to find its limits.

But a spirited early morning cross-country run to, say, Prescott or some other motorsport venue, would be just as exhilarating as the competition itself in the Nash.

Being true to the era of its creation, the ride is relatively soft and not the rock-solid, Tarmac-skimming set-up so beloved by today’s historic-racing brigade, and I’m not sure how well it would fare in such an arena.

If you were desperate to nit-pick, you could be slightly critical of the gearbox in the context of the rest of the package, but it is still streaks ahead of the opposition.

This handsome Mille Miglia was given its dark-green paintjob in the 1980s

No wonder Mike Hawthorn was quoted in The Motor as saying what enormous fun he’d had setting the fastest lap in Len Potter’s Mille Miglia during the 1952 Empire Trophy, whereas in contrast he seldom felt anything other than a combination of terror and boredom at the wheel of any of Ferrari’s faster sports-racers.

As for me, being someone who is never content with just one car and invariably buys too many, too cheaply, the Nash is a revelation.

I suddenly realise where I have been going wrong all these years.

As the late, great Dame Vivienne Westwood used to demand: pay more, but buy once and buy well.

She would have got along well with Aldy.

Images: Luc Lacey

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