Horstman Super Sports: proof of concept

By Simon Hucknall

| 30 May 2025

Classic & Sports Car – Horstman Super Sports: proof of concept

The mettle of so many pre-war racing machines was proven on Brooklands’ banked circuit that to merely drive one today along a level ribbon of asphalt seems disingenuous.

So, the fact that the 1921 Horstman Super Sports we’re aboard is fast approaching a four-lane wall of track, 25° steep and curving sharply to the left, is as fitting to this vehicle’s provenance as it is mildly perturbing to its driver.

We’re only running at around two-thirds velocity compared with what the car would have managed more than a century ago, but the angle of turn is way more severe than the Members’ Banking.

Add the strident chorus of this racer’s open exhaust, its kart-like steering and brakes that only live in hope, and it offers an approximation of what heroic pilots of yore would have experienced.

The Horstman Super Sports has a polished-aluminium, two-seater body

At the inaugural Brooklands 200 Mile Race in 1921, the Super Sports’ creator, Sidney Horstmann, was set to have been one such driver – quite possibly in this very car.

That he passed on the opportunity to compete at the last minute, with three other Horstmans already on the starting grid, perhaps explains why TA 1798, which has no record of any subsequent race history, is now thought to be the sole survivor of its kind.

It currently resides at the Great British Car Journey in Derbyshire, and if that sounds like a curious home for a Teutonic-sounding marque, it is not: Horstman is as British as roast beef and Bentley.

‘It was enough for Horstman to claim that it could now offer “the fastest British light car” to customers’

Sidney’s father, Gustav Horstmann, was of Prussian descent, but moved to Britain from Westphalia in 1853.

He established himself as a watchmaker in Bath and, as his son recalled years later: ‘His nimble brain [was] forever visualising new approaches to the everyday problems of life.’

It was a mindset that Sidney, born in 1881, inherited and applied to his chosen career in the emerging car industry.

By 1900, he had designed and built a single-cylinder combustion engine for cyclecars, and by 1903 he’d helped set up the Bath Garage and Motor Company.

The race-bred Horstman Super Sports has a loud, open exhaust

In 1906, he established his own business – the Horstmann Car Company (the second ‘n’ was dropped after WW1 to make it less Germanic) – in Monmouth Place, Bath.

Like his father, Sidney was an innovator.

At a time when the motor car was evolving at a Herculean rate, bold engineering solutions were vital to stand out from a rapidly growing crowd.

Sidney’s initial design for a two-speed gearbox in a Belgian FN motorcycle soon led to thoughts of an FN-powered cyclecar, using his patented transmission, and also a ‘sprung road wheel’ with a flexible rim and sprung spokes.

The Horstman Super Sports has a Coventry-Simplex ‘four’, mounted well forward in the chassis

While the wheel proved too unreliable for production, it at least provided the impetus for Sidney to develop his first four-wheeled car, the Horstmann 8.9hp, which was previewed at the 1913 Motor Show in Olympia.

Costing £145, the open two-seater, with dickey, was presented as: ‘The car with the most novel features.’

Powered by a Horstmann-designed 1-litre, four-cylinder engine with horizontal valves and a detachable cylinder head, the car wowed with its unique ‘kick-start’.

Effectively an Archimedean screw arrangement, it did away with the need for a hand-crank, with one press of a pedal providing three turns of the engine.

The Horstman Super Sports has a large, four-spoke steering wheel, which dominates the cramped cockpit

Unusually, the front chassis member was replaced by an aluminium tray, doubling as a sump and a mounting point for the pedals, radiator and steering gear.

It gave Horstmann the marketing fillip it needed, and by the outbreak of WW1 the company was offering a three-car range: the Modèle de Luxe, Coupé and Colonial, costing from 165 to 200 guineas.

Like many motor manufacturers, Sidney Horstmann thrived during the war years, supplanting production of cars with that of screw-thread gauges, and his efforts were recognised at the end of hostilities with an MBE for services to the nation.

However, despite launching a new four-seater model – using a more cost-efficient Coventry-Simplex engine – when car production recommenced in 1919, Horstman (as it had by then become known) soon fell victim to Britain’s post-war boom-then-bust economy and was in receivership by 1921.

The Horstman Super Sports has precise, super-fast steering

It says much about Sidney’s can-do spirit that not only was the company ‘re-established on a sound financial footing’ (according to an announcement in Motor Trader the following year), but it had also done so while embarking on a proper campaign in the motorsport arena.

Which brings us back to ‘our’ now-unique Super Sports model.

Despite Horstman being painfully under-resourced, motorsport was seen as crucial to survival in a marketplace that respected not only sporting prowess, but also the durability necessary to succeed in competition.

When Wallace Douglas Hawkes approached Sidney to build him a racer for the Coupe des Voiturettes at Le Mans in September 1921, it presented a tantalising challenge, especially with the race less than three weeks away.

The Horstman Super Sports has long gear ratios but low weight

Reputedly, Horstmann designed and built the car – which was powered by a 1496cc British Anzani sidevalve ‘four’ and even equipped with front-wheel brakes – in 11 days, leaving Hawkes just enough time to drive it to Le Mans and fettle the car for the race.

Rear-axle failure meant retirement on the day, but Hawkes and Horstmann saw the potential and wasted no time in launching a more serious assault at what was to be Britain’s first circuit-based long-distance fixture: the Junior Car Club’s 200 Mile Race at Brooklands.

With scarcely a month to prepare for the 22 October event, Horstman pulled out all the stops and, along with Hawkes’ Anzani-engined Le Mans car, the factory fielded three more Super Sports, all using four-cylinder Coventry-Simplex motors with external inlet manifolds fed by Solex carburettors.

There’s a hint of Vauxhall Prince Henry in the Horstman’s V-shaped radiator

The rather formal-looking radiator cowls were fluted at the top and V-shaped like a pre-war Vauxhall Prince Henry’s, and all cars sported long, streamlined bodies, along which ran external exhausts.

The original plan had been for Sidney to race in one of these – believed to be ‘our’ car – with CFA Temple and TL Edwards piloting the other two factory entries.

But only three Super Sports left the startline that day, with Horstmann perhaps taking a step back to support, rather than compete with, the other drivers.

TL Edwards’ 1498cc Horstman at Brooklands for the Junior Car Club’s inaugural 200 Mile Race, 22 October 1921 © Getty

They were up against formidable opposition.

Entered in the largest 1.5-litre class (there was also a sub-1100cc group), the Horstmans were vying with the likes of Henry Segrave, Malcolm Campbell and Kenelm Lee Guinness in their mighty twin-overhead-cam Talbot-Darracqs, plus a brace of Bugattis driven by Pierre de Vizcaya and Jacques Mones-Maury.

It was a momentous event, as Bill Boddy described in his 1947 book The 200 Mile Race: ‘Ordinary motorists were given the opportunity of seeing racing light cars lapping Brooklands at nearly twice the speed that their own small cars could attain flat-out – and attempting to do so for a distance greater than most people covered in a day.

‘Little wonder that 6630 spectators, in 1462 cars and 198 motorcycles, made their way to Weybridge on Saturday morning.’

The Horstman averaged 82mph for 200 miles at Brooklands in 1921, when equipped with an Anzani engine and no front brakes

For Horstman, the event was a qualified success.

Despite Edwards’ car retiring after just 18 laps with engine problems, and Temple following suit soon after with a broken conrod, Hawkes’ sole Anzani-powered Super Sports finished fifth, behind the trio of Talbot-Darracqs and Vizcaya’s Bugatti, averaging an impressive 82.37mph – just under 7mph less than that of Segrave’s winning car.

It was enough for Horstman to claim that it could now offer customers ‘the fastest British light car’ by way of a factory reproduction.

The model first appeared in Horstman’s 1922 advertising, with the option of either an Anzani 1498cc, 11.9hp engine or ‘our’ car’s Coventry-Simplex 1341cc, 10.5hp unit.

The Horstman Super Sports has a tapered tail that extends well beyond the rear axle

The price of £500 included the polished-aluminium two-seater body, with running boards and light wings that were removable for competition.

Reinforcing its dual-purpose road/race role were an adjustable windscreen, hood, lighting set and spare wheel.

What was not included was Horstmann’s kick-starter – perhaps to maintain the car’s sylphlike 1344lb (610kg) weight – nor a warranty of any type.

‘The Horstman Super Sports certainly sounds as if it means business, emitting a sharp report from the open exhaust running down the nearside bodywork’

Alas, it appears that the Super Sports was born into the company’s competition nadir.

A lack of funds prevented an entry in the following year’s JCC race, and in 1923 Temple’s sole entry failed to finish.

Four Horstmans – all with Anzani engines, but two using Alfa Romeo superchargers and Memini carburettors – entered the 1924 fixture, which was the last held on Brooklands’ oval circuit, yet only the blown car of Major Coe finished, coming in 12th at an 81.62mph average, more than 20mph down on the leading Darracqs.

It was perhaps symptomatic of Horstman’s thriving ambition, versus its perennial under-funding, that the company was by then on a glide path towards obscurity – at least for car manufacturing.

Competition outings cemented Horstman’s early reputation

All of which rather adds to the mystique surrounding TA 1798, thought to be the only remaining Horstman Super Sports.

The car’s first recorded private owner, a Mr Harries of Rose Hall in Exning, Suffolk, appears in the Horstman’s logbook on 12 February 1925.

However, it was first registered in Devon with its still-current number in around August 1921 – two months before the 200 Mile Race – based on research from the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs’ Ian Edmunds, who identified its period-correct sequence.

This suggests that it was the first of the three Coventry-Simplex-engined cars to be built, and most likely the one prepared for Sidney Horstmann’s aborted drive at Brooklands.

‘At a time when the motor car was evolving at a Herculean rate, bold engineering solutions were vital to stand out from the crowd’

Harries kept the car for three years, before selling it to John Hill of Wootton Bassett, who became its keeper for the following 36 years.

In 1964, Geoffrey Plaister – another Wootton Bassett resident – took on the Super Sports, and after his death in 2017 it was transferred to The Plaister Charitable Foundation, which still owns the car today.

When Richard Usher and his team at the Great British Car Journey were offered the Horstman for display, it was on condition that it would be made driveable once again.

The Horstman stamp on the differential housing is the only giveaway

Because the engine had been in effect locked solid, after once being run on Castrol R and not correctly flushed prior to long-term storage, that was a bigger challenge than the team first envisaged.

But, thanks to the efforts of the museum’s Mark Lawrence and Luke Henshaw, the Horstman is now in fine fettle and ready for its first proper run.

Approach the Super Sports for the first time and it appears dainty, bordering on flimsy.

From the rear, its polished-aluminium body stretches to a point two feet or more aft of the rear axle, its diff housing’s ‘Horstmann’-stamped legend giving the only clue to the car’s identity.

The Horstman Super Sports has a wooden dashboard

At the front, the distinctive finned, arrow-shaped radiator cowl looks quite urbane compared with the pared-down, high-mounted bodywork that follows behind it.

Disc wheels (wires were an option) wear the skinniest Dunlop Cord 710 x 90 tyres, and I’ll try not to dwell on the microscopic rear brake drums (no front stoppers here).

Under the bonnet, the monobloc Coventry-Simplex motor is mounted well forward in the chassis; on its offside, intriguingly, the steering column’s spline rotates in a toothed quadrant, which results in some memorable handling characteristics.

The Horstman Super Sports has outboard levers for the brake and gears

Inside, dials for speed, time, revs, oil pressure and amps are set into an austere wooden dash behind a simple four-spoke steering wheel.

Levers for the gears and brakes are outboard – just as well, given how narrow the cabin is – and the centre-throttle pedal arrangement has your legs stretched out before you, once snuggled into the leather bucket seat.

Richard Usher admits that there’s still some tweaking needed for the Horstman to run optimally.

Once started on the crank, however, it certainly sounds as if it means business, emitting a sharp report from the open exhaust running down the nearside bodywork.

Simple switchgear and a dial for amps are set into a plate on the Horstman’s dashboard

Select first (forward and away from you) and let in the surprisingly smooth cone clutch, then you need to give the engine plenty of beans before moving to second (a reverse dogleg towards the body) due to the tall gearing; ditto for third, which is straight ahead of second.

While the tachometer is inoperative today, it’s clear that the only way Hawkes et al would have achieved 80mph-plus speeds was with such high ratios that it would have meant working the engine very hard under acceleration.

Topping out at around 50mph today gives us a feel for how the car would have performed, though.

The steering is light at all speeds, and as we pitch into the test track’s steep banking for the first time, its off-centre precision somewhat takes you by surprise: allied to the lack of mass, it’s important to take care not to over-steer until you become accustomed to it.

The Horstman Super Sports squeezes two leather bucket seats into its narrow cabin

And the brakes? I doubt they would have inspired much confidence back in the day, and they definitely have not improved with age, meaning that you are better off using the hand-lever for retardation.

But around the Brooklands oval, who would have cared?

Like so many car makers of its ilk in the inter-war years, Horstman’s innovation and ambition exceeded its ability to generate the funds needed to finance either.

Despite laudable attempts to be at the leading edge of technology with its products (for example, Horstman was one of the first manufacturers to productionise a hydraulically operated, four-wheel braking system), by 1924 a second gloomy period of receivership had gripped the company.

In March of the following year, Horstman Cars Limited was put into compulsory liquidation, with the last of its 1400-car production sold in 1929.

Fortunately, the rare Super Sport we have been driving will now find a whole new audience, thanks to its place at the Great British Car Journey, and one of this country’s near-forgotten automotive gems will hopefully soon be back on the map once again.

Images: Max Edleston

Thanks to: The Plaister Charitable Foundation; Great British Car Journey; Toyota Manufacturing UK