After my umpteenth pass for photographs on Brooklands’ parched and gritty banking, confidence in this one-off Aston Martin hybrid racer is growing.
Not to red-mist levels, but enough to safely rotate the car’s rear end progressively wider each time I make a return loop.
I’m driving in 35°C heat, but pedalling this machine is such a joyous experience that it hasn’t quite registered that I’m now sitting in a four-wheeled furnace.
When reality dawns, it does so quickly and painfully: first, using a stockinged right foot to manipulate the centre throttle – in effect a loop of metal pivoting under the steering column – is soon going to end in a burnt big toe; and while photographer Jack may like a bit of sideways action, on two occasions my right elbow makes contact with the searingly hot exhaust running along the outer bodywork as I wrangle the large wheel to make a turn.
The Aston Martin Halford Special returns to its spiritual home
Thoughts of Bentley Boy ‘Tim’ Birkin perishing under similar circumstances cross my mind… Perhaps now is the time to trade bravado for water and ice packs.
I doubt if Major Frank Halford would have withered quite so rapidly at this same location, and in this very same car, exactly a century ago while participating in the 1926 British Grand Prix of the Royal Automobile Club.
This unique Aston Martin is one of only four complete cars known to survive from that first Grand Prix to be held on British shores.
Known as the Halford Special, this machine – or at least its chassis, 1916 – had already played an important part in Aston Martin’s formative years by underpinning the first new car sold by the company to a paying customer, one WG Barlow, in 1923.
The Aston Martin Halford Special’s riding mechanic draws the short straw in terms of comfort
Originally bodied as a tourer and registered OR 1, it was based on a pre-WW1 design and powered by a 1.5-litre, sidevalve four-cylinder engine with around 45bhp.
Details of its early outings are scarce, but it competed three times at Brooklands in its first year and at the Aston Clinton hillclimb.
But in 1924, while being driven by George Eyston at a voiturette event in Boulogne, it crashed, almost ending its racing career. Which is where Major Frank Bernard Halford enters the story.
Born in 1894, Halford was raised in Nottingham, and after joining the Royal Flying Corps in WW1 he enjoyed an early victory at Brooklands, winning the all-forces motorcycle race at the circuit – the only form of competition permitted during hostilities.
Major Frank Halford’s sophisticated Aston Martin Special was a twin-cam straight-six pioneer
This was followed by a distinguished career in aero engineering, first at Farnborough, then with Beardmore and Arrol-Johnston.
Halford was also the ‘H’ in the BHP aero-engine consortium that created the Cirrus unit for de Havilland.
His passion for motorcycles remained, and in 1922 Halford was commissioned to design a machine for, surprisingly, Vauxhall.
However, its engineering, incorporating a four-cylinder engine and shaft drive, was a little too advanced to be commercially viable, and only two prototype ’bikes were made before the project was sold off.
The Aston Martin Halford Special offers no respite from the sun on a hot day
A year later, Halford partnered with Harry Ricardo to create a London-based engineering consultancy, which among many other commissions was responsible for the de Havilland Gipsy’s air-cooled, in-line engines and Napier’s liquid-cooled H24 Sabre.
In 1924, it was this near-unparalleled wealth of engineering nous that led Halford to create the car you see here.
After purchasing Eyston’s crashed 1.5-litre tourer, Halford deemed the car’s rolling chassis – complete with a then-novel four-wheel braking system, Hartford dampers and semi-elliptic springs all round – to be fit for purpose.
The Aston Martin Halford Special’s advanced six-cylinder engine has twin overhead camshafts; this is the original unit, recovered after serving time installed in a speedboat
The wrecked tourer body was replaced by a rather svelte, ’screenless two-seater item, sporting an elegant boat-tail.
When it came to the engine, though, what was to replace Aston’s humble ‘four’ was not only in a different league, but also, in its initial guise, entirely without precedent.
Halford’s new unit retained a displacement of 1.5 litres, but now had six cylinders in line, cast into an aluminium block with a crankcase of the same material, and dome-top pistons.
The engine’s iron head used double overhead camshafts, with two 12mm spark plugs and two inclined valves per cylinder.
‘With lots of revs we tear up the banking, working the steering hard given we’re nowhere near the 120mph “hands-off” nirvana’
For a mid-’20s design it was off the scale – and potent, producing around 120bhp.
But the Halford engine’s crowning glory was its use of a turbocharger, which broke new ground and made the Aston Martin Halford (its initial nomenclature) the first racing car to employ such technology.
However, the system was also 40 years ahead of its time – at least for a car application – and quickly proved unreliable.
A Roots-type Berk supercharger replaced it, and after racing twice at Brooklands in 1925 (in the August BARC and the JCC 200 Mile races), the radiator was swapped for a wider and deeper unit.
The Aston Martin Halford Special in action © Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd
The following year, 1926, was to be truly memorable.
With the car now named the AM-Halford Special, Halford seemingly entered every race he could at the Weybridge circuit, and he nearly always landed on the podium: three races at the Whitsun Meeting, scoring a win and two thirds; three more at the Easter Meeting, with a first and two thirds; and a first and two seconds (plus one unclassified) at the BARC’s Summer Meeting.
Halford’s average speeds were equally impressive, ranging from 102.04mph to 109.94mph.
The jewel in Brooklands’ crown for 1926 was the British Grand Prix of the Royal Automobile Club, held on 7 August.
Major Halford at the wheel of his Aston Martin Special © Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd
A round of the World Championship of Makes had been offered the year before, but not taken up, making 1926’s race the inaugural GP on home ground.
New regulations limited engine capacity to 1.5 litres, but supercharging and the number of cylinders were free.
The circuit was also revised for this prestigious race, with two temporary sandbank chicanes built on the Finishing Straight, meaning the full length of the Members’ Banking was no longer employed and a lap was reduced from 2.767 to 2.6 miles.
All the same, with a race length of 110 laps (287 miles), it was to be no less than gruelling for competitors, all of whom had to complete the full distance no matter how far they lagged behind the winner.
Crowds marvel at the Aston Martin Halford Special at the bottom of Brooklands’ Test Hill © Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd
Despite the race’s cachet, only 13 cars entered, and by the time Brooklands’ Albert ‘Ebby’ Ebblewhite dropped his starting flag, only nine made up the chaotic gaggle that pounded along the Members’ Banking for the first time.
You can imagine that Major Halford might have been cowed by some of the opposition – Robert Sénéchal and Louis Wagner in their fearsome straight-eight, 170bhp Delage 15-S-8 and Malcolm Campbell in his Bugatti Type 39A, to name but two – but based on the Halford Special’s roll-call of successes prior to the race, he must have felt reasonably assured of a good finish.
Other entrants included Talbot’s three-car team – Henry Segrave, Albert Divo and Jules Moriceau – plus Eyston in an Anzani-engined Aston Martin, and Robert Benoist and André Dubonnet in the second of three Delages.
The Aston Martin Halford Special’s long, louvred bonnet is removable in sections for engine access
Brooklands’ slightly revised GP circuit had drivers leaving the startline on the Finishing Straight, powering down the remainder of the Members’ Banking then along Railway Straight and on to the Byfleet Banking.
Where they would normally fork right to complete the other section of Members’ Banking, they now forked left on to the Finishing Straight, navigating the new chicanes.
The BARC had also funded construction of a bridge over the Finishing Straight so spectators could reach the paddock while the long race was in progress.
The Aston Martin Halford Special’s chassis is original, while the boat-tail body has been masterfully recreated by Nick Jarvis
There was as much drama in the pit as on the circuit, too.
On the first lap, the trio of Talbots took an early lead, with the Halford Special running between Campbell and Eyston further back, and the Delages bringing up the rear, with Sénéchal drifting his supercharged beast with abandon.
Moriceau’s Talbot was the race’s first victim, its front wheels splayed wide as it entered the paddock with a broken axle.
Segrave’s Talbot then led before losing the tread on one of his tyres, allowing Benoist’s Delage to storm through.
The Aston Martin Halford Special is fitted with Hartford dampers
As the race developed, Halford started to benefit from the less consistent performance of others.
After 13 laps he lay fourth, with The Autocar noting ‘the snarl of his engine’s supercharger [was] a dominant note’.
It then continued: ‘Segrave’s many stops had let Halford into third place, and the little car was running excellently, more especially when it was remembered that it was a single-handed venture.’
Halford’s steady progress was also aided by the Delage drivers’ persistent cooling issues.
With their mandated silencer boxes inches from the cars’ pedals, drivers were forced to pit regularly and bathe their feet in buckets of water before re-entering the race.
The Aston Martin Halford Special’s Berk supercharger
After stopping for fuel and tyres on lap 55, Halford was back to third by lap 60, when Campbell pitted for the same reason; he was also making up four seconds a lap on second-placed Sénéchal.
After 70 laps, it was Benoist, Sénéchal, Divo, with Halford 1.5 miles behind and Campbell a further 1.5 miles back; the Halford and Bugatti were easily the strongest performers at this point, with The Autocar observing: ‘The Halford had been running extremely well… its driver, handicapped at the turns by having to use one hand on the lever which alone operated all four brakes.’
But the reporter then saw Halford struggling to engage first midway through a bend.
‘Then, when it did engage, the engine “revved” but did not drive,’ he continued. The universal joint had failed, bringing the car to a halt under the bridge.
This unique Aston Martin has a large steering wheel
Plucky Halford refused to admit defeat and, with spectators ‘loudly applauding’, he pushed the Special back to the paddock in the hope of effecting a repair.
But it was game over. Halford had completed 83 laps and, running in fourth when he retired, he was the highest-placed DNF of the race.
The podium for which Halford had made such a tantalising pitch was occupied by winners Robert Sénéchal and Louis Wagner in their Delage (posting an average speed of 71.61mph), with Campbell second (68.82mph), and Benoist and Dubonnet third (68.12mph).
In its post-race analysis, The Autocar concluded: ‘It seems possible that rather more power was being put through the [Halford Special’s] chassis than it was designed to stand.’
The Aston Martin Halford Special on Brooklands’ broken but storied banking
Halford raced the Special once more in 1926 at Brooklands’ JCC 200 Mile event, in which he finished 10th.
The car was then sold to Eyston for 1927, when, in addition to two further Brooklands races, the new owner took it to fifth at the French Grand Prix at Montlhéry.
In 1928, the Special was sold to Viscount Ridley, along with a second, identical engine Halford had built as a spare.
Ridley removed the Special’s engine: one was installed in a speedboat, the other in a Bugatti Type 35.
Complicated linkages operate the Aston Martin Halford Special’s four brakes via an external lever
For many years the Special itself was thought lost, until the 1970s, when current owner James Cheyne, a sidevalve Aston enthusiast, embarked on a project to recreate the Halford.
After acquiring a long-wheelbase chassis from a racing Aston Martin, James learned that Morntane Engineering was using the Halford’s original chassis as a base for a recreation of John Benson’s ’24 twin-cam racer for Nick Mason.
The latter agreed to swap chassis with James, who commissioned Nick Jarvis to craft a replica of the original body.
James tracked down the engine Ridley had put to marine use in the ’30s – it was on display in an engineering firm’s lobby.
The Aston Martin Special’s brake lever and exhaust are positioned close to the driver’s arm
What began as a well-conceived tribute car ended up as the original racer with fresh but authentic bodywork.
After 10 years’ work, James presented the reborn Halford at the ’81 Aston Martin Owners’ Club Wiscombe hillclimb.
Since then he has campaigned it mainly at Vintage Sports-Car Club events in the UK and Europe, collecting a raft of trophies.
Today it is back at the circuit that gifted it such fine provenance.
The Aston Martin Halford Special’s rev counter is one of the few instruments in the driver’s field of view
Handsome and spare, the Special’s body neatly sandwiches its chassis, fairing in the gubbins beneath.
Louvred panels dominate the front, while the boat-tailed rear, with its fantail exhaust on the driver’s side, would have been a view familiar to many a rival.
Drop awkwardly into the cockpit, squeezing under the huge wheel and making yourself comfortable in the leather-trimmed driver’s bucket, and you’re faced with the usual mish-mash of dials and levers.
Boost, air and oil pressure are all buried on the riding mechanic’s side, with only the tacho – redlined at 5500rpm, but not working today – truly visible to the driver.
‘Halford entered every race he could at the Weybridge circuit, and he nearly always landed on the podium’
Two small brass wheels look after brake bias, and the clutch and steel loop of a centre throttle are sited so close that driving in socks alone is almost essential.
Pump up the air pressure, spray in some fuel via the Ki-Gas, flick on the twin magnetos and, after a few hand cranks, the Halford Special fires – noisily.
It’s almost impossible to achieve a steady idle, so you’re perpetually revving the engine to avoid stalling.
Forget the right-hand footbrake, which only operates on the front axle; you need the surprisingly effective outside lever working all four stoppers.
The Aston Martin Halford Special’s fishtail silencer
The external gearlever has first away from you and back, second straight forward, with third and fourth on the inner plane.
The gearbox, based heavily on a Bugatti design, is short of throw and quick-changing, with first and second ratios tall enough for all the speed we’re able to carry on the Members’ Banking and Finishing Straight today.
With plenty of revs we tear up the banking, working the steering hard given that we’re nowhere near the 120mph ‘hands-off’ nirvana for which Brooklands’ fastest drivers would have striven.
The Aston Martin Halford Special’s drum brakes are effective
Halford’s engine is epic: thriving on revs like few would have done in this era, yet heroically torquey, with its gears, blower and barely silenced exhaust delivering a screaming chorus around this hallowed course.
It feels trite to say that the Grand Prix racers of a century past were made of sterner stuff, but experiencing this remarkable car on what’s left of Brooklands’ challenging circuit gives a tiny insight into the bravery, skill, stamina and resilience expected from drivers of yore.
And Major Halford in his very special racer was certainly among the best of them.
Images: Jack Harrison
Thanks to: Brooklands Museum; Ecurie Bertelli; Allan Winn; Jonathan Gill
Factfile
Aston Martin Halford Special
- Sold/number built 1923 and ’25/one
- Construction separate steel chassis, aluminium/wood body
- Engine alloy-block/crankcase, iron-head, dohc 1499cc straight-six, two inclined valves per cylinder, Berk supercharger, Type 48RB Zenith Gipsy Major carburettor
- Max power 120bhp
- Max torque n/a
- Transmission four-speed manual, RWD
- Suspension solid axles, semi-elliptic leaf springs, Hartford friction dampers f/r
- Steering Marles worm and sector
- Brakes drums f/r
- Length 12ft 1¾in (3700mm)
- Width 5ft 3in (1600mm)
- Height n/a
- Wheelbase 7ft 10½in (2400mm)
- Weight 1642lb (745kg)
- 0-60mph n/a
- Top speed 110mph (est)
- Mpg n/a
- Price new n/a
- Price now £300,000*
*Price correct at date of original publication
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