Lot Ended
Description
Rare Squire recreation designed by Phil Kennedy and built by Vicarage;
one of only around 12 made; aluminium body over ash frame; Alfa Romeo 2.0
twin cam engine and 5-speed box; twin Weber carbs; independent front suspension
and disc brakes; goes well and sounds great; advisory-free MOT; driven 50 miles
to the sale
The original
Squire is something of a legend in Vintage motoring circles. The basic design of
the car was laid out in great detail by Adrian Morgan Squire in 1924 when he was
just a 14-year-old schoolboy. Determined to bring his dream to fruition, he
served his apprenticeship with WO Bentley before moving on to work for
MG.
Squire was fortunate to have a wealthy friend and backer, Sherman
Stonor, 6th Baron Camoys, who saw the potential of his design and
used his connections to rope in a couple of other well-heeled investors.
Together they founded The Squire Manufacturing Company in 1934 and succeeded in
creating a handsome open tourer that could compete with the finest sports cars
of the era (see last photo).
Powered by a
supercharged 1,496cc Anzani engine producing 110bhp with elegant coachwork by
Vanden Plas, the Squire was guaranteed to exceed 100mph and proved an absolute
sensation. Unfortunately, such quality did not come cheap and, at £1,350, it was
up against the finest offerings of Alfa Romeo and Bugatti and was twice the
price of an Aston Martin or Frazer Nash. Only seven were built at the original
Henley-on-Thames factory, plus another two or three assembled in Chislehurst by
Val Zethrin who had acquired the unfinished cars when Squire went bust in 1936.
Adrian Squire returned to work with WO Bentley,
sadly being killed during an air raid on the Bristol Aeroplane Company in 1940
when he was just 30 years old.
Fast forward to
the 1980s and Phil Kennedy took redundancy from British Leyland and decided the
time was right to design and build his own car. Thus the Kennedy Squire was
born, a high-quality aluminium-bodied sportscar on an ash frame with modern
running gear, an Alfa Romeo 2.0 twin-cam engine and styling inspired by original
coveted Squire.
In the late 1980s, Kennedy
teamed up with Vicarage Jaguar of Bridgnorth, famed for their bespoke Jaguar
MkII builds. In 1988 Motor Sport magazine published a ‘Factory Visit’
on the Squire which detailed the spec of the car including: 3.89:1 Ford axle;
24.4mph per 1,000rpm; 132bhp; 18-swg alloy body and 16-swg alloy wings; 9-gallon
aluminium fuel tank; Connolly hide; 24 coats of paint (!) and 850kg kerb weight.
Nick Goldthorpe of Vicarage was quoted as
saying that “some 5,000 man-hours go into each Squire" so you can imagine
how costly a car like this would be at at today's £100 per hour labour
rates plus running gear and materials. A good chunk of this time would
have been spent on the door shuts which are nice and flush compared to
the Morgan approach of overlapping the door shuts. With only around a dozen made, the Vicarage / Kennedy Squire is
almost as rare as the original Squire, only two of which have been sold at
auction in recent years, both fetching well over £500k.
EHZ 310,
the car offered here, was registered on 5th July 1989. Factory-built
at Vicarage Jaguar, it is one of very few that was not allocated a ‘Q’ plate and
was originally registered F437 FUJ.
Showing only
four previous keepers over the past 36 years, our vendor purchased it earlier
this year as a non-runner from a deceased estate to join his collection of
interesting classics.
He has since
recommissioned the car and got it in good running order including new brake
calipers, slave cylinders, engine bay fuel hoses, plus a brake fluid and engine
oil and filter change. It was crying out for a dateless plate, so our vendor
added EHZ 310, which is included in the sale.
It
is fitted with the wonderful all-alloy Alfa Romeo 1,962cc twin-cam engine,
complete with twin Weber carbs, and Alfa 5-speed box, as used in the Alfa
Spiders, Bertone GTVs, Alfettas etc. of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Other features include: turned alloy dashboard; black leather sports
seats; Jaguar instruments and switch panel; heater; Moto-Lita wood-rim steering
wheel; Marchal headlights; a soft top that looks virtually new plus a
serviceable tonneau cover. It rides
on 15” chrome wire wheels shod with a matching set of five Pirelli Cinturato 185
VR tyres date-stamped week 40 2021, plus an unused spare mounted on the
tail.
Our vendor has used the car lightly in fine weather only, including a
run to a coffee meet at the Classic Motor Hub in Bibury where it attracted
lots of attention. Showing only 42,000 miles on the clock, it has an MOT until
April 2026 with no advisories recorded, and the MOT history shows very few
advisories back to 2005 when it was showing 26,153 miles.
Driven 50 miles to the sale on a very hot day, we are told that it
goes as well as it looks with all gauges working and reading as expected, a
smooth gearbox with good synchros, a quiet axle and lively performance from the
Alfa twin-cam.
As you can see in the photos, it
looks very smart indeed, both above and below, and has been starting promptly
and running nicely as we have driven it around on site, with healthy 60psi oil
pressure and a pleasingly sporty soundtrack from the exhaust and the twin Weber
carbs.
Recorded as a Squire on the V5C, other documentation includes a
selection of period magazines and road tests; a 12-page Profile Publications
booklet on the original Squire published in 1967 plus information and photos
amassed by the vendor on the other surviving Vicarage / Kennedy Squires. He
believes that EHZ 310 may actually be the only one of the 12 that is currently
on the road.
Made in Bridgnorth just a few miles
up the road from Brightwells, this is a rare opportunity to acquire a quality
hand-built sportscar, based on a legendary ancestor, that will prove a real
talking point wherever it goes.
Consigned by
James Dennison – 07970 309907 – james.dennison@brightwells.com