This car, Lot 26, sold for $224,000, including buyer’s premium, at Bonhams Cars’ Newport, RI, sale on September 29, 2023.
Ah, Frazer Nash. Chain Gang. Wriggly monkey. What’s it all about?
Well, first off, Archie Frazer-Nash’s surname carries a hyphen, but the cars don’t. I think that sets the tone nicely to lead us into the mystique of these unique automobiles.
As the catalog alludes, these are sports cars of a distinct makeup and character, which engender a fierce loyalty among owners, who are “a different breed,” as we sometimes say in that kindly way to describe a slightly odd uncle. In the U.K. at least, these cars are well supported by a network of specialists and an active Frazer Nash owners’ club. Its members tend to be “highly individual,” refer to their tours to foreign parts as “raids” and view getting their hands oily at the roadside as part and parcel of normal motoring.
The original drift machine
The defining feature of these cars is their unusual transmission, driving through a row (hence “gang”) of chains, one for each ratio. This precludes the use of a differential, so every corner taken in a Nash is some form of controlled drift. It has been said that “Frazer Nashes never go ’round corners, they merely change direction.”
With the solid rear axle, the chains all revolve all the time, with drive to each selected by sliding dogs. The “wriggly monkey” is an ingenious pivoting mechanical lock-out preventing the selection of more than one ratio at once, though who actually invented it is lost to the mists of time, just another layer in the legend.
The chains don’t break often, but they are whirling around inches from your fundamentals, and they’re very messy. However, they are an efficient means of energy transfer, and for this reason, Frazer Nashes have formed the basis of many of the most famous English hillclimb specials. The other advantage of the transmission layout, apart from lightning-quick gearshifts, is that the ratios can easily and independently be changed by swapping sprocket sizes.
Each car would have been finished to individual specifications, but generally they were offered new with the 1,496-cc Anzani side-valve or Meadows OHV fours (as this one), the 1,500-cc overhead-cam Gough, or the 1,660-cc (sometimes 1,499) Blackburne six — though many different engines have been fitted by enthusiasts since. Coachwork was always minimal, and naming reflected events that the cars had won, including 83 with the most-popular TT Replica style of bodywork, offered between 1932 and 1939. Colmore, Exeter, Boulogne, Nurburg and Ulster model names also nodded to glories past.
The Interceptor model, as here, bucked that trend, but still sounds jolly potent and racy. This was the lowest-priced model, shorn of some frills, though this one was supplied with twin Amal carbs and four forward speeds instead of the standard three. Only about a dozen were built, some as 2-seaters, some as 3- or very occasionally 4-seaters (such as our subject car), on the longer chassis. Standard length was 105 inches, with 108 for the “long” and also some 99-inch 2-seaters. Price when new was £350.
Coming to America
Many ’Nashes still carry their original bodies, or proudly distressed parts thereof, but our subject car is unusual in that its body is fabric, and from a little-known coachbuilder, Wylder of Kew, which was local to Frazer Nash. The car still features the Meadows engine as-delivered, though the catalog suggests it might have at one time had a different motor. Like many Frazer Nashes, it was first registered near the Works’ address in Isleworth, hence the MV prefix of its British registration number, which was allocated to Middlesex from 1931 to 1965.
With relatively few made, their histories are usually known. Our subject’s original owner was Miss Cynthia Sedgwick, who appears to have been an active sportswoman and serial ’Nash racer. She also owned a TT Replica in the early 1930s and was known as one of a handful of successful women at Brooklands and a variety of speed trials. She chose this car, presumably, as a road or touring car.
It stayed in the U.K. with various owners until 1983, when the vendor, on the hunt for a British sportster and intrigued by these legendary devices, found 2033 advertised with Vintage Bentley trading guru Stanley Mann (now sadly departed and sorely missed). After arrival in the U.S., it appears to have had little use. Perhaps as a result it remains in good order, and pretty much untouched, though it may have been freshened up before or after arrival from the U.K.
When opportunity knocks
It’s hard to value such a rare and unknown thing on American soil, but luckily, the collector-car market is global. The money paid here is about right for provenance, originality and condition. Even at home it’s hard to find a Chain Gang ’Nash for much under $200k and a real TT Replica is around $300k in Europe.
So, this was, as real-estate agents say, “a rare opportunity” in the U.S. What it might lose in the desirability stakes by being a “lesser” model than the TT Replica or Super Sports, it gains back in originality. Bonhams Cars Group Motoring Director Rupert Banner confirms it’s not leaving the U.S., so hopefully more folks will get to appreciate this spidery British oddity with its weird transmission. ♦
(Introductory description courtesy of Bonhams Cars.)
