UKDRN

Do you own or know the whereabouts of a piece of UK Drag Racing History or just want info on a particular machine.

Moderators: timetravel, ukdrn

 #125  by herb andrews
 
In 1973 a group of friends and I bought an early allard dragster chassis. It was just the bare chassis and even back then it needed roll cage upgrades (like adding one). It was advertised in our local paper for £25, when we went to see it in Fleet it was on the grass in somebody’s back garden and I think we got it for £20.

We brought the car after going to Blackbushe, we only lived 5 miles away, where we saw British engined cars and thought we should get involved, because ‘how hard could it be’. How wrong can you be!! Once we got it home and started looking at the bare chassis we had no real idea where to start. Even mounting the seat/body was a stumbling block. We needed advice and I guess there were some local racers, certainly no chassis builders like today. I noticed a for sale advert in National Drag Racer with an Ascot phone number and as that was less than 10 miles away I phoned the number and Harold Bull answered it.

Harold willingly invited us over. Stripduster was in its small trailer in the front garden. Harold quickly pointed out what we needed to know by getting the car out and then we spent some time just looking the car over. It was during this time that Harold casually mentioned that he was thinking of selling it as he had no intention of racing again and he did not like seeing the car just sitting there. Spurred on by the visit I went away thinking about the car and, at the time, its great engineering. Within a couple of day my offer of £550 for the car, trailer, fire suit, spares and the offer of help in initially running it was accepted. Typical of a seventeen year old I had done things in the wrong order, asking my parents to loan me the money was the last thing on the list! And for some reason I was very surprised when they flatly said no. I had to go back to Harold, eat humble pie and say sorry for messing him about, but Harold was very understanding and said not to worry.

I lost touch with the car but I remember one of Sue Coles crew running it in about 1982. I just came off the phone from Sue and she confirmed Bill ran the car. Going to talk to Dave Coles tomorrow as Sue could not remember Bills surname.

So, with that potted history I would like to know where the cars it now? Can somebody, Nick?, put a picture of Stripduster up and the best times it ran.

You may be asking, what happened to the ‘Allard chassis. Realising the work involved in taking a bare chassis, upgrading it and then sourcing all the parts and putting it together we sold it to Martin Warran in Camberley. Martin had the chassis updated by John Bartlett in Farnborough. John incidentally did all the welding on Johnny Llloyds bikes and my cars. Sadly Martin was killed in a bike accident and to the best of our knowledge the chassis is still at his Parents house.

Herb

 #127  by Sam
 
Herb,

I know harold Bull and family quite well despite not having seen them for a few years now,

I do see 2 of his sons who both work for the same company as me from time to time and a while back his youngest son was trying to trace the old stripduster car with a view to restoring it to original condition. You'll be pleased to know that the pair of them have inherited some very good engineering skills from Harold.

So if anyone out there knows of the whereabouts of this car let me know as his son would like to put it back to how it was in its heyday.

His son has an idea that it eventually ended up in france, leads anyone ??

As for harold, he moved to Rushden from ascot and after his brush with the houndog slingshot, went back to his early hobby of RC model flying (he taught me to fly RC) eventually moving on to Peterborough where he still is today. His latest (well maybe not latest as its been over 12 months now was a fully running model v8 engine.

Next time I see any of them I'll get an update on him.

Sam

 #131  by Sam
 
I can remember it running low 10's before he put the second engine in.

 #132  by muddytalker
 
Here you go Herb. The original heading and photo taken by John Bennett from the March 1968 issue of 'Drag Racing & Hot Rod' magazine written by Brian Sparrow.

Image

 #151  by jaytee
 
I've seen a photo of stripduster with twin engines,would anyone have photos or info on the car,also photos or info on John Harrison's twin engine car,I think he was connected to Allan Herridge in some way.

 #154  by muddytalker
 
Jaytee, here’s one of those outstanding technical cutaway drawings offered up as a poster by ‘National Drag Racer’ magazine artist Dave Owen in 1973.

Image

 #155  by jaytee
 
Thanks for that muddytalker,do you know how long the car ran with twin engines,did Harold retire the car after trying twin engines.I was at the meeting where he crashed Houndog,I think that was his last drive.

 #158  by ukdrn
 
Colour shot of the car.
Image

 #161  by timetravel
 
Sam wrote:I can remember it running low 10's before he put the second engine in.
Harold's best times in Stripduster were 9.75 seconds at 136m.p.h. with one engine fitted.

 #194  by Sam
 
timetravel wrote:
Sam wrote:I can remember it running low 10's before he put the second engine in.
Harold's best times in Stripduster were 9.75 seconds at 136m.p.h. with one engine fitted.
I was pretty sure he ran it in the 9's but I didn't want to be shot down in case he hadn't.

Was a very quick car for what it was.
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