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This British Salmson Is Nearly 90, But Still Spry Enough to Race

This British Salmson Is Nearly 90, But Still Spry Enough to Race

David Phillips, 26, an automotive restoration specialist and car collection caretaker living in Pingree Grove, Ill., on his 1934 British Salmson S4C, as told to A.J. Baime.

Growing up, I was always a tinkerer, and at a young age I started collecting antique outboard boat engines. I got into cars when I was older. I was studying at a community college to be an auto technician, and one day I got a call from some friends, the late John and Lisa Weinberger, owners of Continental AutoSports, a Ferrari dealership outside Chicago. They had given me a scholarship for college. They asked if I had ever heard of this school in central Kansas called McPherson College. I hadn’t.


Photos: A Rare Restoration

David Phillips shows off his 1934 British Salmson.

David Phillips in his shop with his 1934 British Salmson. British Salmson cars were built from 1934 to 1939.

Lyndon French for The Wall Street Journal

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We flew down there and I discovered that McPherson offered the only college degree of its kind in the country in automotive restoration. I applied, was accepted, and the Weinbergers doubled my scholarship. It was a dream program, and after that, I got a job working for my current employer caretaking a rare car collection.

I have always been enamored of the boat tail body style—a car that has a tail shaped like the hull of a boat—and one day I showed up at work to find this boat tail sitting in the shop. I asked my boss about it and he said, “Well, it’s a 1934 British Salmson.” I had no idea what that was. He said he had bought it and was looking to sell it, at no profit, to a young enthusiast who would use it and take care of it. I was looking for exactly this kind of project. We came to an agreement, and he helped me get it titled this past February.

British Salmson started out as a producer of aircraft engines. The company turned to making cars, producing them from 1934 to 1939. My car’s serial number is BZ219; The 219 stands for the second production run and the 19th car. The British Salmson is a rare vehicle to begin with, and mine was one of the first 50 built. (There are French Salmsons, but that was a different company.)

The previous owner had a lot of documentation. The car was imported in the mid-1950s by the wife of Sandy MacArthur, a legendary sports car racer of that era, and he is believed to be the one who built the current boat tail body, as originally this car was a saloon [a sedan with a roof]. It has a four-cylinder engine with an early twin-cam design and four hemispherical cylinders, displacing about 1500 cc’s, so it is a crazy unique little engine for its time. I have had the car up to 65 mph, surprisingly comfortably, but I think it will do 80.

The 1934 Salmson came with a big file of documents that tell its story going back to the mid-1950s when it was first imported into the U.S.



Photo:

Lyndon French for The Wall Street Journal

In its current form, the car was meant to be sporty and racy. June 18 was my 26th birthday, and I raced the Salmson for the first time at a Vintage Sports Car Drivers Association event at Blackhawk Farms, a racetrack north of Rockford, Ill. My group included several other pre-World War II cars; this was gentleman’s racing. We were not putting our cars in any danger.

Everything went great. The car didn’t break. I didn’t break. I am so thankful to all the people who helped me get the car this far, and look forward to more racing.

Write to A.J. Baime at myride@wsj.com

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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