Riley MPH

Widely considered to be the most beautiful sports car of its era, the Riley MPH was built in extremely limited numbers by the special projects department of Riley Cars and was based on the chassis of the 1933 Grebe TT racer. The aluminium bodywork was supported on an ash frame and was very similar to both the Sprite and Imp models, variations being mainly in the wing design, length of bonnet and spare wheel mounting. Power came from Riley’s six-cylinder twin-cam OHV unit with twin SU carburettors in either 12hp, 14hp or 15hp form, developing 51bhp to 54bhp at peak revs, sufficient for a top speed of over 85mph. Ignition was by Scintilla Vertex magneto and transmission was of the Wilson pre-selector four-speed type.

The frame was an extremely rigid assembly, slightly upswept at the front to pass over the front axle but downswept and passing below the back axle at the rear, with substantial cross-bracing and side-members. Suspension was by semi-elliptic springs all round, movement of which was controlled by Hartford shock absorbers. Braking was by massive 15-inch elektron drums all round with steering by worm-and-segment mechanism. Costing £550 new (three times the price of an equivalent MG), it was strictly for the well-heeled motoring enthusiast only.

First registered on 24^th October 1934, this is car number 3 of around 15 MPH models built between late 1933 and early 1935 (as they were made to special order only, the exact number of MPH cars produced is not definitively known, but most sources put the figure at 15 although others insist there were only 12. A letter in the history file from Riley Ltd dated May 1944 states that "very few" were built, "probably about a dozen in all"). Generally reckoned to be perhaps the best documented MPH of all, JH 9506 has appeared in many publications relating to the Riley marque and is most unusual in that it still retains its original 14hp MPH engine with triple plunger oil pump and elektron sump. At the front it also retains the Marchal headlamps that it has had since before the war and which may well be original equipment (the Trico clarion horns were added in the early 1950s).

The very early history of the car is somewhat patchy but from various documents in the history file we have pieced together an ownership trail which would appear to go as follows. The car is believed to have been sold new to Parkhouse & Co. of Hertford (hence the JH number plate) where it ended up in the hands of Colonel Ronnie Hoare, a leading light in the racing scene of the day and later to become famous as the founder of Maranello Concessionaires, the legendary Ferrari distributor of the 1960s.

The second owner is unknown but the third owner was Leslie Hawthorn, father of famous racing driver Mike Hawthorn, and a good friend of Ronnie Hoare. Hawthorn apparently kept the MPH for about six years before it was acqured by a Flight Lieutenant (later Dr) JM Hendry of Glasgow in 1944 (several sources state that Mike himself owned the car, but this is most improbable as he would only have been about 16 when his father sold it). A letter from Hawthorn to Hendry on Tourist Trophy Garage notepaper dated April 1944 confirms that the car was "in perfect condition" when it left his ownership and that "both the compression and back axle ratios are higher than standard."

Photos and documents in the history file show that Dr Hendry campaigned the MPH in various hillclimbs in the early post-war years, including Bo’ness and Rest And Be Thankful in Scotland, and Craigantlet in Northern Ireland. By 1949 the car had covered only 19,000 miles and in 1950 Hendry sold it to Scottish racing driver Ron Flockhart, who famously went on to win the Le Mans 24-Hour Race in 1956 and 1957 in the Ecurie Ecosse D-Type. Flockhart ran the car for a couple of years, using it to commute to his day job as an engineer at a factory just outside Edinburgh, and also in various local club events including indoor speed trials at Waverley Market which had a lovely smooth concrete floor! In January 1952 he sold it to his friend (and later business partner), Hugh Langrishe, when a highly tuned MG TC replaced the MPH in his affections...

Langrishe also used the car as his daily driver and when his company posted him to Northern Ireland, the MPH became a common sight on the road from Newry to Warrenpoint where he managed a cardboard box factory. At the weekends he competed in various local club events, and continued to use it in much the same vein when posted back to Cambridge in 1953, including regular jaunts to Silverstone. After such regular prolonged use the car was understandably getting a little tired and Langrishe treated it to a fairly major overhaul later that year, including a full engine rebuild, rechromed headlights and new seat squabs. During the rebuild Langrishe discovered that the engine had been bored out to around 1800cc by Les Hawthorne and decided to sleeve it back to standard to reduce the oil consumption which had always struck him as higher than normal.

In May 1954 Langrishe in turn sold it to Ken Jones, an MPH fanatic in South Mimms, Hertfordshire, who had long pestered him about the car. Now with some 40,000 miles on the clock, it was again used as a daily driver by Jones until 1957 when he took it off the road for a total nut-and-bolt rebuild. This took four years to complete and resulted in a car that was in concours condition, as is described at length in an article Jones wrote in the Riley Register Bulletin No. 31 of June 1962 (a copy of which is retained in the history file).

During the rebuild the 1,633cc six-cylinder engine (no. 14T1739) was fitted with steel conrods and the crankshaft, machined from a solid billet, was reground with new bearings all round. The original close-ratio pre-selector gearbox had been rebuilt by Langrishe just 10,000 miles previously and was found to be in excellent order. Langrishe had also fitted a crown wheel and pinion from a post-war Riley 2.5-litre with a 4:12 final ratio to give more relaxed high-speed cruising or, as Jones describes in a letter in the history file, “85mph at 4,100rpm, more still downhill, a 3^rd gear which reaches into the 70s and M1 cruising at 75 all day!”.

Put back on the road in June 1961, the MPH was then kept by Jones up until 1969 when it was acquired by John Shipley of Clevedon. Ivor Halbert bought it from him in January 1987 and kept it until his death earlier this year, maintaining it in tip-top mechanical condition and having it MOTd every year until 2006 but covering very few miles.

Certainly the most desirable production Riley and probably one of the most sought after pre-war sports cars ever made, the MPH is very rarely seen on the open market as owners tend to hang on to them for decades. Given the magnificent condition and impeccable provenance of this particular example, which is eligible for a host of historic events, this is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire one of the most charismatic machines in British motoring history.