The car behind the driver: the 1938 Thompson racing Special

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Kieran White provided a photo of young Mr. Hugh at the wheel of '1938 Thompson racing Special', this in view of our new 2015 calendar "A New Generation Taking The Wheel". As we were intrigued by the name of the car we asked Kieran to learn us a bit more and found out there is not only car history behind it but also a part from the sad times of The Troubles (* see Kieran's note below) in Northern Ireland:
"The picture (edit.: behind the main picture) came from Aubrey Thompson when I bought the car from him in 1986. He died soon afterwards so I couldn't ask him what the event was (maybe one of our readers knows?). The 2nd photograph only surfaced recently through the good offices of Eddie Fitzgerald of the Irish Motor Racing Club (IMRC). The Thompson family ran a Ford main dealership (hence the Ford parts in the TRS) in Mallow Co Cork. During the War of Independence the British army sequestered trucks in the the daytime from Thompsons' garage and the IRA took the trucks for nighttime use. I can dig up a photograph of W J Thompson standing in the smouldering ruins of the garage after a large section of Mallow was burned by the British.

Eventually Aubrey went to Coventry as a Daimler apprentice. He stayed in dormitory accommodation and Percy Maclure was in the next bed. He also became friendly with Rupert Instone whose family held the Daimler distributorship. The pair built the famous GN Martyr and both of them competed in it. On return to Ireland Aubrey bought the Smithfield Ford special and used it for a year. He then built a new special but had so many problems with the Ford Eight engine that after assisting Maclure at Donington he acquired from Maclure the Riley Ulster Imp engine and ENV 75 gearbox and put them in this car as well as the Ballamy type front axle and De Dion back axle. He competed at the Leinster Trophy at Tallaght won the Wakefield trophy in the Phoenix Park in 1939 averaging 82.2 mph. He had FTD at the Ballinascorney hillclimb in 1940. During the war Aubrey had the contract for servicing flying boats at Foynes harbour. Postwar the TRS was largely driven by Arthur O'Leary, the Thompson garage foreman until 1963 when it was laid up."

(*) note by Kieran White to add with our lines: "the term Troubles referred to the Irish war of indepenence 1919-1922. The term re-emerged to describe the more recent unrest in the North of Ireland. So Wikipedia is to be read with caution! "

(Thanks to Kieran White and Eddie Fitzgerald of the Irish Motor Racing Club)

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