Stan Share's Clan

[Teddie2003]

Hi Dave,(Impecunious)

hope you are OK and keeping safe.

On another site I go on they were asking questions about old competition cars and asking if anybody knows what happened to them.

One of the cars that has cropped up is Stan Share's Clan Crusader, is that the one that Dennis eventually bought?

If so is that the ex Kenny Allen car and was that also the Johnny Blade car or were they two separate cars?

Thought you or Jim were the best people to ask and if it (Stan's) car was the one that Dennis had "repaired" that had load of extra weight put on it by some boat builders(?) who didn't really understand what a Clan was supposed be like.

Steve

[Impecunious]

Yes thanks Steve, keeping below the parapet and sorting through sheds galore to thin stock. Hope all is well in Turk Town. Anyone want nine 875 std and sport engines/short engines I found yesterday, most for rebuild?

Denis Jones did buy Kenny Allen's Clan, chassis no. RC001, from Stan Share. It was the same car Johnny Blades campaigned from 1973 to 1975. It was in quite a state when Denis bought it. He gave the rolling shell to Ian Hopper to repair, probably not knowing IH just farmed out his grp work to a laminator in Over Peover, Staffordshire. (Denis didn't know what I did at the time). As you say, this guy didn't really appreciate what he was supposed to be doing and slapped the resin and csm on like it was going out of fashion. The end result after rebuilding was a lovely looking car, but it was heavier than a road Crusader by a fair bit. It was only ever going to be a show car from then on; Denis still has the car in a garage in Surrey. That was when he looked sideways at me over a pint and asked if Dave Excell and I could make him a carbon/kevlar foam sandwich epoxy Clan...

It took us six months of weekends to vacuum bag him a complete shell which weighed 51kgs out of the mould

We postcured it by leaving it in a greenhouse for a summer month - you would burn your hand on it, it was that hot.

Denis also bought RC002 which both Stan Share and Ernie Larton owned at some stage. I believe Denis still has that car too.

Dave W.

[Teddie2003]

Hi Dave,
yes all is well down here at the moment. Just waiting for things to pan out a bit as haven’t had any work to do for just over a month now and hardly had much since late March when my customers started to shut down their sites. But it looks like once some kind of normality returns there will be a lot of weekend working coming up.

Started to sort some of my stuff out as well, can't believe how many items I've found tucked away, haven't got to the engines yet. But hopefully I can make some room so that I can get to my Clan and start doing something to that while we are in Lockdown.

PM me some details on the engines/short motors you've got and I'll ask around with the club members down here.

I thought that Denis' car was the Kenny Allen/Stan car. I remember all the hard work Dennis put in trying to persuade Stan that he was the person to buy it from Stan. But wasn't absolutely sure on the JB link, I knew you and him said it had gained a fair bit of weight after the re-furb. Didn’t realise that Dennis had RC001 & 2 though.

I remember bumping into him at the national meet when he had just bought a big roll of carbon material that he was going to give you that day and he told me it was going to be the new car that you were going to make for him and that it was going to be a fair bit lighter than Pete Millington’s one.

I remember Pete's obsession with trying to keep the weight down on his car, even trying to Velcro the wheel arches in place rather than using four or five stainless screws like I did on my car. It looked OK until he went through hollow at Gurston at about 90mph and they all flew off when the Velcro failed and then he had to duck tape a couple of them back together.

Love the story about the postcuring, doubt that Lotus/Ginetta/Mclaren use the greenhouse method for their cars.

Thanks for that info I’ll get that onto the other site.

Steve