{"id":3624,"date":"2011-02-05T10:22:54","date_gmt":"2011-02-05T15:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/?p=3624"},"modified":"2011-02-05T10:38:18","modified_gmt":"2011-02-05T15:38:18","slug":"knight-in-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2011\/02\/knight-in-training\/","title":{"rendered":"Knight in Training"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1935<\/a><\/p>\n

In the middle ages, the word “squire” denoted a knight in training. More latterly it has meant a village leader or the dominant landowner. In the case of this car, it was simply the surname of the maker.<\/p>\n

Adrian Squire (1910-1940) was just 21 when he decided to build his own motor car. He founded Squire Motors, Ltd., and set about designing a road-going Grand Prix car. Into a chassis of his own conception he put a 100-bhp Anzani twin-cam engine, clothed in a coachbuilt body. Squires are said to have had exceptional top speed and braking. Only about ten were built during 1935 and 1936. The still-young Mr. Squire was killed in a bombing raid during 1940 while working at the Bristol Aeroplane Company.<\/p>\n

This Squire<\/a> burst onto the scene as a much-vaunted barn-find at this year’s Rétromobile<\/a> show in Paris. Offered by Fiskens<\/a> of London, purveyors of fine historic automobiles, it reportedly lay dormant<\/a> for 30 years before recent exhumation.<\/p>\n

The 1,500-cc Anzani engine<\/a> is force-fed by a Roots-type supercharger<\/a>, and the car’s legendary stopping power is apparent in the size of the brakes<\/a>, which are equipped with magnesium-alloy finned drums<\/a>. The gearbox is a Wilson pre-selector unit, and the wood dashboard<\/a> is instrumented<\/a> with a clock, 120-mph speedometer, two oil gauges (the purpose of which is indeterminate – one reads 0-160, the other 0-1000), a combination vacuum-pressure gauge (for the supercharger), ammeter, temperature and a 6,000-rpm tachometer.<\/p>\n

There’s been a lot of speculation about this car on one of the more influential auto blogs<\/a>, in particular regarding the provenance of the barn-find detritus<\/a>. We can report with authority that the straw<\/a>, while authentic, is of a modern replacement variety, and the egg<\/a> in the rear seat is supplied fresh daily – the yolk is on us…<\/p>\n

A steady stream of onlookers<\/a> paid homage to the Squire during the show, admiring its handsome aluminum body<\/a> by John Charles (Ranalah) Ltd. and vintage India rubber<\/a> tires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the middle ages, the word “squire” denoted a knight in training. More latterly it has meant a village leader or the dominant landowner. In the case of this car, it was simply the surname of the maker. Adrian Squire (1910-1940) was just 21 when he decided to build his own motor car. He founded….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,80],"tags":[101,103,102,31,100],"class_list":["post-3624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-cars","category-events","category-unrestored-cars","tag-anzani","tag-barn-finds","tag-fiskens","tag-retromobile","tag-squire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3624"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3656,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3624\/revisions\/3656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}