The Vauxhall 30-98 was once the fastest car in the world. In 1919 it took over from the C-10 Prince Henry, the world’s first sports car, and it was the first production car to claim it could surpass 100mph.
Most impressively, it could prove it, too. At Brooklands it recorded 100.7 miles in an hour and, in 1953, when the Vauxhall was long off sale and perhaps deemed a classic, it went six miles further.
An important car, then, but not on the face of it local. Luton has famously been the home of Vauxhall since 1905, having moved north from Vauxhall in London two years after its first car was produced. It forever doffed its cap to its original home by retaining its Vauxhall name.
Neither London nor Luton fall within the 30-mile radius of Bicester Heritage, the entry requirement for our Local Heroes display.
But there is one place comfortably within 30 miles where cars like the Vauxhall 30-98 can still stretch their century old legs, and it calls Chipping Norton its home. Right in the midst of the town’s bustling centre is the Vintage Sports-Car Club.
It has been running and racing since 1934, seven years after the Vauxhall’s production ended. Also at the VSCC’s Old Post Office is the vast archive and reference library, both at the beck and call of its membership.
There is no better place to race an Austin Seven or anything else pre-war, with a community spirit the envy of race organisers up and down the country. Hundreds take to the track and the fields with the VSCC's familiar badge on their car each year, from trials to racing.
The Vauxhall, the envy of speed chasers of the 1920s, is a fine representative of exactly what you can expect to see on any given weekend. Find it at Building 123 on the Local Heroes display at the Scramble on Sunday 23 April.
