| Feature
on an SS1 in France
The 1934
SSI
photographed in the French national Motor Museum by member Anthony
Sultana
Dear Steve,
I am a club member no 5545, I
recently was on holiday in France and I visited the automobile
national museum in Mulhouse it was
quite an extraordinary experience, the museum
have more than 500 cars on display
but the only standard i could find was the standard swallow.
I am sending a photo of this car
maybe you can make a small story and give me some details about
it.
best regards
Frank Sultana
Hello Anthony,
Its Phil here.
OK, I will do that. I, too have seen
the SS1 in the National Motor Museum of France. This originally
was a private collection of cars gathered by the Schlumpf
brothers, but was taken over by the French government
(nationalised?) in lieu of death duties. It was then a collection
of over 650 cars and truly one of the most breathtaking sights in
the automotive world. Since then, the government seem to have sold
off many of the more valuable cars, Bugattis etc to finance the
running of the museum. As you say it appears to be down to 500
cars now and the spaces around the walls are becoming noticeable. Particularly
as its the most valuable cars that are missing. A tragedy in
anyone's view.
The SS1 is the bigger brother of the
SS2 that I featured a couple of weeks ago on
the website, the SS1 using the 16Hp standard chassis and
mechanicals from 1934, clothed in a William Lyons body by the SS
company. Some say that SS stood for Standard Swallow but there are
other theories, Lyons would not confirm it. What is not in doubt
is that the company renamed itself as Jaguar after the war when
they started producing cars without Standard input. The rest is
automotive history, as they say.
Thank you for your interest in
sending in the photo, it's good to know its still there!
Regards,
Phil Homer
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