Description
Source: Flickr
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Taken on August 21, 2016
Source: Net Car Show
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Source: ConceptCarZ
Roadster
Registration #: 616 XUP
The majority of cars built by the Swallow Sidecar Company in the 1930s were SS saloons but the SS 100 sports cars are better remembered today. The SS 100, which evolved from the SS 90, was introduced in 1936 with a 105 horsepower, 2.5-liter engine, which was replaced in 1938 by a 120 horsepower, 3.5-liter engine. Both engines had a Harry Weslake-designed overhead valve head, giving the SS 100s the extra horsepower that made them so desirable. At the relatively low price of £385, William Lyons ended up building over 300 of them before the war intervened in 1939.
This is one of 118 original 3.5-liter examples. It was bought new by Melville Smith, who kept it in England for 30 years before it was sold and taken to Argentina to be raced by a number of enthusiastic owners in the 1970s and 1980s. It returned to the United Kingdom in 2010 and was recently restored to its original specification.
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