It is normal practice for the Rotary Club of Market Rasen to have a speaker at their regular meetings. This week was no exception, but on this occasion their guest, Mr Chris Rigg, from Irby on Humber brought to the Racecourse lunch venue his magnificent 1926 Sunbeam 3 litre Touring car. Recently featured on the Antiques Road Show, when the show was filmed at Lords Cricket ground, the car is no stranger to publicity. It featured in the 1926 London Motor show, and at the Scottish Motor show in the following year.

The car was given to Sir Henry Seagrave as the support road car to take to the USA, when he went to Daytona to attempt, and indeed achieve, the world land speed record in a 900 HP Sunbeam called THE SLUG (a Jeremy Clarkson sort of a name). Whilst there, he exchanged the road car for two racing boat hulls, and the car then had a chequered history until it was returned to England in the 1970’s. Mr Rigg bought the car as a box of bits from a sale at Silverstone in the 1990’s and then Colin Clifford of Cleethorpes, was charged with putting the car back as it was at the 1926 Motor show.

The picture shows how successful was the restoration. In his talk to the Rotarians, Mr Rigg gave a very interesting summary of the history of the Sunbeam marque, reported on the amazing history of Sir Henry Seagrave and finally told members about the restoration of the car. Never have there been so many questions and so much interest shown in a speaker’s topic but someone did say even Rotarians are boys at heart!