The Trojan that really caught on

by Bill Buys

BACK in 1955, the UK’s popular Motor Sport magazine featured an unusual advertisement in its classified section: Trojan Tourer, just extracted from vicarage stables after 20 years storage . . . towable and might start on the way home . . . £10.

More than 50 readers responded and thousands more would have, had their memories jogged with images of Trojans winning hillclimbs and trials, or ‘mudplugs’ -- during the 1920s and 1930s.

The little ‘car for the people’ was the creation of Leslie Hounsfield, a gifted engineer born in Watford in 1877, who produced his prototype in 1913 and founded Trojan Limited in Croydon a year later.

The company operated until the 1990s, but from its humble beginnings, it went on to produce a bewildering variety of vehicles.

They included farming machinery, bubble cars, motor scooters, chainsaws, go-karts, lawn mowers, narrow-gauge rail engines, a record-breaking marine cruiser and some eye-opening sports machines – think Elva sports cars, McLaren F1 cars and Trojan F1 and F5000 cars.

But it all started with old number one, the 1913 Trojan, which still exists today at the Trojan Museum Trust, under the patronage of Australian motorsport great Tim Schenken.

The little car was like no other. Its four-cylinder 1527cc two-stroke engine needed only two spark plugs, it had just seven moving parts, no differential -- and its tyres were of solid rubber.

Also, if necessary, it could be run on four or two cylinders.

That was possible due to each pair of cylinders having a common combustion chamber.

The rear wheels were driven from the engine via a two-speed epicyclic gearbox, a transfer box and a chain to a sprocket on one side of the rear axle.

Open up the bonnet and there was little more than a petrol tank and radiator.

The engine was under the front seat.

World War I started just weeks after Trojan Limited moved into its premises and car production was shelved to make products for the war effort and by 1921 only six cars had been built there.

But things changed rapidly in 1922 when vehicle production got underway and Leyland Motors ordered 100 of Trojan's so-called utility cars.

Trojan soon reached an agreement with Leyland Motors to produce the cars at its factory in Kingston upon Thames.

The cars and vans built up an enviable record of reliability and they were super-easy to drive, and although they ran on solid rubber -- they were puncture-proof, reasonably comfortable, thanks to a strange suspension: long cantilever leaf springs, which they called ‘wondersprings’.

They could only manage around 30mph (48km/h) in top speed, but they had tremendous torque and excelled in off-road performance.

If the back wheels found traction, the car could climb inclines of one in eight in high gear, or one in three in low.

RAF Group Captain Arthur Scroggs became a legend in the trials, often outperforming much more modern vehicles in his 1927 Trojan in pre-war events, and then continuing postwar right into the 1950s.

Every car also came with a maintenance manual which outlined everything, even extending to doing a complete overhaul.

It included a long fault-finding chart with some interesting advice.

Under ‘Consistent missing on one cylinder’ the answer is: ‘This may be due to almost anything.’

In 1925, a Trojan was priced at £125, the same as a Model T Ford, while an Austin Seven cost £149.

Pneumatic tyres were available as a £5 option but the company’s published view was: We don’t think it necessary.

But if you think the luxury of the combination of pneumatic tyres with the wondersprings worth the risk of a puncture, then, why not?

Through the years, the company built five models, the ‘utility’ from 1923 to 1926, the ‘three-door’ from ‘1926 to 1929, the RE from 1930 to 1933, and two vans, the 7 cwt from 1924 to 1930 and the 10-12 cwt from 1928 to 1940.

Brooke Bond Tea bought 41 Trojan vans in 1924 and within five years they had some 2000 in their fleet.

Other major fleets were those of India Rubber, United Dairies, Shell, the General Post Office, the RAF, C C Wakefield (Castrol Oils), Lipton's, the Salvation Army and many more.

They also became famous in miniature, with Dinky Toys, Matchbox and Lesney all producing countless models of the little red vans.

Economy was quite a talking point after the company came up with the slogan ‘Can you afford to walk?’

They calculated that over 200 miles (320km) it would cost more in socks and shoes than to cover the distance in a Trojan.

The partnership between Trojan and Leyland was successful and 16,800 Trojans were made – 11,000 of them cars.

They were popular as taxis and a few were exported – even to Japan – but in 1928 Leyland needed the space for its burgeoning heavy truck market, so Trojan had to go solo once more.

The next new car, the Trojan RE, was introduced in 1929.

RE was just a short-form of Rear Engine, the powerplant being housed in a box at the back of the car.

But the brave move failed to impress and only 250 were sold.

That year, Trojan started experimenting with tracked vehicles for the army and supplying basic trucks to the RAF.

The tracked vehicles never went into full production.

A disappointed Leslie Hounsfield then left the company to set up an entirely new venture, making portable camp beds, while Trojan continued to make vans until WWII broke out, when the factory made bomb racks and sturdy containers so supplies could be dropped to troops by parachute.

Post-war, Trojan concentrated on producing vans, many of which featured unique bodies.

Some sported a large Cow and Gate milk tin, other innovations were a giant teapot emblazoned with Absolom’s Golden Tips and Duckhams had a few that looked like mobile oilcans.

How many people worked at the Trojan plant is not known, but it would have been a good and happy place of employment.

It had soccer, netball and cricket teams, even a choir and in 1956 it had an intake of nearly 60 apprentices in its engineering works with its massive machine shop.

It was also unique in its efforts to please buyers.

In 1937 a lady in Gloucester sent an order for one of Trojan’s three-door tourers – which went out of production seven years earlier.

Perhaps she’d had one before and decided on a repeat order.

No matter, the car was built and delivered.

Also, in 1937, Trojan produced what was to be its last new model in cars, the Mastra.

It was a stylish vehicle, presented at the London Motor Show in fastback saloon and convertible options, with lines similar to those of Wolseley and the SS Jaguar -- and was mechanically very different from its forebears.

The five-seater had a 2.2-litre six-cylinder water-cooled two-stroke engine mounted in its tail, 12-volt electrics, an electric starter, four-wheel Girling brakes and was priced at £395 for the saloon (which had a sunroof), and £380 for the coupé.

It also had ‘controllable central cooling and heating’ but its specs suggested it would barely be faster than the 35mph (56km/h) of the RE, thanks to its weight and ‘tortuous’ three-speed transmission.

The price was £10 more than an SS Jaguar.

The company had a couple of show models, but the Mastra was never put into production.

After WWII the company turned out a variety of other products, among them a very successful little 50cc motor that strapped onto the back of a bicycle – the world’s first moped? -- and 50,000 of them were sold.

It also released a completely new van, now much bigger and apart from the engine, quite conventional with a three-speed standard gearbox.

The engine was a supercharged version of the pre-war powerplant.

There were sundry other products, but fast forward to 1959 and Trojan found itself in serious debt.

Its saviour was Peter Agg, who ran his family’s wine business before making a fortune as the importer of Italian Lambretta scooters for the British market.

Three years later he acquired the rights to build the German Heinkel microcar, which was rebadged as Trojan 200 Cabin Cruisers.

Production continued until 1965, after about 6000 had been produced.

Agg explained a government revision of tax laws adversely affected sales of three-wheelers, which made continued production uneconomical.

He had meanwhile popped over to the US, where he saw go-kart racing and next thing, Trojan built Trokarts for the emerging kart racing series in UK and Europe.

Trojan also acquired the Elva sports car business and started to make the Mk IV Elva Courier, which, in turn, led to McLaren establishing a partnership with Trojan to build customer cars.

Between 1965 and 1976 Trojan built about 200 cars for McLaren.

Trojan's first in-house design, the F5000 Trojan T101, was an immediate success, winning eight F5000 races either side of the Atlantic, and propelling South Africa’s Jody Scheckter to the US title.

Its Formula 1 T103, developed in partnership with Ron Tauranac, was less successful.

Tim Schenken drove it in eight grands prix in 1974 with best results of 10th places in Austria and Belgium.

Trojan Ltd carried on supplying parts for racing cars through the 70s, but Peter Agg who had by then made his next fortune by being the sole importer of Suzuki motorcycles.

After Agg died in 2012, the Trojan was finally shut down.

But the brand lives on as the Trojan Owners’ Club.

It was formed in 1955 when it became apparent how many Trojans were still in use (the club knows of 40).

The club has a lot of spares and technical and historical information, averages about half-a-dozen “discoveries” a year and generally has a Trojan available to pass on to an enthusiast.

What of the founder, Leslie Hayward Hounsfield?

He was a brilliant engineer and, after apprenticeship, won a Whitworth examination to the Royal College of Science.

He served with the Electrical Reserve Volunteers during the South African War, and, in 1904, started his own business at Clapham.

He was the president of the Institution of Automobile Engineers in 1928-29 and served the council continuously for 40 years.

When his Trojan company merged with Leyland, he was appointed chief engineer.

When he left the company in 1930 he turned his inventive genius to the manufacture of an ingenious safari camp-bed.

It weighed only about 2kg, folded up to a compact easy-to-carry size and could be put together in 60 seconds.

It had a canvas sheet, stretched between thin steel rods and rested on four W-shaped supports.

I used one while working in the remote bush of East Africa in 1960 and it likely save my life. But that’s another story.