| TOM PRYCE TROPHY 1999 | Back | ||
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The Welsh Motoring Writers group honoured two legends with the award of the 1999 Tom Pryce Trophy - one a remarkable man and the other a famous car. The trophy crafted in Welsh Royal Crystal, went to Owen Wyn Owen for saving and restoring Babs, the 27-litre monster racing machine in which J G Parry Thomas died after twice setting world land speed records at Pendine in South Wales during the 1920s. Group member Tony Challis at a special event at the Lake Vyrnwy Hotel, Llanwddyn, Montgomeryshire made the presentation. The trophy was engraved in Welsh with the words "Atgyfodwr Babs" (Resurrector of Babs). Owen, a retired Bangor University lecturer in engineering, was praised for his tenacity and great skill in saving Babs from the corrosive sands of Pendine beach where Babs was initially buried following Parry Thomas' fatal accident. Owen's fascination with the project began in 1969 when he set out to retrieve the car from the sands at Pendine. But having got his dig sanctioned by the Parry Thomas family, he also had to obtain Ministry of Defence permission to enter a closed military area, which included the car's burial place. He says of that time: "I thought of it as a bit of Welsh history. I didn't expect to find what I did. I was curious to see what had survived, hoping perhaps for a rusty crankshaft, or anything, which could be put in a museum as a memorial to Parry Thomas. Much more than he supposed had survived, but reconstruction required plenty of detective work as he hunted down parts and machined pieces for Babs. Within three years he had the Liberty aero engine running again, blasting its enormous power through a 1910 Benz gearbox and chain drive.He got the car's distinctive body panels reproduced by having a company work from old photographs, and even managed to buy original spec Dunlop tyres for the 23-inch wheels. |
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You
have read about Owen Wyn Owen being awarded the
Tom Pryce Trophy- and very well deserved it was. If it weren't for Owen's tenacity, 'Babs' would have been lost
forever under the Pendine sands - and what a disaster that would have been!
Her unfortunate driver - J.G.Parry -Thomas - was born in Wrexham in
1884, though on his tombstone at St. Mary's Church, Byfleet, it
records the date as 1885. But what a brave man he was! Can you imagine driving a car like 'Babs' with a 27-litre V-12 aero engine pumping out some 500 bhp to the rear wheels via chains, just a couple of feet away from your head? He did most of his competition driving at the Brooklands track, where he was known as 'Daredevil Thomas' - but at least it was a smoothish track and not a wave rippled beach! I drove on that same beach at around 60 mph in a modern car some years ago, and that wasn't too much fun, but it's hard to imagine what driving 'Babs' must have been like with her whippy vintage chassis at around 170 mph! Simply terrifying I would think! So, when Owen eventually exhumed the car from the sands in 1969 after it had lain there for 42 years, it was big news and attracted much media attention. It was not quite as badly corroded as he had expected, and when asked by one newspaper reporter about her condition, he told him that the offside front wheel could still be turned. The headlines in that newspaper the next day stated 'Babs' exhumed after 42 years with front wheel still turning! Just a touch of journalistic licence, perhaps! When Owen and the 1998 Tom Pryce Award winner, Richard Parry-Jones, met at the award dinner, Richard, who was born in Bangor (which is not too far away from Owen's home in Capel Curig), told him that when his father and he drove past there when he was just a boy, the house 'Haulfryn' was always pointed out as being where the great car was kept. It was interesting to see Ford's suspension expert and Owen talking animatedly together as the evening wore on. Now if only Richard had been around to design the suspension and chassis for Babs – then Malcolm Campbell would really have had a fight on his hands! T.D |
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