The Emeryson Jaguar single seater

George Emery began building racing specials in the 1930s under the Emeryson name. His son Paul took over after the Second World War and his first special was raced by Eric Winterbottom, winning a race at the Gransden Lodge airfield circuit in 1947. The family planned to build a F1 car, in that era but there was no money to develop it, so Paul turned his attention to Formula 3 cars. He went on to sell a few Emerysons to customer racers. In 1953 Emery next turned his attention to Formula 2 and the Alta-engined prototype began appearing in British events that summer with Emery himself driving. The car also appeared with an Aston Martin engine that year and was driven by Peter Jopp and Alan Brown. The following year Colin Chapman drove the car at the International Trophy but was too slow to be classified as a finisher.

The car on offer today is strongly believed to be the machine which was fielded in 1948 fitted with the engine from a pre-war Duesenberg racer, which was later to be taken by "Jenks" and reunited with the American device, now on show at the Brooklands Museum. This chassis went on to be raced with Alta and Bristol engines, and today is an historic "mono-posto" racer with a 2.8 litre straight six Jaguar engine fitted. It has, as such, been racing in Jaguar powered races with The 750 Motor Club and others. The car is also offered with an arguably more period Riley 2.5 litre twin-cam engine with gearbox. This car is surely deserving of further research, there is a chassis in Switzerland which claims similar antecedents, but the car we have here today was verified by a long time Emery family mechanic as being "the one". Given any measure, at today's most realistic guide, this could be a remarkably affordable entry to historic single-seater competition.