Build: March 1937
Tom Lush says ELL300 was built in November 1937. This is consistent with Bill Boddy’s report in the November issue of Motor Sport that he visited Adlards and learned that Sydney was having a new trials car built as he had recently sold CLK5 to Guy Warburton.
The first trial I can find where ELL300 is definitely used is by Sydney in the Gloucester on 4 December 1937 in which The Autocar has a photo of ELL300, wrongly captioning this to Guy Warburton who was driving CLK5 and won the Unlimited Award. Six days earlier Sydney had been using AUK795 in the Knott Trial, testing it as Gilson had been unhappy with some aspects of its performance. Bateman’s “for sale” ad in July 1948 says ELL300 was first registered December 1937.
SPECIFICATION
Tom Lush says that Reg Canham (Sales Manager for Adlards) insisted for publicity reasons that ELL300 was to be very similar to AUK795, whereas Sydney would have preferred a more spartan job. This presumably reflected the decision within Adlards to become a producer of bespoke specials. Peter Valentine says it was a close coupled four seater with cycle mudguards and V8 engine. Lush and photographs show that it was painted black.
Bateman advertised it as a two seater which presumably indicates how “close coupled” it was and says in 1948 that it had recently been fitted with a new Mercury engine. So chassis dimensions would have been wheelbase 8’6 1⁄2″, front track 4’8″, rear track 4’2 1⁄2″.
COMPETITION HISTORY
Sydney Allard had considerable success with ELL300, though interestingly often outperformed by Guy Warburton in Sydney’s old car, CLK5 and my sense is that ELL300 was never Sydney’s favourite car. However in January 1938 in ELL300 he won the Ringwood Jubilee Trophy, in February 1938 the Hayward Trophy, Coventry Cup, Bernard Norris Cup (Colmore), Wye Cup and Winwood Visitors Cup (Berkhamstead). He won 1st class awards and team awards in a number of trials that Guy Warburton won, including the Highland two day trial and the Jeans Cup in April. Later in the season as well as a several 1st class awards there are a number of instances of mechanical problems, such as at Prescott and Beer in July. The new style production model car (EYO750) was completed in July 1938 and Sydney may well have used this car, rather than ELL300, in some events for publicity. Ken Hutchison in the V12 car ELX50 was having considerable success and Tom Lush says that Sydney’s new spartan car FGP750 was completed in September 1938. So things were moving fast and his imagination was probably moving in new directions.
JF Guest bought ELL300 in late 1938 and competed in a number of trials until the outbreak of war. Post war the car was owned and competed by the Hankins family, passing to RM Bateman by April 194715 who campaigned it for the next year or so. He advertised it for sale in July 1948 and again in May 1949.
WHERE IS IT NOW?
Peter Valentine says in 1968 that ELL300 was last seen in 1950, present whereabouts unknown. There is a photograph in a recent Automobile article captioned “circa 1950”. So unless new information becomes available we can guess that it disappeared at that time, perhaps in Yorkshire, perhaps Bateman never found a purchaser?
