Built over one winter
A sedan chassis, an aluminium body and a borrowed welder
"Ted's thing in the shed"
Ted started with a crashed 1936 sedan bought for five pounds, cut fourteen inches out of the frame and shaped the body himself over an ash frame. His sister's letters call it "Ted's thing in the shed" until it had a name.
Local man's special takes to the hill
Mr E. Marlow's home-built special, finished in a striking blue, made its first appearance at Harrow Hill on Saturday and climbed in a time that drew comment from the older hands.
Eight seasons on the hills
A class win in its second year, then the record at Gorge Road
The record that stood for eleven years
Ted's best day: 58.4 seconds up Gorge Road in the wet, a class record that was not beaten until 1973. In 1964 his sister June drove it too, and won the ladies' award at Kowhai Valley.
Under a tarpaulin
Two owners, no climbs, and one lucky phone call
Twenty years in a hay barn
Sold when Ted married, the Special went to a sprint driver who never raced it, then to a farmer who stored it under hay bales. The scrapbook has a single photo from those years: a blue tail sticking out from under a tarpaulin.
Back from the barn
Ted's grandson tracks it down
The original body, beaten straight
Sam Marlow found the car through a newspaper notice in 1989 and spent six years putting it right, keeping Ted's original aluminium body and every bolt he could save.
Back where it started
The sixtieth anniversary climb
Same hill, same number
In March 2019 Sam drove the Special up Harrow Hill sixty years to the week after its first climb, wearing number 27.