Hello all.
New to the club and new to steam cars.
I have recently acquired part of the collection of Brooks cars once owned by Jeff Theobald. Some of you will no doubt be familiar with these cars. The long term plan is to restore the whole lot but in the short term get one vehicle up and running, safe and road legal, probably then restoring that one fully and getting the other stuff running.
I look forward to meeting some of you and seeing your vehicles over the coming months. I'll be posting progress up on here if it's of interest to anyone along with some video more generally on my personal website.

ATB Dave

Welcome to the club, and yes please do post on this forum. Have you got a complete car, or just parts?
Don

Hi Don

Arguably I have a complete car and a large pile of parts. The body is not correct but apart from the boiler the car can be made to run and be made road legal (in the UK) with a bit (a lot) of work and what is there. As soon as I sort myself out I'll put up pictures and wotnot.

ATB Dave

Dave is that the Murphy coupe body which at one time was fitted to a Doble - if so it is worth preserving and would suit the Brooks.

Mike

Hi Mike
I was unaware that's what that body is called (the Murphy bit) but yes I believe it was fitted to a Doble and yes it's that car. So Murphy was/is a coach builder? Do we know if there a pictures of a/the Doble fitted with this body or this body type.

Dave

Hi again Mike
I should have used my friend google before writing that as I've answered my own questions. I think that what you are calling the coupe body is not on the car but is amongst all the parts that I have. The parts I have consist of a short roof, a pair of doors, some sort of boot/trunk door and some other parts that have been hacked about to remove them from whatever they were on. The stuff is aluminium skin on a wood frame and the skins I've looked at (only briefly while it was loaded and unloaded) are relatively new the framing looks a mix of old and new stuff. I'll have a better look at it tomorrow now it been mentioned as it's still stacked exactly as I brought it back from Steve Theobalds place. If I've read correctly and what I've read is true and what I have is indeed a Murphy body from a Doble, it could be quite a scarce thing?

Dave

It is - I recall a picture of it in a 1950's book- Its history is well known.

Here's a link which you may not wish to see as it might hit your wallet!

[www.prewarcar.com]

Mike

If this Doble body is off Doble D2 (ex Skopos Motor Museum then to Barry Herbet then to ???) my photos of it may be in an early copy of the steam car. It was painted blue when in the Skopos museum. There are more photos in Barry' s book 'A tale of two Dobles'.

Mike
Thanks for the link - I hadn't seen that. I showed the missus, she's gone very pale and had to go for a lay down. Ha ha And I'm looking at my workshop to see if I can fit it another one. Hopefully it will be so expensive, buying it will be out of the question.

ATB Dave

Peter
It is that body and Barry has already kindly contacted me and given the history of it, I've also had sight of his book too. It is my intention to acquire back copies of Steam Car so hopefully I'll get sight of your pictures too sooner or later.

ATB Dave