Sheffield Simplex

[Grahame]

Almost right Hazel, John Sutcliffe worked for Caldwell Engineering and was indeed the man who restored Lord Riverdales car. He was in fact Herbert Sutcliffe's son, not nephew. I know this because he was a neighbour of mine and I worked for him for five years when he set up his own restoration shop in the eighties. It was a pleasure to watch him at work setting and tuning vintage cars, especially Rolls Royces. The touch of a master.

John Sutcliffe is alive and well.

[John Thring]

Is your Dad still interested? I have Lord Riverdale's car and could post some answers if there is any interest. p.s. I have only just found this forum. JT

[mikep57]

My father told me that he assembled alternators for the Sheffield Simplex around WW1 but the job was stopped and he was put onto filling hand grenades instead.

[Tradescanthia]

The Sheffield Simplex gets a mention and a picture in the book 'Black Diamonds', the history of the Fitzwilliam family of Wentworth Woodhouse. One of the earls invested heavily in the development of the Simplex and even sold the military the idea of pulling field guns with them instead of horses.

Just imagine the spectacle on the battlefields of the Somme in 1914, with the Simplex disappearing into the mud.

[mh01]

can anyone send a photo of the simplex? ive never seen 1

[biker]

Simplex Cars were built at the factory at Tinsley. All that remains of it now is a small section of wall opposite the end of Lawrence Road.(Head towards templeborough from Tinsley roundabout and look on your left) In their day they were a serious rival to Rolls Royce in terms of quality. The oldest one around to the best of my knowledge is the ex Lord Riverdale car. This was restored in Sheffield at Caldwell Engineering in the eighties. The Homeric factory on Chambers Lane was the home of the Hallamshire motor car built by Durham Churchill. If you want to read a good history of the motor industry of Sheffield, try and get hold of a copy of "Cars From Sheffield" by Stephen Myers. This was published by Sheffield City Libraries around 86 and has extensive information on the Simplex and all the other cars we turned out. As to the surviving Simplexes, Kelham Island has one. One is in a museum in Australia, try this http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/opac/B2533.asp . The one in Kelham used to be Known as the Adsetts car after Norman Adsetts, who bought it and donated it to them. As i recall there was a bit of doubt wether or not it was a Sheffield built car or one produced in the last days of production at Kingston. Certainly the Riverdale car was a genuine Sheffield build, I suppose that car is now privately owned since Lord Riverdale died a few years ago. Hope this is some help, like I said earlier, get hold of a copy of Myers' book, it will educate you.

 

cheers Derek

That building at Tinsley sounds very close to where they had a Neracar in the reception area in the late 1970,s or early 1980,s.Was it Balfours or Darwins?

[me-and-pippo]

can anyone send a photo of the simplex? ive never seen 1

If you go to picturesheffield.com and enter 'simplex' in the search bar,

there are quite a few photos.

This is one of Lord Riverdale in his Simplex car

[TIMR]

I am in Adelaide, South Australia

[tonio]

That building at Tinsley sounds very close to where they had a Neracar in the reception area in the late 1970,s or early 1980,s.Was it Balfours or Darwins?

 

It was Balfour Darwins. The company split in 1980 to become Darwins Magnets International and Darwins Alloy Castings. D M I closed in Nov 1980 but Darwins Castings is still in business.I had the job of emptying the DMI site.Some of the contents were transferred to the parent company in Swindon and the remainder sold. The Neracar however had mysteriously disappeared some weeks earlier.

[Grahame]

I wonder if JG Graves had a Simplex, I know he had three or four cars and employed a chauffeur.

 

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