Subaru

[David Kemp]

Is there a link between Subaru & Jewett?
I was watching a documentary on Subaru & it stated some pretty strange claims.
Subaru developed the alloy crankcase for lightness as iron was shown to be too heavy.
Subaru developed the diagonally split con rod.
I think this propaganda could have come out of Jowett during the 40's!
Did the one and only Jupiter chassis shipped to Japan end up in the hands of Subaru's chief engineer?

[Keith Clements]

Searching JT for 'Subaru' gave 7 pages of results, among them a previous post from you on the subject, David.
Also a search in the Gallery showed 'Envelope containing correspondence from Subaru re engine design etc. - Donated by Mike Smailes' in our paper library.
No idea how we get a view of it. Would it not be great, if it was on line!

[David Kemp]

I would love to view that letter regards engine design as well! How do we get it uploaded?

[Keith Clements]

Get someone to dig it out of the JCC Library and scan it in.
Noel?

[NoelStokoe]

Sorry for being a while putting a post on regarding this topic but I have had problems getting on to Jowett Talk, but after a chat with Keith (Webmaster) he has got me up and running again! I am ok with computers and email but am useless when things go wrong!

I do remember the envelope with Subaru correspondence in it which was donated by Mike Smailes, this is now being held at the Yorkshire Archive Service vault in Bradford with most of the Club's Archive. I now only have a small amount of material at home such as handbooks and maintenance manuals etc as these are the normal items people tend to request see.

The envelope did not have any technical drawings or information inside, but they said that there had been no link with the Jowett engine when they produced their first flat-four engines. So even if they had copied the Jowett engine in any way, there is no way they are going to admit to it!
Noel

[george garside]

Do club members have any right of free access to the clubs archive held at the Yorkshire archive service and if so how does one go about it. If not why not!
george

[Keith Clements]

Hopefully Noel and others on the exec will answer this. I spoke with Noel this week and the state of the archive there is not good as there is now only one archivist left. Items taken by Noel and others seem to be sitting in boxes and have not been catalogued. This means although the items may be safely stored, finding any item might be next to impossible or very time consuming. IMHO there is a danger that documents could get lost as the ownership of the archive is not clear (e.g.Are boxes clearly marked property of Jowett Car Club) . The subject was discussed at the last exec, but I had to leave early to attend rugby.

I maintain it is our duty to get as much of the archive into electronic form so that we do have access to it. Everyone's help to do this would be appreciated.

[george garside]

That would be absolutely great if it could be achieved. My fear is that the stuff could be considered of little or no importance by the one archivist particularlyif he/she is not interested in motoring or industrial history , in which ase they could very easily disappear or deteriorate beyond redemption.

george

[Keith Clements]

It will only be acheived if members scan in documents they have and share them. One way of doing this is storing in the JowettGallery.

[NoelStokoe]

Yes of course, every box of archive material I send to the west Yorkshire archive service is clearly marked as being a donation from the Jowett Car Club, each donation also has a schedule of contents with it. Each schedule has been passed on to KC and is now listed in the Gallery so anybody can see what is there.

I raised this as a concern at the Exec Meeting in September, as they feel the need to re-schedule everything into a format acceptable to themselves and they clearly do not have the manpower to do this properly. I have just written to them for a full update as to the present position.

I agree with KC that things should be scanned onto the Gallery in the future, but it should be borne in mind that I had to hire a Transit van to take the original donation to them, so it would have been impossible to scan it in - even if I had had a scanner at that time....