Quiz Archive

About Quiz # 226.... Marendaz ........!

No less than 21 competitors were right about the make of car! Marendaz Special! A remarkable result for a make of which the production was something like 80 - 120 units in total! You can read all about Marendaz at wikipedia. So coughing up a truckload of details was not the way to win. Only by squeezing the very last drops of your memory, your knowledge and analytical powers could get you closer to victory. This car was sold to Jim Duncan (in the US) - on a free ad - by dealer Joop Stolze through this website (Joop, we think you owe us a beer for that!). No more than 5 competitors narrowed down the options to the later production Marendaz Special with a Coventry Climax 2 litre: Chris Draper, Tim Olley, Dale Will, Dick Trenk and Marc Fellman ! Only Ruud de Pater and Tim Olley came up with the correct type >>> 15/90. Congratulations to Tim Olley who won with a description deadly to all other competitors: "...Marendaz Special of 1935/36 with a 1991 cc 6 cylinder Coventry Climax with triple carburettors and a cylinder head designed by the company's founder Captain Marendaz at his factory in Maidenhead." Congratulations Tim (do you know the car perhaps..?) (photos by Jim Duncan) Jim Duncan is restoring the Marendaz coachwork under the dicipline of only using tools that were available in that era: "In 2006 I took an aluminum forming class and decided to try my skill to make an apron for the car since it was the only body panel that was missing. First I made a wood form (click) (after using cardboard patterns to decide on shape) and then I made my first panel. There were mistakes, of course, so it became a "prototype" and a second effort was good enough to keep. While it was not easy I learned that most of the work was in carefully making the form. I'll include some pictures. The success on this "experiment" gave me courage to try the alloy welding in the winter of 2006 - 2007. This is not a quick restoration but I am enjoying the journey.
While I have many sports car friends from the 50's - 60's era, I have not found any nearby for PreWar cars. Your website keeps my enthusiasm strong for these old beasts and treasures both. The engine is actually the rarer Coventry Climax-based 2 liter unit. Capt Marendaz took off the factory 6-pot head and put on 3 2-pot heads of his own design. That made them cross flow with very direct air paths for the triple SU carbs that he employed. This almost doubled the power of the unit. He also added his own alloy water manifolds (one of which was missing on the engine - replaced with a plain steel substitute, while the other had a hole the size of your thumb in it - which Joop honestly pointed out). This engine did run but we let it do so only for about 1 min because the engine coolant was all gone.
Graham Skillen in the UK maintains a Register for the marque and has a couple of the cars, including an early racer used by Marendaz himself in establishing endurance records. I think there are about 25 cars known to the club but none of the 15/90's have a running Climax-based motor (including me)." Jim Duncan

Friday, 16 May 2008