The four-leaf clover of carriages

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‘Wagonette’. The word suggests utilitarianism, not grandeur, and denotes a generally rugged body style chiefly used for transporting shooting parties, or ferrying travellers from a railway station to their hotel. The Earl of Lonsdale saw no reason why his wagonette should not be as sumptuous as other carriages, and devised a style with a square hood, divided down the centre, which could be raised and lowered for all-weather comfort.

That was back in hippomobile days, but the style had its adherents in the automobile age. William Younger MP had his 1902 Georges Richard 24hp equipped with a Lonsdale Wagonette body by Thorn, and his car, being used to advertise Mann & Overton’s, caught the eye of Lt-Col Moreton Foley Gage, who had a near copy constructed for his Georges Richard-Brasier in 1903.

A Georges Richard-Brasier? There is a story in itself, explicable by the fact that Gage’s machine was built and sold around the time Henri Brasier was tightening his grip round Georges Richard’s firm, and the car somehow acquired both identities. When not swashbuckling with the army, Gage lived peacefully in Dorset, but in 1905 he bought a six-cylinder Napier and let the Richard-Brasier go to another army man in Oxfordshire. After the Kaiser War, it lay forgotten until Richard Shuttleworth took it under his wing in 1932.

Now freshly restored by the Shuttleworth Collection, we hope we might see it on the road soon. David Burgess-Wise offers his appraisal in the February issue of The Automobile, available now.

Words by Zack Stiling; Photographs by Rob Cooper

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