Page 68 - Mar2023

Unlucky

Car Builders in Ireland

Didn't Discover a Pot of Gold at t he End of Their Rainbows

Sur e, a n d it w a s n 't a s if t h e Ir is h Did n 't g et o f f to an early enough start in the
automotive business.

1907 Th e Al es b ur y
The Alesbury Brothers were dreamers. In 1907 they took the product of their dream, a
four seat automobile constructed of Irish wood with four solid rubber tires and showed it
t
to the world at the Dublin Motor Show. It wasn? a speed demon.
It had an 8/10 horse power, two cylinder engine, Everything but the engine and the gear

box, constructed by Stevens Engine, was made 100% at the Edenderry Works factory in
Edenderry, County Offaly. As dreams go, it wasn? a success.
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Only nine Alesbury automobiles were ever produced. RIP.

1907 Th e Sil v er St r ea m
Another dreamer, Philip Somerville Large, also selected 1907 as his
go-for-broke year and from 1907-1909 in Kilcullen, Country Kildare,
this Irish railway engineer tried to make a go of the car he called
romantically, the Silver Stream.

Large designed the body, a modified MAB chassis, manufactured by
Malicet et Blin, and installed a six cylinder , 3,065 cc engine. He
shipped the chassis to to Newport Pagnell (you may remember that
location from Aston Martin/Lagonda lore) in Buckinghamshire,
England, where coachbuilder Salmons took over.

The final result was a large, elegant, luxury motorcar reported to
have cost £2,000 to build. This was the same price it cost to build a
large house at the time. Only one Silver St ream was ever built .
It's still in wonderful condition and seen at auto shows in the UK
from time to time.

The moral of this story is dream big, or go home, presuming that
after dreaming big you still have enough funds in your account to
build a home to go to.

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