wizard smith

Within 3 weeks Smith had the Essex carrying the No. 40, the car his boss drove in the 1000 mile rally at Sydney. This was a 1921 Essex with wire wheels. The bodywork was removed at Sydney and replaced with a spare wheels carrier, larger petrol tank and bucket seats, all borrowed from a Mr Stuart.

At 4 a.m. on December 14th, 1922 Norman Smith and Croysdill, with the military dispatch that made them immune from motoring law tucked safely away set off for Melbourne, reaching their destination some 15 hours and 38 minutes later. This set off an orgy of record breaking. Almost immediately, a Vauxhall lowered this time. January 13th 1923 Smith does a Melbourne to Sydney in 14 hours 28 minutes He then drives on to Brisbane to set a Brisbane to Sydney record of 18 hours 45 minutes. While he was engaged in this, A..V.Turner sets a Sydney to Melbourne record of 13 hours 47 minutes in a Delage.

Smith was pushing the Essex to its limits and it was no longer good enough. Those limits are rather remarkable. Cruising speeds of 60-70 MPH and a reputed top speed in the 80's. Smith and the motoring writers of the day all say that the motor was standard. My own Essex is a replica of Smiths at the period of Jan-Feb 1923. Fifty-five to sixty MPH is achievable, not more. Eighty MPH would mean 4000 revs. which for a splash lubricated motor is probably not achievable. This car, No. 40, in the R.A.C.V. Rally flying mile speed run achieved only 57MPH. I have read a suggestion that a Joey Box using a reversed Essex 2nd gear was fitted to this car. Essex mail cars on the American Prairies used a reversed second gear, allowing them 60 MPH cruising. However, the car was no longer fast enough to compete so Smith ordered a complete Brooklands racing conversion from England. This arrived in June 1923 and the car was completely rebuilt.

A 2.5 to 1 dif. was installed in place of the standard 4.2 to 1. A new high compression head with twin spark plugs and dual carburetors was fitted, along with a racing camshaft. A magneto driven from the generator drive supplied high speed spark. This was now a mean machine, a long way from its family tourer origins. Capable of over 100 MPH and equally incapable of stopping in anything that we would recognise as a reasonable distance today.

November of 1923 saw Smith start another short round of amazing record runs. Adelaide, to Melbourne in 13hrs 21mins. The. S.A. Automobile Association recorded an average speed of 92 MPH over a 19 mile stretch and 103 MPH on a measured mile along the. salt flats of the Coorong. December found him in Tasmania where he covered the 243 miles from Launceston to Hobart at an average speed of 56.5 MPH. December 24th he set out on the last recorded run in the Essex from Melbourne to Sydney, pulling the time back to 12hrs 59mins., some 2hrs 39mins faster than just over 12 months before

I have no information of runs recorded in the Essex 4 after this 'time, but Smith kept driving unlikely cars to remarkable records. The police stopped intercity record runs in 1935 so Norman 'Wizard' Smith holds some official records for all time.