Description
First and foremost, please do not confuse this original EA Sports ‘Ulster’ with the many replicas that are out there. This is No. 42 of just 180 original examples built at the works in Longbridge during 1930 to 1932. It is thought that about 50 or so were supercharged the rest being unblown.
DM7155, the example offered here, is one of the original unblown cars. It is also, due to the loss of so many works ledgers during the war, one of just 40 or 50 which is recorded as an original EA Sports model under its chassis number on one of the few surviving ledgers carefully stored at BMIHT at Gaydon.
DM7155 left the factory in August 1930 before being registered in Flintshire to its first owner one Richard Mold with the number DM7155, the same registration number it carries to this day.
Bearing chassis number 114979 it was used, as many were, in club competition and motor sports before the war and there is at least one excellent period photo of it competing in the M. C. C. Lands End trial in April 1931. Little more is known of its prewar sporting activities at present.
Post war the car was owned by a string of enthusiastic vintage car owners and VSCC members and these are recorded right back to the 1950’s thanks to the survival of an original buff log book from that period.
At about the same time on the other side of the World a young Bruce McLaren was starting his meteoric rise to fame in what was originally a near identical sister car.
One of DM7155’s subsequent owners in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s was Mike Costigan, still a well known and respected Austin Seven enthusiast and authority. He embarked on a major rebuild of the car. DM7155 had already lost its original pressure fed engine but Mike spent much time and effort collecting enough original parts to build up another original engine which dates from very early 1931. This is correctly recorded as the car’s current engine on the V5c. It runs an “unbreakable” Allen pressure fed crank, one of the most modern cranks produced and still breathes through the correct bronze 30 MOV Solex updraught carburettor.
Latterly the car was rebuilt once again and subsequently owned by prolific Historic Competition Austin Seven collector Ian Moore before joining a small private museum of sports cars in Italy.
After over a decade on the continent the car was repatriated and re-registered with its original 1930 registration number.
The car is now running well, taxed and registered correctly having had a service and oil change recently but has had very few public appearances since 2007. The history file contains various old Tax discs, MOT certificates, bills, photographs from the 1960’s, the all important buff log book recording past owners from the 1960’s to the 1970’s and a copy of the wonderful photograph showing it climbing Lynton Hill on one of its first competitive outings in 1931 when not even a year old. DM7155 comes complete with a fuel tonneau cover, hood and side screens.
Rarely do original EA Sports ‘Ulsters’ become available on the open market, especially examples with genuine pre-war competition history and an unequivocal provenance linked back to the factory via the surviving works ledger. Making this an incredibly rare opportunity to acquire one of the most popular and desirable of all British sports cars built in the evocative 1930’s.
£42, 000 ONO
