Dellow Owner Group

Dellow cars were made in a factory at Alvechurch, Birmingham, England between 1949 and 1956.

Dellow Motors Ltd was started by Ken Delingpole and Ron Lowe to produce road-going sports cars for the enthusiast to use in trials, rallies and hill-climbs.

A small number of very early cars used Austin 7 chassis as per Ron Lowe's special, FUY 374. From 1950 Dellows used an 1172cc Ford 10 engine in an A-frame chassis with very light tubular bodywork panelled in aluminium, the early cars having no doors. The chassis frames were made from government surplus chrome-moly rocket tubes. The rockets being RP3 as used by Hawker Typhoon and Bristol Beaufighter aircraft, also the UP3 which was a ground-based weapon.

Update :- September 2008 issue of the often-wrong Classic & Sports Car says " .... this has been questioned over the years". Not sure who by - but they clearly did not bother to ask the right people. I spoke to the factory foreman, Fred Fletcher, in the very early 1970's after finding stencilled Ministry numbers on my Mark 1's chassis and also khaki paint on the floor panels. He confirmed the use of both rocket tubes and surplus aluminium purchased from Ministry auctions. Also :- William Holt purchased his brand-new Dellow, EBN 117, in 1950 and was told at the factory that the chassis was "constructed from rocket tubes". His then young son - William junior - remembers being very impressed by this!

The design emphasis was on light weight and a rearward weight bias for trials. Many sporting awards were won by drivers of Dellow cars in the early 1950s, not only in trials but also in other events such as driving tests and hillclimbs. Dellows also took overall honours in the MCC organised Daily Express National Rally and the Circuit of Ireland Rally. Dellow drivers often shone in other forms of motor sport, Tony Marsh from Kinver went on to become RAC Hill Climb Champion on no less than 6 occasions. Peter Collins from Kidderminster, later drove for HWM, BRM and Vanwall, then for Ferrari.

Dellow styling was created by Lionel Evans at his Radpanels coachbuilding workshop in Kidderminster. The car evolved through several variants known as Mk I to Mk V. Early cars had a beam front axle with transverse spring, quarter elliptics at the rear, Andre Hartford friction shock absorbers. The Ford E93A engines were mildly tuned and many used twin SU's on a specially cast alloy 'Dellow' manifold. However, as an option the factory also offered the car with a Wade-Ventor (Rootes type) supercharger installation. The vast majority of cars used the 3-speed Ford gearbox but a very small number of cars were produced to order with a Morris 4 speed box (from the 10M series Morris). The MkII saw the introduction of coil springs at the rear and telescopic shock absorbers. The Mk V version was derived from the "Lightweight" Dellow constructed by Tony Marsh for speed events. It saw coil springs introduced at the front although still with a Ford beam axle. About 300 Dellows are thought to have been made.

A new company, Dellow Engineering, based in Oldbury near Birmingham produced an MK VI - often incorrectly quoted as having a glass fibre body, it too was in fact built with alloy panelling. Very few MK VI's were made.