At a classic car festival we came across a small sweet car. Painted red and British-made. The brand name was written on the nose: Dellow. I had never heard of that myself and so we had to dive in there. It turned out to be a Dellow MkV, the 'success number' of the small manufacturer.
By: Martin Philippo
Between 1946 and 1956 Ken Delingpole and Ron Lowe run their company in Alvechurch, close to Birmingham. Their company's name, Dellow, is a simple contraction of the first letters of the two surnames. They start out as specialists in car boosting and soon get representation from HRG sports cars and Ventnor superchargers. So they know everything about speed.
Origin of Dellow
Both gentlemen are fans of the popular trial riding in England. Nowadays the terrain of four-wheel-drive climbing goats such as Land Rovers, Suzuki's and Nissans. The past shows completely different cars: small, light and manoeuvrable. Also the cars of Messrs. Delingpole and Lowe. Ken takes a look at the trading stock and drives an HRG. Ron keeps it simpler and fixes a written off Austin 7. He equips the Austin with a 1172 cc Ford engine and achieves considerable success with this. In 1947, the enthusiastic entrepreneurs started manufacturing cars under their own name with the Lowe car as the starting point. Initially, these were also built from second-hand material, but when successes increased, in 1950 they switched to completely new parts. The momentum is in!
A total of six different models are produced before the factory is killed. The sales successes are ultimately less than hoped for.
The Dellow MkV in the pictures
The car in the pictures is a MkV. Not a climbing goat, but one made for sprints and hill climbing competitions. According to experts, the MkV is the best that left the factory before it went bankrupt. The model is very different from its predecessors, less high on the wheels and, due to the applied coil springs and telescopic shock absorbers, also had a very different handling. Some even talk about comfortable! With a weight of less than 500 kilograms and a power of 36 hp, the Dellow MkV will make good progress too. That power comes from a souped-up Ford 100E engine that can also be found in the Ford Prefect and Ford Anglia.
The Dellow MkV we photographed is a rarity in the Netherlands. About thirty were ever produced and probably not many will have ended up in the Netherlands. After all, the Netherlands is not really a country where you need a car for hill climbing competitions.
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What a nice sports car. Immediately looked at the history on the Internet. There is also a more streamlined model finally built the Mark 6 see link https://www.dellowregister.co.uk/dellow-models