STAMP FEATURES FAMOUS KILDARE VEHICLE

THE LEINSTER  LEADER  22 APRIL 1989 

Stamp features famous Kildare vehicle

One of four new motor car stamps issued by An Post last week features the Silver Stream, the unique and luxurious result of a two-year project by Mr. Philip T. Somerville-Large who designed and built this solitary machine in Kilcullen between 1906 and 1908.

It is now on permanent display in the National Museum of Irish Transport in Killarney.

The Silver Stream features on the 24p classic car stamp.  A Benz Comfortable, the first petrol car to be brought into Ireland, is featured on the 28p car stamp.  It was first imported in 1988 by Dr John Colohan of Blackrock, Co. Dublin, one of the founders of the Irish Automobile Club in 1901.

The 39p car stamp features the Thomoad car by Mr. A. J. Jones of Dublin, the first motor car to be built in the Irish Free State.  The model depicted is the 12/48 h.p. version which appeared in 1929, the final year of production.

The Chambers car, featured on the 46p car stamp, was the result of the first and probably the only example of serious motor car production in Ireland by Chambers Motors Ltd., of Belfast.  The company produced 16 different models between 1904 and 1928 when it ceased production.

Whereas the Chambers car might be seen as a reasonably priced car selling as it did from £210 in 1906 the Silver Stream project was aimed at the luxury car market.  Mr. Somerville-Large was the man behind the brave attempt to produce an Irish luxury machine of immense refinement, which lasted from 1906 to around 1908, and which resulted in just one solitary car, a machine of great beauty and magnificence.

Like the Hon. C. S. Rolls, Mr. Somerville-Large was dissatisfied with the quality of cars on the market and set out to build a car that would meet his own requirements. He actually intended to market his own cars and formed his own company, “Somerville-Large & Co.”

The one and only Silver Stream car built has survived completely intact and original.  The Silver Stream was basically a car with a French engine and chassis allied to a superb British-built Roi-des-Belges body, and it must have been seen as Irelands “answer” to the Silver Ghost of Messrs. Rolls and Royce.

The Silver Stream was the first assembled car in Ireland as opposed to a completely manufactured car in the ordinary sense.  The enterprise did not succeed, probably because the selling price of the car worked out at £2000 – an enormous amount of cash in 1906-1908.

Bennet race

The four new motor car stamps, the latest in the biennial Transport in Ireland series, were designed by Charles Rycraft.  Also on sale is a commemorative booklet of the classic car stamps, the cover of which features the Gordon Bennet race of 1903 in this country.

The event, over a staged course in Laois, Offaly and Kildare, was watched by large crowds and marshalled by 7,000 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary at a cost of £3,000.  The race was won by Camille Jenatzy, a Belgian driving a Mercedes for the German team.

This event is the theme of the Special Commemorative booklet containing the motoring stamps.

Re-typed by Mary Murphy