From the archives of motoring historian Bob Montgomery
IF ONLY: "Might-have-beens" make great stories and Irish motoring is littered with them. One in particular stands out - the story of the Thomond, or the Thomonds, for four were apparently made.
Quite simply, the Thomond was the first car built in the Irish Free State. It was the result of a collaboration between three talented men who produced a fine sporting car which deserved success.
The Thomond story really begins in the 1925 24-Hours Trial when James A Jones, a motor engineer who had a garage on Haddington Road, Dublin, took a four-door car of his own design and manufacture to the end of this gruelling 420-mile event. A month later, Jones won a gold medal with his car in the Dublin - Glengariff Two-Day Trial. The following year, he returned to the 24-Hours Trial and won a gold medal.
The story could have ended there, if Jones had not been approached by Dick Humphreys who had been very impressed with the car. He proposed to Jones that he build him a car to his own specification. Jones agreed and Humphreys made a trip to the 1928 Olympia Motor Show returning "armed with loads of motor accessory books and spending a happy few months outlining (and sketching) my dream car." Early in 1929, orders for parts were sent to England, as well as an order for a Meadows 1500 cc two-carburettor 12/50 hp engine.
The car took shape and was delivered to Humphreys in the late summer of 1929. What he received was a very sporty looking three-seater with a wood and fabric body of the Weymann type. The Thomond sported an X-braced channel-steel chassis, a four-cylinder Meadows engine, four-speed gearbox, wire-operated four wheel brakes and bolt-on wire wheels. Superb bodywork was built by Ben Parsons, head assistant in Jones' garage.
The result was outstanding for the time. The Thomond was timed at 80 mph in Dublin's Phoenix Park and was capable of a sustained speed of 60-65 mph at which it was happiest.
"Never having owned such a powerful car before," said Dick Humphreys, "I was thrilled to the core by its performance on the road. Many a time I would leave Dublin at 5 or 6 am to visit my fiancée in Connemara in those days, breakfasting at Cashel near Roundstone between 9.30 and 10 a.m. The 20-mile stretch between Kilbeggan and Athlone proved a very useful test and I usually covered this section in about 20 minutes; the best time was under 18 minutes on one particularly traffic-free day."
Only two more Thomonds were built - or possibly only one - as the final Thomond was most probably an extensively re-modelled version of Dick Humphreys' car which was then re-registered.
Sadly, for whatever reason, no other orders were forthcoming and today the Thomond is simply a memory.
No remains of any of the Thomonds have ever been found though there is the possibility that car No 3 may be waiting to be discovered somewhere in England, where it appears to have been taken on a date after 1946. Meanwhile, the Thomond is remembered in just a handful of photographs, all of which attest to its sporting lines and fine construction.
FIRST MOTORIST FATALITY: I'm most often asked about Ireland's first motoring fatalities. We've already covered in this column the very first motoring fatality, but this time I want to deal with the first motorist fatality.
It occurred in September 1904 at Marlton Bridge in Wicklow. Naish Gray, an English visitor had come to attend the Speed Trials at Portmarnock. Afterwards, he decided to tour in Wicklow. While he and his party were returning from Arklow to Wicklow town along the coast road at a long hill known as Marlton, Gray evidently took the corner at too great a speed and hit the bank on its exit.
The car turned over and his chauffeur, Davey, was trapped beneath, dying a short time later.