A Gallant Effort from Seaforth’s British Machine Ends in Misfortune
The Times, July 1900
With no small measure of patriotic pride, Britain’s hopes in the Paris–Lyon contest found representation in the Seaforth Peaks 3.6L—a machine of noble design and considerable promise. A product of Seaforth Motor Vehicles, the Liverpool firm established by the enterprising Viscount Seaforth, the car boasted a most prodigious power unit: a 3.6-litre opposed four-cylinder engine delivering no less than 45 horsepower, a figure most enviable upon the race circuit. Yet, as the event unfolded, this very strength became its most damning weakness.
From the outset, the Seaforth was a machine at war with its own engineering. Though blessed with ample power, it delivered its strength only at the highest reaches of its revolution, leaving the driver, Mr. Charles Whitmore, engaged in a ceaseless battle with the gears to extract meaningful acceleration. In the opening miles, the car lurched between states of hesitant labour and sudden bursts of speed, its driver forced into a continual exercise of correction.
As the course unfolded into the undulating countryside, this deficiency became all too apparent. On inclines, the car bogged and faltered, its powerband lying cruelly out of reach. When momentum was gained, it arrived with such abruptness as to unsettle the chassis. Whitmore wrestled valiantly, but he had been given a steed both powerful and unruly—one which possessed neither the elasticity nor the docility demanded by such a trial of endurance.
By the third section, the exertions of man and machine alike began to take their toll. The Seaforth’s recalcitrance in gear left Whitmore little choice but to push ever harder, forcing aggressive shifts in an effort to keep the car in motion. A misjudged downchange on a tight corner resulted in a near calamity, the rear wheels stepping wide as the car threatened to spin. He recovered, but it was a warning that the Seaforth, in all its promise, remained an uncooperative companion.
More troubling still was the emergence of a tremor—at first barely perceptible, then impossible to ignore. A low vibration, seated within the mechanical heart of the car, made itself known with increasing insistence. Though the vehicle pressed on, it was clear that all was not well beneath its polished bonnet.
The fourth section proved the breaking point. A sudden and most distressing crack sounded from the transmission, and in an instant, the act of shifting became a tortured affair. The car lurched between gears, each engagement met with the grinding protest of abused cogs. Whitmore, sensing the precariousness of his position, pressed on with no small measure of caution. But it was to be in vain.
By the fifth section, the Seaforth had been reduced to an unwilling beast of burden. The failing gearbox robbed it of its agility, leaving it ill-equipped to respond to the demands of the road. The ride became ever more erratic, the car bounding over uneven terrain with a temperament more befitting a stubborn carriage horse than a refined racing machine.
Then, in the sixth section, catastrophe struck. A final, fateful gear change sent a judder through the car—this time not merely a shudder of protest, but the very death rattle of the machine itself. With an almighty snap, the drivetrain shattered, the rear axle fracturing under the accumulated strain. The suspension, already labouring under its burden, yielded in dramatic fashion, and the Seaforth, proud representative of British ambition, came to a grinding, ignominious halt.
Whitmore, unscathed but crestfallen, stepped from the stricken motorcar to survey the wreckage. Gears lay mangled in their housing, the once-stout rear assembly reduced to a sorry display of twisted metal. The Seaforth, for all its promise, had met its match—not in a competitor, but in the limits of its own engineering.
Thus ended the Seaforth Peaks’ maiden voyage into the realm of competitive motoring. It had entered as a machine of great strength and bold design, but it had also been undone by the very qualities that made it formidable. Though it boasted power in abundance, it lacked the mechanical harmony to tame it, and in the crucible of the race, such deficiencies proved insurmountable.
Yet, in failure, there is knowledge to be gained. The Viscount Seaforth’s foray into the world of motorcar production is far from over, and it is the hope of many that the lessons learned in this contest shall inform greater triumphs to come. The Seaforth name, though humbled on this occasion, is not yet written into the annals of defeat. Rather, it stands at the precipice of discovery, awaiting the refinement that shall one day see it rise to its rightful place amongst the great marques of Europe.
