Meet Englishman Richard Scaldwell, who runs a rebuilt 1914 GN JAP cycle car and its air-cooled 5.0-litre V8 engine. It has a wooden chassis, a single ‘cyclops’ headlight, tiny rear-wheel brakes – and Scaldwell sometimes drives it from England to the south of France. GN are the initials of the cycle car company’s founders, H. R. Godfrey and Archibald Frazer-Nash. JAP is named for John Alfred Prestwich, who began making the famous motorcycle engines in London around 1902. The 150kW V8 was built in 1908 as a prototype when JAP set out to make engines for the budding air industry. Scaldwell has raced the car at hillclimbs. This video is from the Goodwood classics series.
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