Nice and interesting book, indeed
They say (and sorry for my English): "Douglas Arthur Russell, who earned his money before the War in trading model aeroplanes, started after the War a magazine about planes, and they were then based in an ex-military airport (Easton Bray). Then, in 1949, he started the automobile business, first with plans to build plastic bodies for other carmakers, but without any success. Then, together with his eldest son Michael, hence the name Russon (= Russell and Son) they made their first complete aluminium prototype, that looked like an upside-down bathtube with nodoors and no roof. It had a 197 cc Villiers 1-cylinder 2-stroke engine in the rear. The speedometer was placed outside, at the place of the rear view mirror.
Then one of the modell builders made a new design (the one shown here...) and another model builder made the body structure in ash-wood. This was placed on a steel ladder chassis with independent wheel suspension and a 10 bhp 250 cc Excelsiot 2-cylinder 2-stroke engine and a 3-speed Albion gearshift., transmission by chains to the rear wheels.. This second prototype was presented in Spring 1951, but wasn't achieved with much enthousiasm, because of the frameless windscreen, the small doors and the primitive construction, even though there was the luxury of adaptable position of the pedals... The car could just reach 40 mph with an incredible lot of noise...
Summer 1951 showed a new prototype (the one shown in the book) with which they made a test tour of 1525 miles throughout England. It had a nicer body design, no fake front grille, a framed windscreen, a softtop and a nicer, shorter rear. There was some luggage space behind the seats, and side windows were available as an option. It was slightly faster. Now the gear shift was mounted on the dashboard (instead of on the steering wheel column).
Halfway 1952 the 'producion' stopped, less then ten were built...
