Ardent Alligator, Riley Brooklands based.
"It started life out in 1929. Twenty years later, in a different country, with a different engine, a different body, and a different name, it would win a race in a small community in upstate New York in the Finger Lakes region that would soon become synonymous with road racing in America. The car was the Ardent Alligator, and the race was the Watkins Glen Grand Prix.
The car was built in England as a Riley Brooklands with an 1100cc engine capable of producing 55 hp. It was purchased in 1934 by Miles Collier, who along with his brother, Sam, founded and raced in the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), the premier road racing sanctioning body before WWII. The car was green at this time and being from the Florida Everglades region, they named it the Ardent Alligator.
The car was stored between 1935 and 1939, whereupon it received a new body and a new engine, a Mercury 3.9 liter V-8 flathead and drivetrain producing 175 hp. The War forced the car to go back into storage until 1949."
Text by Russell Jaslow
