1927 Rugby Tourer report - www.mister-cars.com

How do cars get their names? In many cases it's the obvious ... particularly in the early days of the horseless carriage. Austin, Morris, Studebaker, Ford, Chrysler, Rolls-Royce – to name a few were all named after the company founder(s). Even our own Holden was no different. Then there are the different brands within a make. Of all the car names one of the more unusual is the Rugby. Not that sports are far from the minds of car makers even today with the likes of Volkswagen's Polo and Golf. Golf in particular is a world-wide success story.

Our featured car is a 1927 Rugby Tourer. Cars are like people ... they all have a story and this old Rugby – or should we say two Rugby's rolled into one – are no different. Their early history is unclear but according to owner Jeff Cox the cars were swapped for four restored motorcycles by a Brisbane vehicle enthusiast and restorer, Rudy Rasmussen. Mr Rasmussen was well known in classic car circles and was also employed by the RACQ as a breakdown serviceman.

In 2002 Jeff was working on an air-conditioning unit at the Rasmussen house – an old Queenslander – and noticed a timber spoke wheel poking out from under some canvas under the home. In passing he mentioned to the owner he had peeked under the tarpaulin. He did not recognise the car's name. She said the cars belonged to her late husband.

“I was writing out the invoice for my work and Mrs Rasmussen said there was a bloke interested in buying the cars, but had yet to turn up with any money. I said to her to give me a call if he did not come good.” For Jeff the conversation was left there until around six weeks later when he took a call at home. The buyer had not returned and was he still interested in the cars? He jumped at the chance. The cars were both separated from the chassis and in bits and Mr Rasmussen had picked the best parts from each car to build one vehicle.

“After we got the car bits home in was a case of walking around the basic vehicle seeing which parts fitted where,” said Jeff. “We would unwrap parts covered in newspaper and they were chromed parts that had been sent away and were now ready to go.” In all the car was about 95 per cent complete.  “Apparently Rudy was busy putting the car together for many years until he passed away. When completed it was going to be used as a wedding car.”

One of the first things Jeff did was find out about a car make he did not know. “We knew nothing of Rugby and had never heard of Billy Durant,” he said. “So we did a lot of research.” What he learned was that William Crapo Durant was a legend of the US auto scene. Born in 1861, he founded General Motors Corporation, and died, almost broke, at age 85 in 1947.

Durant started his career with a horse drawn carriage company in 1886 and took over Buick in 1904. He formed GM in 1908, the year the first Model T Ford rolled off the production line. Durant's career was a roller coaster ride. In 1910 he lost control to Chevrolet and by 1915 had regained ownership of GM. By 1920 he was forced out of GM, this time for good. Just a year later he formed Durant Motors in New Jersey and by March the first Durant had been designed, built and was ready for all to see. It went on sale in May, 1921 as the `Durant 4'.

Durant recognised where the market lay – in cheap, simple, four cylinder cars – through observing the success of the Model T. In 1922 Durant announced his company would produce a small, four cylinder car of modern design to be called the `Star.' Like the Model T which was still in full production he wanted the car to be a world-wide product and one of the larger potential markets was Great Britain. There was only one problem. The `Star' name was already taken in the UK with a Wolverhampton company having already registered the name. Durant quickly came up with a name that would suit that market – Rugby. The name of a town, and a school that invented a set of rules for the football game that carried the Rugby name. So all export Stars became Rugby followers.

Australian Rugby cars were imported from Canada and distributed by H.C.Richards of Adelaide. Many US makes – including Ford – had manufacturing plants in Canada. This came about as a result of the British Empire insisting that Empire countries buy products from other Empire nations, in preference to elsewhere, as part of the war effort in WW1. So many of the cars imported to Australia in this era were built in Canada thus avoiding the higher import duty of the US-built cars. We got cheaper cars and Canada had a thriving car industry. It took Jeff from 2002 to 2008 to get the Rugby fully restored and back on the road. It had it's debut outing at the 2008 Gold Coast Autorama held by the Gold Coast Antique Auto Club. The car has a three speed transmission – no synchro on first gear – and is powered by a 130.4 cubic inch in-line four cylinder engine that develops 15.6 horsepower. It sits on a wheelbase of 102 inches and weighs in at 1805 lbs. As you see by the images there are no front brakes and it has `artillery' style timber spoke wheels.

“The car is mostly original,” said Jeff. “And I have kept it pretty well with no frills, not too much chrome. Asked what the car was like to drive, Jeff gave a succinct reply: “Slow is the only description.” “If you want a feeling of going very fast, just step into the Rugby and you get all the thrills at 25 miles per hour (40 km/h),” he said. “Basically, you have to look at when this car was built and the road environment at that time – only the big cities had anything like good roads, so this car was built to follow wheel ruts in the road. Most of this era cars were built to go off-road rather than on-road.” As such the Rugby has tall thin wheels and plenty of clearance.

With no synchro on first the gearbox – which Jeff describes as a `crash box' - is fairly agricultural. “You have to come to a complete stop to engage first gear,” he said. “Top speed is around 25 to 35 miles per hour (40 km/h – 50 km/h) but it's best cruising speed is around 20 miles an hour (30 km/h). The brakes are at best ordinary and in the wet there's virtually no brakes at all. It makes for adventurous motoring. Yet, the car is a star – excuse the pun – where ever it goes. “I've had people in everything Hummers to Mercedes Benz pull up and admire the Rugby. Where ever we stop a small crowd will always gather. People just love it.” We can see why.