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Innes Ireland and Snow Trac

cronlen

New member
Greetings - I'm very interested in the life and times of the Grand Prix racing driver Innes Ireland, who I believe was the UK importer of Snow-Tracs in the mid 1960s. He is mentioned in the 1963 Autosport article on this forum.

I'm posting another article from the September 1966 issue of a magazine called Car Life which might be of interest. Here are the links you can enter in your browser, unfortunately as this is my first post this is the best I can do, as the forum doesn't allow me to post pictures yet.

img409.imageshack.us/img409/3324/carlife1ft8.jpg
img267.imageshack.us/img267/3879/carlife2rz9.jpg

Just put http :// infront, deleting space between http and :// of course.

By the way there is a brief view of Innes demonstrating the Snow-Trac in a 1964 film called "The Time Between" released on video by Terrific Stuff Videos.

Anyway if any of you Snow-Trac buffs have any more information about Innes's connection with this machine then that would be of interest to me. I was surprised that as many as 200 Snow-Tracs were sold in Scotland. I wonder how many were sold in Innes's time and when his association with the machine ended
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
I know essentially nothing about him, but I do know that he was attributed to being one of the original importers of the Snow Trac to the UK. I am not sure if that is accurate information, however, as a man by the name of Alex McLartey, who lived in Scotland, seems to have actually been the fellow who pulled off the task of importing the Snow Tracs to both Scotland and England. Not sure if he shipped into Ireland or Wales. It is possibly that Alex may have taken over the import right from Innes at some point?

Here are the images you were unable to add, I have added them to my post on your behalf:

carlife1ft8.jpg


carlife2rz9.jpg
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
Rumor has it that Innes was a writer for one of the major car magazines for some years after he quit racing, possibly Road & Track, anyway he had some connection in Texas, may have owned property there and either transported an ST4 back and forth or kept one at either end of the line. I have a copy of the above listed article, NOS, still in the original mailer. Great Article. At the time he was dealing the machines(around 1966) all the machines were still being produced in Sweden. It would be reasonable to assume that he may have had some influence in their continued sales and production in Scotland/Ireland.
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
In his article he say's that the machine has a 1500 CC motor. Volkswagen produced the 1300, for bugs, in ONLY 1966. I'm not sure if they ever produced a 1300 Industrial Motor. The 1500 was produced for many years and was eventually superceded by the 1600 around 1968, I've never actually seen a 1500 in the roughly 200 ST4's I've inspected. Odds are it was only supplied with that specific engine for a year or less. The 1500 Industrial was installed in late 65 VW Busses.
 

cronlen

New member
Innes was Sports Editor of Autocar magazine from 1967-1970, he then operated a trawler business out Kirkcudbright, Scotland from 1970-1977. After this he did the Grand Prix reports and wrote feature articles for Road and Track util 1990 or so. He was President of the British Racing Drivers Club, the group who own Silverstone at the time of his death in 1993.

From the dates of the Autosport and Car Life magazine articles he seems to have had an interest in Snow-Tracs from early 1963 - the time of the unusually big snowfall in the UK - until 1966. How much of an interest I don't know as he was still racing full time during that period. Somewhere or other I have a reference that he had the sole import rights into the UK at one time - I'll try and dig it out.
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
Thanks for the correction. I'd rather have the real facts any day over rumor and gossip. Thanks again, Lyndon.
 

Alp Trac

New member
I have copied my copy of autosport, March 1st, 1963.

Which explains more about Innes and the snow trac

Double click the picture to open

Alp Trac
 

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cronlen

New member
Further to my earlier post I've dug-out a copy of an old letter written by Innes Ireland from Lotschental in Switzeland and dated April 1965 in which he reports the the following:
"I am at present living in Switzerland, where I have been extremely busy with the Swedish Snow-Trac vehicles, demonstrating and selling them. I am the the Concessionaire for Snow-Tracs in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Switzerland, and I am having a lot of fun with it here."
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Further to my earlier post I've dug-out a copy of an old letter written by Innes Ireland from Lotschental in Switzeland and dated April 1965 in which he reports the the following:

"I am at present living in Switzerland, where I have been extremely busy with the Swedish Snow-Trac vehicles, demonstrating and selling them. I am the the Concessionaire for Snow-Tracs in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Switzerland, and I am having a lot of fun with it here."

Great new information :applause::applause:

Would it be possible to post a digital scan of that letter!
 

cronlen

New member
I've got a digital copy of the letter but can't remember where I found it and am wary of posting because of copyright issues and all that.

However, if you look at this site (sorry as a newbie I can't link direct but if you put the address below in your browser with www infront it should appear) there is a copy of the relevant section of the letter. There's nothing more about Snow-Trac in the letter than what can be seen there. Glad this information is of interest:

tavaresmotorsport.com/signed_items/352clg.jpg
 
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