Colin Strang worked in the motor trade, Strang Motors Ltd in Harrow, North London, he was one of the first to present a complete car having built his 500 in just four months, with assistance from Noel Shorrock, of the supercharging company, and G Mullet. The Strang car was based on a Fiat 500 chassis, boxed with steel to improve rigidity, with a mid mounted Vincent HRD engine. Considerable effort went into lightening the car, very much against the thinking at the time, and many other details were improved. At the rear, the Fiat elliptical springs were retained and a solid back axle was used but the centre drive sprocket and fabric disk were free to move and located by a pair of parallel braces running above and below the axle. After the end of '46 this arrangement was abandoned in favour of amore conventional Fiat set up. Colin managed to extract more power from the TT and Dirt track engines than even the Vincent factory could achieve, switching between the two according to the relative need for peak power or torque.
Colin was fastest at Prescott in May 1946 and then won the next six events over the following twelve months, an incredibly successful start. Wisely, he stuck to the hills where reliability was easier to achieve, his only recorded circuit outings at Gransden Lodge in '47 and Silverstone for the Grand Prix in '48 resulted in a DNFs.
Inevitably, by 1949, the car became outclassed by the Cooper production cars but Colin still managed a fastest time in June at Bo'ness. Strang quit at the end of the year but his special continued to compete in various hands, notably G. Foulger, a haulage contractor from Attleborough, into the 50s. It still exists but has not run for many years.
While largely forgotten, Colin's choice of a mid mounted engine and Fiat based suspension predates John Cooper's first effort by several months making this car a highly significant development in the history of motor racing.
Colin's known results: