WHY THE BOOK WAS WRITTEN - by Rob Dunsterville.

From the time my father, Hugh Dunsterville, took my elder brother, sister, and myself to Castle Combe to watch motor racing in the early 1950's, the name "Freikaiserwagen" had been mentioned at home on a number of occassions. At first it meant very little but later it took on more meaning when around 1961-62 my brother aquired a Morris 8, stripped down to basics, for racing around the fields of our father's farm. This was in the true CAPA Club* spirit and although this car was never named Freikaiserwagen 2, or such like, similarities were recalled such as a scrapyard as the source for the basic components, ultra lightweight and excellent power to weight ratios.
*Explained in an appendix of the book.

My late 'teens and early twenties came and went with fun driving the Morris around the fields and a broken gate on the boundary fence about which my father's next door neighbour was not amused!
Then migration to Australia, the Morris rotted away, the farm was sold and a hiatus until 2001 when, on one of my visits home, Hugh handed me for safe keeping various pieces of information he had stored - some were 65 years old - all covering the Freikaiserwagen and Borborygmus sprint and hill climb specials. Basically they made up an archive which was far from complete.

This handing over prompted a long and much more detailed conversation about Freikaiserwagen than I had ever had with him in the past; leading to my realisation how instrumental he was in the design and construction of the original Freikaiserwagen with David Fry.

I turned to the internet for more information but found very little simply because it relies on data being inserted for one reason or another by someone, and this had not occurred.

Hugh, as a previous member of the Bristol Motor Cycle and Light Car Club, contacted Dick Mayo who was a current office bearer and we met him at the Club's sprint meeting at Colerne. He showed us the Freikaiserwagen model, donated in 1950 to the Club by Joe Fry's widow as a perpetual trophy, and the document of information that accompanied it. I read this through and several differences were recorded to what I had read in the archival material handed to me by Hugh.

We decided then and there to research and write a few pages of accurate information on Freikaiserwagen as a replacement for the document that accompanied the trophy when it is presented annually.

On the trail for information we were surprised to find there was more than we anticipated and much more that was inaccurate had become folklore. Within a few months Hugh and I realised that a full and accurate history of the car was warranted.