Harry Lester built cars. The time was the late 1940s, and Harry Lester ran a small garage business in Knebworth, Hertfordshire, England. Like so many other auto enthusiasts in England after the war, Harry raced a modified pre-war MG.
His PB Midget was quite successful on the racetrack, but the introduction of the quicker MG TC resulted in his decision to build a car that any talented amateur could use to compete successfully in the 1500cc sports car class. Recognizing a good starting point when he saw one, Lester modified a 1250cc MG TC engine by boring it through its water jackets and then inserting steel sleeves to create an engine with a 1467cc displacement. He grabbed other parts from various pre- and post-war MG models, hashing them together to build light and quick sports cars that were able to compete successfully with much more expensive designs. Other MG special drivers like Dick Jacobs became interested in Harry's lightweight specials, but Harry was adamant that his cars be called Lesters, no matter who was running them.
Monkey Business
Harry Lester's real breakthrough came in 1950 when he began his association with Jim Mayers, a wealthy amateur driver who was an heir to the family that controlled the Polaroid company. Mayer, Pat Griffith and Gerry Ruddock formed themselves into a three-car Lester team called the Monkey Stable in order to tackle the 1952 sports car racing season.
Harry Lester was a short man with long arms, and the name seems to have been a reference to his monkey-like appearance. The drivers of the team considered themselves to be the three wise monkeys, although exactly which driver saw, heard or spoke no evil has been lost in antiquity.
The team had considerable success in the British events, with major competition coming from Cliff Davis in his Cooper-MG, and class wins at many venues. The Monkey Stable dominated the nine-hour Goodwood race, taking the first three places. Mayer was so happy with his first season that he asked Harry Lester to build him three new cars to attack long-distance races in Europe in the following season. After long discussions about what Mayer wanted, it was agreed that Lester couldn't possibly create the new cars in time, and Mayer finally turned to Kieft, who was developing its own line of sports racing cars after initial success with 500cc Formula Three cars.
The Monkey Stable retained the reliable MG engines, but the season was largely unsuccessful and there was considerable dissension within the team. Mayer sold his Kieft cars at the end of the 1953 season and again asked Harry to build him four new cars. Lester agreed to provide the cars for the 1955 season and so there were no Monkey Stable entries during the 1954 racing season.
After cooling his heels for a season, Jim Mayer finally got his new cars in 1955, only to discover that they were already out of date compared with the latest aerodynamic designs from Lotus, Cooper and others. After a depressing season, Mayers was willing to see what they could salvage from the Monkey Stable. When Jim Mayers was killed on September 18 in a multi-car crash at the wheel of a Cooper-Climax in the Tourist Trophy Race at Dundrod, the Monkey Stable ceased to be.
How Many?
It's hard to say exactly how many cars Harry Lester actually built. The accepted number seems to be somewhere between 20 and 22. He remained faithful to MG power for most of those specials, changing to Coventry Climax power for two of the four cars that he built for the Monkey Stable in 1955.
In fact, Lester ran a very successful tuning business for MG racers, providing 1467cc engines based on the 1250cc MG TC block, with Harry Weslake gas-flowed cylinder heads, a special camshaft and flywheel and a 10:1 compression ratio. The engines put out just over 100 hp compared to the 52 hp produced by the stock MG TC engine. The death of Jim Mayer and the Monkey Stable in 1955 seemed to take much of the fun out of racing, and Harry Lester went back to running his garage until he retired. Harry Lester died in 1982 at the age of 82. A half dozen or so of his cars are still known to exist.
Car Number HL/9
Marv Primack of Chicago owns the 1949 Lester MG that graces these pages. The car was built using MG TA chassis number TA2460 that dates from 1938. The HL/9 serial number that the car carries might indicate it to be the ninth car that Lester built, although exactly when he started counting is anybody's guess. The car is thought to be among the first that carried Lester's overbored 1467cc engine.
Jim Mayer drove the car on several occasions prior to forming the Monkey Stable team, and no doubt its lightweight and quick acceleration impressed the amateur racer. Mayer drove the car at Goodwood in 1950, placing first in the 1500cc class. The car continued to be campaigned through 1950 and 1951, including placing a strong second at the Prescott Hillclimb. At some point in 1951, the car was rebodied, making it even slimmer and more aerodynamic.
In 1954, Columbus, Ohio racer Don Marsh brought HL/9 to the U.S. He had a new nose made to replace the particularly ugly one the car came with, added Alfin aluminum drum brakes and exchanged the front 16-in. wire wheels for 15-in. wheels. Marsh ran the car at Cumberland and Brynfan Tyddyn but did not finish at either race event. He then sold the car to Midwest racing legend Chuck Dietrich, who finished second at the inaugural race at Elkhart Lake in 1955 and first at the road race at Brynfan Tyddyn.
In 1956, HL/9 went to FFART (Funny Face Auto Racing Team), where it was raced by Ted Jayne and Charlie Ellmers. The car took first at Put-in-Bay in Ohio in 1956 and third at Watkins Glen in 1958. By the end of 1959, the little Lester was no longer competitive.
During the 1960s, it went through four owners before Chicago driver Frank Diaz bought it for vintage racing in 1974. Marv Primack bought Lester HL/9 in 1986 and runs the car a couple of times per year in the pre-war and T-series MG class with the Vintage Sports Car Drivers Association (VSCDA) in the Midwest.
Driving HL/9
Getting into Marv Primack's Lester, after removing the large Brooklands steering wheel and levering your legs around the exposed steel tubing, is as easy as sitting down. Although the racers who drove these machines were big in courage, they must have been fairly small in stature--my 6 ft 2 in. frame barely fits inside the skimpy bodywork. The floor is also made up of crisscrossing tubes, and finding a place to rest your heels is somewhat problematic at first.
If you have ever driven a hot racing MG TC, then you might have a sense of what the Lester is like. Its engine revs very quickly and, though it has plenty of torque down low, easily revs past 6500 rpm. While the production MG feels like a sports car, the aluminum-bodied Lester feels so light and agile that you know immediately it was built for racing. It's fast in a straight line, too, although at speeds above 90 mph the car tends to bounce and dart from bump to bump in a most disturbing manner. Marv Primack says it is best to just let the car find its own way on a bumpy track and not add too many corrections.
On the entry into a corner, the car is all sweetness and light and follows the driver's inputs like a very good dancing partner. Roll onto the throttle midway through a turn, and the car takes a nice set, drifting with all four wheels and making you feel like a hero. An exposed hero, truth be told, as your head and shoulders stick far above the bodywork of this fascinating little racer.
With its light weight, quick acceleration and predictable handling, it is easy to see why Marv Primack's early Lester MG is a front-runner at vintage races in the Midwest today, just as it was in sports car races 50 years ago in England.