1898 Stephens Motorcar Prototype
Clevedon
Prototype AE-174 monument is a 1:1 recreation of the groundbreaking victorian petrol powered
motorcar built by Richard Stephens in 1897, and released to the public in 1898. It's still on the
road after 128 years, and still races the London to Brighton run on its original solid rubber tires.
Needless to say, any steel replica had to be galvanized to also withstand its own century, and do
so exposed outdoors, on a roundabout on the Severn Estuary.
Mark Reber, founder of Clevedon Cars & Coffee®, whose members donated the funds to
immortalize Clevedon's heritage, feared the resulting monument could rust from the inside out.
Mark enlisted Ryan Atkin of Ryan's Iron, having done several projects together. Ryan's forge is in
Lincoln, and fortunately has a local galvaniser just round the corner. The two of them
worked through the rainy and snowy winter outdoors with rust forming as quickly as the next
morning on their most recent work.
Their local galvaniser visited the forge in Lincoln several times to ensure that fabrication
would not obstruct the rapid flow of molten zinc. Galvanizing had to quickly coat the hollow round-
section bends, and various thicknesses of the solid sections and plate of the sculpture, so that
the replica did not distort and buckle between the hot dipped lower portions and the cool upper
sections which were still waiting to be safely submerged.
"I was a nervous wreck!" said Mark Reber of the days leading up to galvanizing, but our galvaniser
suggested another set of holes in it for the air to escape so the hot-dip was also a smooth quick
dip. Although the monument broke down into a dozen pieces, after being coated, they all went
back together despite very tight tolerances. Ryan and Mark were relieved.
In its galvanized shimmering finish, the Stephens Prototype looks like more like a royal coronation
carriage than the surface-rust covered project Mark and Ryan sent to the galvanizer.
Photographs © Mark Reber