All the story begins with Darmont, who sold morgans in France.

One of Darmont’s prominent early clients was Malcolm Stuart Sandford, who raced Morgans and sold the cars from his Paris showroom.

But Stuart Sandford wasn’t hugely impressed by Darmont’s habit of hanging around outside his premises and poaching his would be customers, to whom he would then sell one of his cars direct, thereby cutting Sandford out of the deal.

This story didn’t long much, and Sandford decided to built his own three wheeler in 1921 with a Ruby four cylinder engine.

The ruby is one of the most popular French engine for cyclecars built by « Godefroy et Léveque », it’s a watercooled four cylinder. And many brands like Sandford, D’Yrsan, Sénéchal, BNC or later Georges Irat had this engine. Georges Irat had this engine as they bought Godefroy and Léveque.

The production of Sandford really started in 1923 with a chassis composed of several tubes which doesn’t need any soldering : Quite an advantage when repair or replacement was needed.

The body was made by an outside contactor in steel or in alloy.

The three main models of Sandford were :

- The type P for « populaire » which as a steel painted body and a 972 cc ruby.

- The type S « grand sport » which ad a polished alloy body and a 1098 cc engine with an optional supercharger.

- The quad a four wheeler cyclecar, which was a type S with four wheel and still the same 1098 cc ruby, but it didn’t met a great success.

We have here a type S of 1932 with an all alloy polished body and the 1098 cc engine with a solex carburetor of 32 mm and a 3 speed + reverse gearbox.

This engine develop something like 35 bhp and with the lightness of the car, it gives good sensations with a 75-80 mph top speed.

As the engine of our car isn’t new anymore, it’s quite flexible and on a track like Monthléry you can stay in 3^rd gear all along the track.

In spite of appearances the Sandford is very confortable even if the rear wheel fall in all the holes you avoid with the front wheels.

It brakes well with the pedal which action the rear brake, and an outside lever which act on the front brakes, the windscreens are very usefuls and aren’t here for the beauty of the car.

The Sandford is a reliable vintage car, which goes well, brakes well, and which is gorgeous.

Is it the ideal car ?

Yes for those who doesn’t care being totally wet under the rain, one of the few inconvenience of this car with the toughness of the gearbox.