At the London Motor Show of 1935, at Olympia, Riley offered their ever increasing pre-WW2 client base a massive range of 35 different models, one of them, the brand new Riley Sprite being a real show-stopper. The new sports car fitted neatly in between their Imp, which was by now becoming underpowered, and the much more exclusive and very much more pricey MPH. The Sprite employed the latter model's chassis and running gear, though with the new three-bearing 12/4 4-cylinder engine, albeit further tuned up.
As if in celebration of the Sprite's arrival on the enthusiast motorist scene, that great 'Riley Master', Freddie Dixon, drove a much lightened TT Sprite with even more powerful 12/4 motor underbonnet to a famous victory in the Ulster Tourist Trophy, to clock up one of the Coventry marque's greatest victories. The ERA Grand Prix cars, which waved the Union flag so valiantly in the immediate pre and postwar years, had their origins in Rileys.
