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Tuesday 31 May 2016

More Electric Hybrid Cars

On 13 April 2016 I showed some photographs of a Tesla electric car that I'd seen plugged into a charging point at Salford Quays. Since then I've seen two more cars plugged into this charging point so this mode of transport seems to be getting more popular. Here are photographs of those other cars I've seen.
This is a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Hybrid SUV

This one is a Volkswagen Golf GTE Hybrid

Monday 30 May 2016

Connaught A Type

This car competed in the Cheshire Building Society Allcomer Race at the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies Meeting at Oulton Park in June 1982.
It's Gerry Walton's Connaught A Type, chassis number A8, and you can read the history of the car in this description of the car issued by H&H Auctions when it was entered for auction in May 2002.

Sunday 29 May 2016

Marauder Tourer

This car was in the paddock at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1995.
It's a 1951 Marauder Tourer, a car based on the Rover 75 chassis. Fifteen cars were produced before rising costs and a doubling of Purchase Tax by the British Government caused the demise of the Company.

Saturday 28 May 2016

Alfa Romeo 1300 Berlina

I took this photograph in the paddock at the Historic Grand Prix Cars Association's International Historic Grand Prix meeting at Donington Park in May 2004.
They are two Alfa Romeo 1300 Berlinas, probably from the late 1950s, but they aren't shown in the programme of the event and neither is there any mention of Scuderia del Portello. They may have been late entrants, but I don't remember if they took part in the 2¼ hour long Gentleman Drivers GT and Sports Endurance Race, which is the only race for which they would have been eligible.

Friday 27 May 2016

Friday's Ferrari

Here's a photograph I took at the VSCC's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies Meeting at Oulton Park in July 1987.
It's Neil Corner's 1960 Ferrari Dino 246 F1 car, at that time in Tasman guise with a 3 litre V12 sports car engine in place of the original 2½ litre V6 engine. The car's serial number is 0788FT.

Thursday 26 May 2016

REVAi

I spotted this strange looking car in a car park in Hyde the other day.
It's a REVAi, a micro electric car produced in India between 2001 and 2012, and known in the United Kingdom as a G-Wiz.

Wednesday 25 May 2016

Maserati 4CLT

This car competed in the Chopard HGPCA 100 Mile Grand Prix Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival Meeting at Silverstone in July 1994.
It's Peter Hannen's 1948 Maserati 4CLT, chassis number 1595, and was driven in this race by Dan Margulies. The first 4CLT was produced in 1947 and the 1948 variant made its debut at the San Remo Grand Prix, winning the race in the hands of Alberto Ascari. The 4CLT hes ever since been known as the 'San Remo'.

Tuesday 24 May 2016

Audi

On 2 December 2012 I showed some photographs of the Auto Union C-Type and D-Type which Audi brought to the VSCC's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Donington Park in May 2001. Audi brought several other cars and motorcycles that day, including the two shown below.
This is the Audi R8R of 1999, a prototype which competed in the Le Mans 24 Hour race that year, the two cars finishing in third and fourth places, though the two R8C closed cockpit cars in the LMGTP class failed to finish the race.
This car is the Audi R8, a redevelopment of the previous year's car, and it finished in the first three places in the 2000 Le Mans race which it won again in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005.
Here are the two cars during the demonstration run, photographed from the inside of Coppice Corner.

Monday 23 May 2016

Leyland Leopard

I took this photograph in Heaton Park, Manchester at the Trans Lancs Historic Vehicle Rally in September 1995.
It's not listed in the programme of the event, but it's a former Lancashire United Leyland Leopard with a Plaxton Derwent body.

Sunday 22 May 2016

ERA R14B

This is one of the 9 ERAs (including the E-Type GP2) that competed in the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophy Race for Historic Racing Cars at the VSCC's meeting at Oulton Park in August 1992.
It's Donald Day's 1937/36 2 litre ERA R14B, a car that was once owned by Reg Parnell, and also Bob Gerard who drove it in in four British Grands Prix between 1948 and 1951.

Saturday 21 May 2016

Aston Martin DB3

This car took part in the RAC Woodcote Trophy for Pre 1956 Sports Cars race at the Silverstone Classic meeting in July 2010.
It's a 1952 Aston Martin DB3, here being 'fettled' in the paddock before the start of practice. The driving in the hour-long race was shared by Martin Melling and Richard Hall. The chassis number of this car is DB3/5.

Friday 20 May 2016

Friday's Ferrari

This car competed in the Shell Historic Ferrari Maserati Challenge race at the VSCC's meeting at Donington Park in June 2003.
It's a 1971 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Competizione, here leaving the pit lane during a practice session. The driver is shown in the programme of the event as Diego Meier, but the barchetta.cc record shows that the owner of the car, Arnold Meier, drove the car at this meeting. The serial number of the car is 14429.

Thursday 19 May 2016

Stutz Bearcat

This car competed in two of the handicap races at the VSCC's Hawthorn Memorial Trophies Race Meeting at Oulton Park in June 2008.
It's Mike Holt's 6 litre 1918 Stutz Bearcat. The Bearcat was the first American car to be regarded as a racing car, one competing in the first Indianapolis 500 mile race in 1911, and you can read the story of Stutz here.
Here's Mike Holt at Britten's chicane during the first of his races that day.

Wednesday 18 May 2016

Billund Motor Museum

In August 1992 when our children were 11 and 9 years old we went on a trip to Denmark, the main purpose of which was to visit the Legoland park in Billund, where we spent a full day. The park is just across the road from Billund Airport, and I'd already found out that there was a motor and aviation museum adjacent to the airport, so about an hour before we were due to be picked up I nipped out of the park and across to the museum to have a look round. I've been meaning to show these photographs for some time, but I can't find the brochure I purchased at the museum so I've no further details about the cars and planes other than the identification which I had put on each of the photographs. Here are a few of the cars I photographed that day.

1912 Metz Runabout

1912 Wanderer

1938 American Bantam Model 60

1936 Cord 810 Sedan

1934 Chrysler Airflow CV Imperial


Tuesday 17 May 2016

Stanguellini 1100 Intersport

This car competed in the Champagne Charles Heidsieck Sports Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1993.
It's Giulio Felloni's 1952 Stanguellini 1100 Intersport, one of two Stanguellinis in the race and I featured the other car on 4 February 2016.

Monday 16 May 2016

Maserati 250F

This is another of those Kodak Brownie 127 camera photographs, this time from the British Grand Prix at Aintree in July 1959.
It's Fritz d'Orey's Scuderia Centro Sud 1954 Maserati 250F, chassis number 2515, that he qualified in a lowly 20th place on the grid and failed to finish the race due to an accident on lap 57. Car number 24 next to it is another Scuderia Centro Sud car, the rear-engined Cooper T51 Maserati of Hans Herrmann who also failed to finish. The Maserati 250F was a remarkable car, several competing in the 1954 Argentine Grand Prix, the first race of the 2½ litre Formula, and the last race of the 2½ litre Formula, the 1960 United States Grand Prix, included a 250F in the hands of the American Bob Drake. Fritz d'Orey was the driver who drove the 1958 Tec-Mec Maserati in its only Grand Prix race, the 1959 United States Grand Prix.

Sunday 15 May 2016

Brabham BT45

I took this photograph at the Donington  Park Museum in October 1989.
I've labelled the car as a 1978 Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT45, and presumably this is the identification placed on it in the museum. If it's a 1978 car, however, it should be a BT45C, but that car had a different nose to the one in this photograph. The BT45 (the 1976 car) and the BT45B (the 1977 car) looked like the car here, though photographs of the BT45B show it with different markings on the rear aerofoil, so the BT45 label is possibly correct.

Saturday 14 May 2016

Jaguars

Here's a photograph taken at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in August 2008 of four Jaguars parked in an appropriate chronological order.
From right to left there's an XK120, produced between 1948 and 1954, an XK140, produced between 1954 and 1957, an XK150, produced between 1957 and 1961, and an E-Type, produced between 1961 and 1975.

Friday 13 May 2016

Friday's Ferrari

This car was part of the Ferrari Feature at the Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992.
It's a 1957 Ferrari 500 TRC Spyder with Scaglietti bodywork, and the programme of the event had this note about the car:

13     500 TRC
In-line 4-cylinder engine; 2 litres; 180bhp at 7000rpm;
ifs/double wishbones/coil springs; rigid axle rear/coil
springs. A development of the previous year's 500 Testa
Rossa, the TRC version was built to meet the 1957
Appendix C regulations and intended for customer use
only. This car owned by Austrian G Kochert was at the
1957 Le Mans, Kochert/Bauer, DNF and at the 1000
Kms that year where it won the Sport 200 Class for
Kochert.

One of 19 cars built, this Ferrari 500 TRC has the serial number 0686MDTR.

Thursday 12 May 2016

Singer Bantam

I photographed this car in the car park of the Village Hotel, Cheadle before the start of the Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run organised by the Lancashire Automobile Club in June 1993.
It's not listed in the programme of the event, but it's a 1937 Singer Bantam Coupe. The website of the Singer Bantam Register has this information about the car.

Wednesday 11 May 2016

Napier-Railton

On 2 May 2012 I showed some photographs of the 1933 Napier-Railton which gave demonstration runs at the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Donington Park in May 2011. Here are some more photographs of the car I took that day.



You can see the three banks of four cylinders in these photographs, the exhausts for the right-hand bank (looking from the driving seat) emerging to the right of the engine and the exhausts for the central- and left-hand banks emerging to the left.
A pity the Union Flag's upside down!
The car is kept at the Brooklands Museum, and you can read about it here.

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Cooper T41

This car competed in the Hawthorn Memorial Trophy race at the VSCC's meeting at Oulton Park in June 2006.
It's Ian Horner's 1956 Cooper T41, a car which was built for the new 1½ litre Formula 2 which started that year. Cooper eventually developed this car into the 2½ litre T51 with which Jack Brabham won his first World Championship in 1959.

Monday 9 May 2016

AEC Routemaster

I photographed this vehicle at the Trans Lancs Historic Vehicle Rally at Heaton Park, Manchester in September 1993.
It's a 1962 AEC Routemaster, RM 1017, the iconic London bus, but it's not listed in the programme of the event. Though the 'Piccadilly' on the lower destination blind might indicate a London bus route, the places shown on the upper blind relate to a Manchester route, so the final destination is 'Piccadilly, Manchester'.

Sunday 8 May 2016

Porsche 917K

This car was on display at the Silverstone Historic Tribute meeting in June 2004 and didn't take part in any of the races.
It's a 1969 Porsche 917K, the model that gave Porsche its first win at the Le Mans 24 Hour race and ended Ford's winning run of four consecutive races.

Saturday 7 May 2016

Aston Martin DBR4/250

This car took part in the Flockhart Trophy Race for 1950s single-seat cars at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in June 2008.
It's Hubert Fabri's 1957 Aston Martin DBR4/250, but subsequently known just as a DBR4, a Grand Prix car built in 1957 although it didn't make its debut in Grand Prix racing until 1959. The programme of the event shows its engine capacity to be 2992cc, which suggests that it's from an Aston Martin DB3S.

Friday 6 May 2016

Friday's Ferrari

This is one of the cars taking part in the AMOC Intermarque Championship race at the Aston Martin Owners Club meeting at Oulton Park in May 2015.
It's Wayne Marrs' 1996 Ferrari F355 Challenge, seen here in the pit garage.
Here's the car waiting at the scrutineering bay.
Wayne Marrs at Druids Corner during a practice session.

Thursday 5 May 2016

Fiat 500L

I usually manage to get a few photographs of interesting cars when we pay our regular visits to Guernsey, but on the latest trip I only managed one car.
It's a Fiat 500L, a car that was produced between 1968 and 1972 and the Guernsey registration number suggests that it's a 1969 model.

Wednesday 4 May 2016

Renault Floride

This is a car on the stand of the Renault Owners Club at the Northern Classic Car Show at the G-Mex Centre, Manchester, in August 1993.
It's a 1962 Renault Floride, a car that was produced from 1958 to 1968, and until 1962 marketed in the USA and the United Kingdom as a Caravelle, There's no mention of it in the brochure of the show, but the Renault Owners Club is described as follows:

'The Renault Owners Club caters for people who own or have an interest in Renault cars, particularly from 1946 until the present day. We try to cater for the serious restoration persons to simply the family owners of a modern car. Models span the classic 4CV right through the thoroughbred rear engined models right up till the Clio and Safrane. Sporting Renault owners are also catered for with track days. A professional quarterly magazine is published, supplemented by a newsletter. Spares and technical advice are also provided. 1993 is the club's 41st year and currently has about 800 members.
Unlike many car makes, the club enjoys close links with the manufacturer. The display at Manchester tries to portray but a few milestones in the history of Renault in Great Britain.'