1909 Albion A6 Tourer

This is one of the cars that took part in the Lancashire Automobile Club's Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run in June 1979 and is pictured before the start of the Run.

It's a 1909 Albion A6 Tourer and a short note in the programme of the event reads as follows:

'B. L. Heritage Ltd & Leyland Historic Vehicles Ltd., Studley. Warwicks.

1909 Albion A6 Tourer. 4-cylinder. 5.6 litres. (Driver: D. Abell).'

This collection at Studley is now the British Motor Museum.

1928/30 DH-Riley

This car competed in a ten lap scratch race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting at Oulton Park in August 1996.

It's the 1928/30 DH-Riley of Geraint Owen, a 6,124cc engined car about which the programme of the event says: '....Geraint Owen's DH-Riley is powered by another aero engine of the De Havilland Gypsy Variety....'. The car was put up for auction by RM Sotheby's in October 2020.

1962 Cooper Climax T60

This is  photograph I took at the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's the Cooper Climax T60, chassis F1-17-61, that was introduced in 1962 and was driven by Bruce McLaren and Tony Maggs that season. The book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection' says this about the car:

When Cooper's V8 won

McLaren's Monaco success

3 June 1962 saw the Monaco Grand Prix run around the tortuous street circuit of Monte Carlo. The race began with a terrific multiple pile-up on the first corner, and from the seventh lap Graham Hill led in his new BRM V8. After ninety laps around this gruelling course the BRM began to sicken, and three laps later Hill retired and surrendered a 48-second lead to Bruce McLaren's reliable Cooper-Climax V8.

The popular New Zealander paced himself to the finish to win by 1.3 seconds from the reigning World Champion Phil Hill's Ferrari V6, and as the chequered flag signalled him home it heralded Cooper's last Championship race win for nearly five years.

Once Lotus, Ferrari, BRM and the other major teams had become converted to building their racing cars with the engines behind the driver, Cooper found it more and more difficult to hold their own. Their cars were solid, safe and workmanlike, but as the advantage moved - particularly to Lotus - so Cooper found themselves more and more out on a limb. No longer did they receive the best engines, the best attention or backing, and after Bruce McLaren scored a win in the non-Championship Marne Grand Prix at Reims in mid 1962 the remainder of the 1½ litre Formula saw a long hard drought for the former double-World Champion team.

Bruce's car in this last unsuccessful season was the Cooper T60, perhaps the most handsome Grand Prix car ever produced by the Surbiton firm. It suffered some failures in its Cooper-Knight six-speed gearbox, but McLaren was third in the year's World Championship and team-mate Tony Maggs was seventh. Bruce's Monaco winner was raced by the private Bob Gerard team in 1964-65, after which it joined the Wheatcroft stable.

1971 March 711

I took this photograph in the paddock at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 2000.

It didn't take part in any of the races and isn't mentioned in the programme of the meeting, but it's a 1971 March 711. As well as having a works March team cars were sold to private entrants and most of the cars had a 2,993cc V8 Ford Cosworth DFV engine, but March effectively entered two teams in the 1971 races, one using the Cosworth engine and the other the 2,998cc V8 Alfa Romeo T33 engine. With the private entrants there could be as many as six of the March 711 and 701 cars in some of the Grand Prix races that year. The highest placed March driver in the World Drivers' Championship was Ronnie Peterson who finished in second place, and although he didn't manage to win any of the races he had five podium finishes.

1956 Lotus Eleven Le Mans

This car competed in the Historic Car Championship Race at the Aston Martin Owners Club's Autumn Historic Car Races meeting at Oulton Park in September 1993.

It's the 1956 Lotus Eleven Le Mans of Andrew Wilkinson, which the programme of the event says has a 1,500cc engine. The Lotus Eleven was a completely new car, unlike the previous production Lotuses, the Mk VIII, Mk IX and Mk X which were all based on the Lotus Mk VI. The Eleven had a steel tubular space-frame with stressed aluminium panels, and the aerodynamic body was designed by Frank Costin and was hinged at both ends to give complete access to the engine and other mechanical parts. The car was mainly designed to run in the 1,100cc class of racing, but other engines of up to 2½ litres were also used. The Lotus Eleven Le Mans differed from the standard Lotus Eleven in that it had a wider chassis frame in order to provide Le Mans regulation-width seats, and cockpit and footwell minimum dimensions, but the overall width of the bodywork was no different to the standard car.

1959 AEC Reliance

This is one of the vehicles entered in the Greater Manchester Transport Society's Trans Lancs Historic Vehicle Rally at Heaton Park, Manchester in September 1995.

It's a 1959 AEC Reliance with Plaxton Panorama bodywork, and the programme of the event said this about it:

 

'AEC Reliance, Plaxton Panorama, 1959                                                           129 DPT

Entered by            P. Salmon, Chapelthorpe, Wakefield

The vehicle was purchased new by E. Howe (Spennymore), a founder member of the OK Motor Group. It was acquired for preservation in 1982.'

Several engines were available for the Reliance, and the DVLA record says that 129 DPT has the 7,680cc AEC diesel engine.

Friday's Ferrari

This car took part in the Corse Clienti Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli race at the Ferrari Racing Days meeting at Silverstone in September 2017.

It's the Ferrari 488 Challenge of Dutch driver Fons Scheltema, a car which has a 670hp 3,902cc V8 turbocharged engine developed from that of the Ferrari 488 GTB.

1936 ERA R8C

This is a photograph I took in the paddock at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1993.

It's the 1936 ERA R8C of Bruce Spollon with a supercharged 6-cylinder inline 1,988cc engine. The car was originally built for Earl Howe with a B-type chassis as R8B but was rebuilt to C-type specifications before the Second World War. It was drastically modified in the early post-war years with a D-type chassis and streamlined bodywork, but Bruce Spollon returned it to its pre-war specification after he had acquired the car in 1977.

North Wales Coast Express

This is a photograph that I took in July 1991 during a holiday in North Wales.

It's the former Southern Railway King Arthur class no. 777 Sir Lamiel pulling the Crewe to Holyhead North Wales Coast Express, and the photo was taken somewhere in the region of Llandudno Junction.

1954 Cooper Mk VIII

This car competed in the 500cc Formula Three Cars class in the Historic Formula Junior Championship race at the Aston Martin Owners Club's Autumn Historic Car Races meeting at Oulton Park in September 1992.

It's the 1954 Cooper Mk VIII of Andrew Garner, one of the cars which dominated Formula 3 racing in the early postwar years. Many people found that the home-built cars with a 500cc motor cycle engine was an inexpensive way to compete in motor sport and Charles Cooper and his son John started to produce these cars in 1946, firstly for themselves but later making them for other people and eventually they formed the company that led to the Cooper Climax T51 with which Jack Brabham won the World Drivers' Championship in 1959.

Maserati T61

I took this photograph at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1994.

According to the programme of the event car number 26 is the Maserati 250S of Robin Lodge, and I have photographs that I took at the meeting showing that car with the number 26, so the car pictured above was not a replacement for that car. It appears to be chassis #2453 which was wrecked in 1959 and a replica was built in the early 1990s using the parts which had been salvaged in the accident. The Barchetta register of racing Maseratis says that the rebuilt car had a white stripe on the left side.

1956 Volvo PV444 KS

This is one of the vehicles on display at the Footman James Classic Car Show Manchester at EventCity in September 2018.

It's a 1956 Volvo PV444 KS with a 4-cylinder inline 1,414cc engine. Almost 200,000 PV444s were produced between1946 and 1958, and apparently it was the first Volvo to have a unitary body without a separate frame.

1926 Bentley 3/8 Litre

This is a photograph I took in the paddock at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in August 1992.

It's got a faded number 2 on the grille, but the race number on the scuttle is 68 and it's Stanley Mann's 1926 Bentley 3/8 Litre, and is chassis 1157.

Friday's Ferrari

The Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992 featured a special display of Ferraris in the paddock and demonstration runs of various Ferraris during the meeting. This is a photograph I took during one of the runs.

It's a 1967 Ferrari 246 FL, seen here at Luffield corner, and it is being driven by John Surtees who was a Ferrari team driver from 1963 to until he left the team early in the 1966 season. This is one of the cars that were on display in the paddock that day and a note in the programme of the event says this about it:

'Ferrari 246 FL

Mid-engined V6; 2.4 litres, 300 bhp at 8900 rpm; twin ohc per bank. Lucas fuel injection. All round independent suspension. This car started life with a 2-litre engine as one of the Dino 166 F2's built to meet the 1967 F2 regulations which required engines based on production units. It was used by such by the works until it became one of two cars which fitted with a 2.4-litre engine were prepared by Ferrari to run in the 1969 Tasman series of races in New Zealand/Australia. Its principal driver in the series was Derek Bell.'

1997 McLaren Mercedes MP4/12

This is one of the cars I photographed in the Donington Park Museum in September 2014.

It's a 1997 McLaren Mercedes MP4/12, with an Ilmor built Mercedes 2,997cc V10 engine. It was driven by Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard, Coulthard winning in Australia and Italy to finish in third place in the World Drivers' Championship while Häkkinen won the final race of the season, the European Grand Prix in Jerez, to end up in sixth place in the Championship. McLaren finished in fourth place in the World Constructors' Championship.

1960 Lola MkII FJ

This car competed in the Formula Junior Championship race at the Historic Sports Car Club's Summer Race Meeting at Oulton Park in July 1992.

I

It's the 1960 Lola MkII Formula Junior car of Tony Steele and appears to have a 4-cylinder online Ford Kent 1,098cc engine. Formula Junior was introduced in 1959 as a class of racing where younger drivers could be introduced to single-seater racing. It ended when Formula 2 and Formula 3 were re-introduced to the racing scene for the 1964 season and Formula Junior has continued to be featured at historic racing events.

1931 MG C Type Montlhery

I took this photograph at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1999.

It's the 1931 MG C Type Montlhery of Barry Foster which has a 747cc supercharged engine. The MG C Type was developed from a car designed for International speed record attempts and was based on the 847cc MG M Type with a supercharged engine reduced to 743cc to try to capture speed records in the under 750cc class H. In January 1931 Captain George Eyston succeeded in setting speed records for this class with several runs at the Montlhery race track in France at over 100mph and the subsequent production MG C-Type was given the tag 'Montlhery'. At this meeting it was driven by Barry Foster and Mike Dowley in the Pre-War Sports Car Race.

1911 Humber Sports Raceabout

This is a photograph I took in the marshalling area before the start of the Lancashire Automobile Club's Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run in June 1978.

It's the 1911 Humber Sports Racebout of Mr B L Rockcliffe and I've not been able to find out anything about the car, but this is the note about it in the programme of the event:

Mr B.L. Rockcliffe, Leyland.

1911 Humber Sports Raceabout, 11 h.p.

This car was brought over from Switzerland after being seen in Berne last August. It was one of the rare 9s and 12s made for the American market (unfortunately the vehicles were underpowered for the Yanks).

1949 Tilling Stevens K6LA7

This is a photograph that I took in Heaton Park, Manchester at the Greater Manchester Transport Society's Trans Lancs Historic vehicle Rally in September 1990.

It's not shown in the programme of the event but it's a 1949 Tilling Stevens K6LA7, originally owned by Altonian Coaches of Hampshire. Apparently it has a Gardner 6LW engine.

1934 Lagonda Rapier

This car took part in three of the short distance scratch and handicap races at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in July 1987.

It's the 1934 Lagonda Rapier of Len Thompson with what the programme of the event says is a 1,498cc engine, though the original Lagonda Rapier had a 4-cylinder 1,104cc engine.

Friday's Ferrari

This is a car that I photographed at the Ferrari Racing Days meeting at Silverstone in September 2017.

It's a Ferrari 488 GTB with the 3,902cc twin turbocharged 32 valve F154 V8 engine which has two overhead camshafts per bank. Manufacture of the 488 started in 2015 and ended in February 2019. Its successor is an updated version of the 488, the Ferrari F8 Tributo.

1958 MGA Prototype

This car competed in the HSCC Pre '60 Historic Sports Car Championship race at the Historic Sports Car Club's Spring Historic Race Meeting at Oulton Park in May 1987.

It was entered by Smith & Latimer Ltd and driven by Colin Pearcy, and it's a 1958 MGA Twin Cam Prototype. The MGA Twin Cam had a 1,588cc engine, but the programme of this event shows the engine capacity as 1,800cc.

1987 Lotus 99T

This was one of the cars on display at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1998.

It's a 1987 Lotus 99T, the car with which Ayrton Senna finished third in the World Drivers Championship. Renault had provided engines for Lotus since 1983, but after they pulled out of F1 at the end of the 1986 season the Lotus 99T was powered by a turbocharged 1,494cc V6 Honda engine. Ayrton Senna won three of the races that season, with four second and two third places. Senna's win in the Detroit Grand Prix was the last for the Lotus team, ending a run of victories that was started by Stirling Moss winning the 1960 Monaco Grand Prix in Rob Walker's Lotus 18.

Manchester United Munich Air Disaster

Today is the 66th anniversary of the Munich air disaster when 23 people, including 8 of the Manchester United players, died when the aeroplane in which they were returning to Manchester from a European Cup match in Belgrade crashed when trying to take off at Munich airport after a refuelling stop. Thirteen days later the team played their first game since the crash, an FA Cup match against Sheffield Wednesday, and pictures of the front of the programme of that match, and of the team sheet on the middle pages are frequently shown. When the programme went to be printed the club had no idea which players would be available so there are blanks where the names of the players are normally shown. Here are pictures of each of the pages in that programme.

Duncan Edwards succumbed to his injuries at the hospital on 21st February, two days after this match.

Johnny Berry and Jackie Blanchflower never played again.

1937 SS100 Jaguar

This was one of the cars on display at the Northern Classic Car Show at Belle Vue, Manchester in September 1985.

It's a 1937 SS100 Jaguar which should have a 6-cylinder inline 2,663cc engine, though the DVLA record says that is only 1,970cc. This particular car, CHP 402, was one of a 3-car team that won the manufacturers team prize at the 1937 RAC Rally.

1955 Jaguar D-Type

This is a photograph I took just outside the paddock at the Aston Martin Owners Club's meeting at Oulton Park in September 1986.

I don't know what it was doing there, but it's a 1955 Jaguar D-Type with a registration number ending in '....4 RW' and the only D-Type which matches that is XKD505 (774 RW). It doesn't appear to be a replica, so it seems to be the car with which Mike Hawthorn and Ivor Bueb won the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hour Race.

1968 Lotus 49B

This is one of the photographs I took on a visit to the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's a 1968 Lotus 49B and the book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection' says this about it:

'Lotus-powered-by-Ford

dawn of a new domination

Seven successive World Championship titles - from 1968 to 1974 – have so far been won using Cosworth-Ford V8 Formula 1 engines. In that period these Northampton-built Keith Duckworth–designed units have become the most numerous in Grand Prix history, and have won more Championship-qualifying events and more Formula 1 races than any other engine. The Cosworth-Ford engine story began late in 1965, when Colin Chapman was casting about for a 3-litre engine to power his cars in the new Grand Prix Formula, due to start in the following year. Duckworth’s company had a wonderful success record with the Ford-based minor formulae engines, and through Chapman he admitted interest in building a Formula 1 unit. Ford of Britain came forward with £100,000 to sponsor its development, and on 4 June 1967 the first ‘FORD’ Grand Prix engines made their shattering debut in brand-new Lotus 49 cars. This was in the Dutch Grand Prix, at Zandvoort, where Graham Hill put his 49 on pole position in practice, and led for the first eleven laps before retiring with cam-drive failure in the new engine. Then his team-mate Jim Clark took over, and he built up an ever-increasing lead, at record-breaking speeds, to score a fairy-tale win first time out. The die was cast. The Lotus-Fords took pole position in every one of the eight remaining events run that season, and Clark won three more of them. He failed in his bid to regain the World Championship, as chassis, engine and gearbox failures took their toll, but the new engine and Chapman’s new Maurice Phillippe-designed car had established themselves as the standard of their time. Duckworth’s engine was a neat, practical 90-degree light-alloy V8, with four valves per cylinder, twin overhead camshafts per bank and a pedigree developed from the four-cylinder Cortina-based ‘FVA’ 1600cc Formula 2 engine. The V8 was virtually two FVA blocks mounted in a common crankcase. It produced an honest 400 horsepower in its original form, and for 1968 Ford made it available to al interested customers, depriving Team Lotus of the exclusive use hey had enjoyed in that first season. McLaren and the Tyrrell Matra team confirmed orders, and with Team Lotus they shared the new season’s honours, confirming the Cosworth-Ford’s superiority. Clark won the opening race in South Africa, to set a career record of twenty-five GP wins, and then dominated the Tasman Championship in 2½ litre Lotus-Ford 49s, wearing the red-and-white livery of Lotus’ new John Player Gold Leaf tobacco sponsors. It looked a certain Jim Clark season, but in April he was killed in a trifling Formula 2 race at Hockenheim, Graham Hill bounced back for Lotus to win in Spain and at Monaco, and after a season-long struggle with Jackie Stewart in the Tyrrell Matra-Ford and the works McLaren Fords he won the final round in Mexico City to clinch his second World Drivers’ Championship and the first Constructors’ title for Lotus-Ford. Stewart won three Grand Prix races, Denny Hulme won two, Bruce McLaren himself won in Belgium and Swiss driver Jo Siffert scored probably the most popular success of the year by winning the British GP in Rob Walker’s private Lotus-Ford 49B. Phillippe took advantage of the new engine’s ability to be used as a stressed chassis member in similar style to the BRM H16. The Lotus 49’s monocoque chassis terminated abruptly behind the cockpit, leaving a vertical bulkhead to which the engine was rigidly bolted. Rear suspension was carried on the engine and gearbox assembly, and for maintenance it was possible to undo a few bolts and connections and wheel the entire rear end of the car away from the forward nacelle. In 1968 a modified version was developed, with lengthened wheelbase, revised suspension and early aerodynamic aids in the form of nose aerofoils and an upswept engine cowling. A lightweight Hewland gearbox replaced the original ZF unit, and this model became known as the Lotus 49B, winning at Monaco, Brands Hatch and Mexico City. In 1969 Jochen Rindt joined Graham Hill in the works ‘Gold Leaf’ team 49Bs. Hill won at Monaco for a staggering fifth time, and Rindt became Stewart’s closest competitor during the season. After forty-eight unsuccessful attempts he finally won his first Grand Prix, in America, where Hill crashed his car and was seriously injured. The historic old Lotus was finally retired from the front line in 1970, when the futuristic Lotus 72 came along to give Rindt his tragically posthumous World Championship title, but he drove one of the obsolete ‘49C’ cars to that exciting last corner victory at Monaco to close this chapter on a classic racing car’s supremely successful life.'

The agreement between Ford and Lotus specified that Ford had to be given one of the cars for promotional purposes, and as all the existing cars were needed for the race track Lotus built this car, chassis 49B/12, for Ford and it never actually competed in period. After it had served its purpose Ford sold the car to Donington Park's Tom Wheatcroft for his collection.

Friday's Ferrari

This was one of the competitors in the Coys of Kensington Ferrari GT Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1997.

It's the 1956 Ferrari 250 GT LWB Berlinetta TdF of David Cottingham. Four different versions of the TdF were built between 1955 and 1959 and are identified by the number of louvres in the sail panel behind the side windows. Fourteen examples of the earliest model were produced, and these cars didn't have any louvres. The second version had fourteen louvres and nine of these were built, then seventeen cars were built with three louvres and lastly thirty-seven with one louvre. David Cottingham's car, which is chassis #0585GT, is one of the fourteen louvre models. All the cars have the Giaocchino Colombo designed 2,953cc V12 engine, and have Scaglietti designed bodies except for five of the Series One model where the bodies were designed by Zagato. This car is finished in the colours of Tony Parravano, who was its first owner.

Chevron B8

These two Chevron B8s were entered in the HSCC Atlantic Computers 2 Litre GT Championship race by Team Lazerlink at the Historic Sports Car Club's Spring Historic Race Meeting at Oulton Park in May 1986.

The one on the left is a 1967 car and was driven in the race by Tim Goss and on the right this 1968 car was driven by Richard Dodkins. A total of 44 Chevron B8s were built powered by different 4 cylinder 2 litre engines including Ford Cosworth FVA, BMW F10 and  Coventry Climax FVF.