Ford GT40

Here are two more photographs of the Ford GT40, this time taken at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1993.

This is one of the cars offered at the Coys auction which took place on the second day of the meeting. It's a 1965 Ford GT40, chassis number F1006 and apparently it didn't sell. The marquee behind the GT40 housed the 'Owen Brown Gallery of Fine Art' and an article about this in the programme of the meeting says:
'Owen Brown, sponsor of the Gallery of Fine Motoring Art, is no stranger to Silverstone or to motor sport. In fact, the company erected marquees for the very first British GP at Silverstone in 1948.'

This one's a 1967 Ford GT MkIV brought along to the meeting by Rod Leach's Nostalgia - better known as a dealer in old and new AC Cobras. The programme says of this car: '.........a 1967 Ford GT MkIV, the ultimate Le Mans contender from Ford and powered by a 7-litre, 520bhp V8, which gave it a top speed of 215mph on the Mulsanne Straight.'

Previous posts on the Ford GT40 were on 

27th November 2012

18th November 2013

and 8th January 2014

Kurtis SX500

Frank Kurtis, born in 1908, was an American racing car designer who founded the Kurtis Kraft company in 1908. He started by building midget cars, later going on to build many cars for the Indianapolis 500 race and a number of sports cars using Ford running gear. I remember particularly the Indianapolis cars from when I was beginning to read about motor sport in the early 1950s. Kurtis sports cars are occasionally seen at historic race meetings in England and the Kurtis SX500 pictured below took part in the Hawthorn Memorial Trophies race meeting organised by the VSCC at Oulton Park in June 2008.

Here's the car, driven by Kerry Horan, at Britten's Chicane during the Hawthorn International Trophy race for 1950s sports cars.

Friday's Ferrari

This is a photograph I took at the Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992 in the Ferrari Owners Club area.

The car appears to be an open version of the Ferrari 275 GTB and the only open version seems to be the 275 GTB/4 NART Spyder. Only ten of these cars were built and this is what Wikipedia has to say about the car:

'A 275 GTB/4 N.A.R.T. Spyder version was only available from a single American dealer, Luigi Chinetti. He asked Sergio Scaglietti and Enzo Ferrari to build a few Spyder versions of the 275 GTB/4, which he bought for approximately $8,000 each; N.A.R.T. stood for Chinetti's North American Racing Team. It was to be a custom run of 25 cars straight from Scaglietti, but just 10 were built in 1967 and 1968, making this one of the most valuable Ferraris. The ten NART Spiders used chassis numbers 09437, 09751, 10139, 10219, 10249, 10453, 10691, 10709, 10749, and 11057.

In August 2013, a 1967 275GTB/4 (chassis #10709), owned by the late Eddie Smith of Lexington, North Carolina, sold for US$27.5 million at auction in California. This was a one owner car that, while was not driven daily, was driven on a regular basis. It had remained in the Smith Family for 45 years.

The NART driven by Faye Dunaway in the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair, was serial number 09437, the first produced. It came second in its class in the 1967 12 Hours of Sebring before being repainted and used for the movie. In August 2005, it fetched $3.96 million at auction.'

Austin 6cwt Pickup

This is a vehicle photographed in September 1995 at Heaton Park at the Trans Lancs Historic Vehicle Rally organised by the Greater Manchester Transport Society.

It appears to be a Morris ¼ ton Pickup, but you can see that it's got an Austin badge and is the much rarer Austin 6cwt Pickup. Both Morris and Austin were part of the British Motor Corporation (BMC) together with MG, Riley and Wolseley. The British car-buying public had a tendency of loyalty to a particular marque and most BMC models were marketed bearing the badge of more than one of the traditional marques.

American Fords

I've previously shown photographs of a 1958 Chevrolet Corvette and other Chevrolets which took part in the Independence Day Race at the HSCC Summer Race Meeting at Oulton Park on 4th July 1992. Here are photographs of some of the Fords which took part in that race.

This is a 1963 Ford Galaxie, entered and driven in the race by Rob Sherring

This is the 1964 Ford Falcon of Leonidas Voyazides

This is another 1964 Ford Falcon, this time that of David Courtley

Yet another 1964 Ford Falcon, this one belonging to Dennis Clark

The 1965 Ford Shelby Mustang GT350 of Ralph Avis

The programme shows a blue 1969 Shelby Mustang entered in the race by Mark Pollard, but whether this is that car before the race number '16' was applied I don't know.

Friday's Ferrari

This car appeared in the Visage Pre '72 Le Mans Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 1996, entered by David Piper and driven by the singer Chris Rea. It's shown in the programme as a 1965 Ferrari P1 with an engine capacity of 3998cc. I've looked for this car in www.barchetta.cc and it looks as if it's a 365 P2, serial number 0824, about which there's a note saying: 'David Piper owns two P1 with the chassis number 0824. One has a new frame (built in 90) and one uses the original frame (finished in 98)' 

That's David Piper standing at the side of the car

Nissan R90CK

The Donington Park SeeRed meeting in September 2007 included a race for Group C and GTP Sports Cars. One of the cars which took part in the race was this 1990 Nissan R90CK.

In the pit garage before the start of practice

At McLean's Corner during the practice session, driven by Nick Randall

Nick Randall during the race, at Redgate Corner