1923/30 Napier Sunbeam

This car was driven by Peter Morley in the Richard Seaman Memorial Vintage Trophy race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting at Oulton Park in June 1969.

It's David Llewellyn's 1930 Napier-Sunbeam, a vehicle that he and Peter Morley created in 1968 using a 24 litre Napier Sea Lion engine which has a 'W' configuration - two banks of four cylinders in a 'V' with a third upright bank between them. The car was originally built on a Sunbeam chassis but after an accident was rebuilt using the chassis of a 1929 8 litre Bentley. The nose of the car was later altered to resemble that of the Napier Railton.

1950 Talbot Lago T26

This car competed in the HGPCA Pre-61 Front Engine Grand Prix Cars race at the Silverstone Classic meeting in July 2010.

It’s Richard Pilkington’s 1950 4,482cc 6-cylinder inline Talbot Lago T26 GS with the offset driving position which meant it could compete in Grand Prix or Sports Car races. It's chassis #110057 and is the car with which Louis Rosier and Juan Manuel Fangio took part in the 1951 Le Mans 24 Hour race, retiring after 9 hours. It was then given an all-enveloping sports car body and ended up in the hands of Georges Grignard in 1953, but after an accident at Montlhéry in 1954 in which his co-driver Guy Mairesse was killed, Grignard locked the wrecked car away in his garage. Richard Pilkington bought the wreckage in 1958 and after racing the car in its sports car form for some years he eventually restored it to its original cycle-wing body form, racing it at historic race meetings in both sports car and vintage GP races.

Auto Unions

This is a photograph I took at Donington Park in May 2001 when Audi brought an Auto Union C-Type and D-Type, and other cars, to the VSCC's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting.

 

This was taken during one of the demonstration runs and the cars are on the stretch of circuit between the Old Hairpin and Starkey's Bridge, the 1937 supercharged 6-litre V16 Auto Union C-Type ahead of the 1938 supercharged 3-litre V12 Auto Union D-Type.

1966 Lola T90

The Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting in August 2008 featured a celebration of 50 years of Lola Cars which included a display of various models, some of which took part in a parade of the track during the meeting. One of the cars on display was the one pictured below.

The programme of the event doesn't mention this car, but it's a Lola T90 bearing the number 24 which was the number of Graham Hill's Lola T90 Red Ball Special when he won the 1966 Indianapolis 500 race. Photographs of Graham Hill's car, however, show the front part of the nose to be painted yellow with a gold stripe running up the centre of the car. The car shown here resembles Jackie Stewart's similar Lola T90 (designated the Bowes Seal Fast Special) which was number 43 and finished in 6th place.

Friday's Ferrari

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

It's Ferrari California with a 4,297cc 32 valve V8 Ferrari F136 engine, and body designed by Pininfarina. The California was in production from 2008 to 2017.

2003 Kawasaki ZX-6R

This is a photograph that I took of a motor cycle in Market Street, Hyde in April 2019.

It's a 2003 Kawsaki ZX-6R, introduced in 1995 and apparently still in production. It has a transversely mounted 16 valve DOHC 4-cylinder inline 636cc engine.

1902 Panhard et Levassor

I took this photograph at the roundabout that at one time stood at the junction of the A6 and Cross Lane in Pendleton which was my vantage point for the Lancashire Automobile club's annual Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run in June 1966.

It's a 1902 Panhard et Levassor and the programme of the event had this note about the car:

7.     Mr. E.S. Berry, Southport.

         1902 Panhard et Levassor 15 h.p.  3308c.c.

 

This car has been on the road all her life except from 1923 to 1928. Originally fitted with platinum tube ignition and owned by Otto Beit of Essex, who used her as a 4 seater tourer, then in 1909 he altered the body to use her as a farm wagon.  In 1911 the Rev. Bowsey of Epsom bought her and used her for many Rallies and London/Brighton Runs until the present owner bought her in 1946. Since then she has been driven many thousands of miles and taken part in many National and International events including the Rally to Paris in 1951 when she won an award, the Silver Jubilee Rally of 1955 when she was one of the cars in the winning team, the International Rally in 1957 in Germany when she won a Gold Medal and the International Rally in Holland in 1961 when she again won an award.