1933/4 Riley 12/4 Special

This car competed in a handicap race and a scratch race at the Vintage Sports Car Club’s meeting at Oulton Park in May 2005.

It’s the 1933/4 Riley 12/4 Special of Alan Couper and has a 4-cylinder inline 1,496cc engine based on the Riley Nine engine. The 12/4 engine continued to be used in Riley cars until 1955.

1905/6 Argyll

This is a photograph that I took in June 1963 at the first of the Lancashire Automobile Club’s Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Runs.

It’s the 1905/6 Argyll of Eric Kirby about which the programme of the event only says:

 

22.   1905/6 Argyll.

Just finished restoration. First time entered in any Rally.

 

In 1905/6 the Argyll company produced two model, both with 4-cylinder engines – the 14/16 with a 3,054cc engine and the 16/20 with a 3,686cc engine. The DVLA record says that 5555 TF is an Argyll and has a 1,701cc engine.

1956 Maserati 250F

This is a photograph that I took at Lodge Corner during the Twelve Lap Scratch Race for Post War Racing Cars at the Vintage Sports Car Club’s meeting at Oulton Park in August 1996.

It’s David Pennell in his 1956 Maserati 250F which has the 6-cylinder inline 2,491cc Maserati engine. It is chassis #2524 which was sold new to Francisco Godia-Sales and with which he competed in the F1 World Championship races in 1956 and 1957. In 1958 it was sold to Joakim Bonnier who raced it during the 1958 season with Phil Hill taking the wheel at the French Grand Prix and Troy Ruttmann taking over for the German Grand Prix, although engine problems meant that he did not start the race. Scuderia Centro Sud entered the car in the 1958 Italian and Moroccan Grands Prix, driven by Giulio Cabianca and Hans Herrmann respectively.

Friday's Ferrari

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

It's a 2009 Ferrari F430 Scuderia with a 4,308cc V8 engine and produced from 2007 to 2009. It was lighter than the standard Ferrari F430, and revised intake and exhaust systems and other engine improvements raised the power output from 490hp to 510hp. Michael Schumacher spent a lot of time testing the 430 Scuderia when it was being developed.

2018 Porsche 991 Carrera GTS

I took these photographs in the Manchester United car park in May 2019.

It’s a 2018 Porsche 991 Carrera GTS which is a seventh generation model of the Porsche 911 and has a 2,981cc flat-six engine.

1936 Lagonda LG45 and 1913/18 Monarch

I took this photograph during a Four Lap Handicap Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club’s Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in 1993.

David Hine in his 1936 Lagonda LG45 is leading the 1913/18 Monarch of Mark Walker at Foulstons chicane.

1959 Tec-Mec F415

This car competed in the Maserati UK Race for Pre 1961 Grand Prix Cars at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 2000.

Shown in the programme of the event as a TecMec it's the 1959 Tec-Mec F415 designed by Valerio Colotti as a lightweight version of the Maserati 250F. Colotti was employed by Maserati and was working on the design when Maserati pulled out of racing at the end of the 1958 season. He set up his own company, Studio Tecnica Meccanica, and Italian racing driver Giorgio Scarlatti encouraged him to continue with this work and bought shares in the company. American Gordon Pennington then persuaded Scarlatti to sell him the shares and arranged for Camoradi's Lucky Casner to run the team for what had now become Tec-Mec Automobili. When finished the car was entered for the 1959 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen and Brazilian driver Fritz d'Orey was chosen to drive it. The car had clearly not gone through sufficient testing and Fritz d'Orey only qualified it in seventeenth place. It only lasted for six laps in the race before it retired with a serious oil leak and that turned out to be the only World Championship appearance by the car. It lingered in a Miami garage until 1967 when it was acquired by Tom Wheatcroft who brought the car back into working order and it was in his museum at Donington Park for many years. It was eventually sold to Barrie Baxter, who drove the car at this Silverstone meeting, and he raced it successfully before eventually passing the car on to Barry Wood.