Friday's Ferrari

The cars displayed by H&H Classic Car Auctions at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2007 included the one shown below.

It's a 1968 Ferrari 330 GTC, serial number 11381, and you can read about this car here on the H&H website.

Lotus 15

The Spring Historic Race meeting at Oulton Park in May 1987 organised by the Historic Sports Car Club included a race for the Pre '60 Historic Sports Car Championship. One of the cars that took part was this 1959 Lotus 15.

The Lotus 15 was the successor to the Lotus X and you can read about the car in this Wikepedia article. According to the Historic Lotus Register 27 of these cars were built but details of the individual cars don't seem to be available.

The car's entrant is shown in the programme of the meeting as P.R.W. Hillingdon Motors and the driver as Peter Walker

Here's Peter Walker in the race just going into Lodge Corner

Memorial Day 2007 - The Vehicles

Yesterday I showed some of the people taking part in the Memorial Day parade in Edgewater Park, New Jersey in 2007. Here are some of the vehicles in the parade which we photographed. I've tried to identify the cars which took part, but may not have been totally accurate.

Plymouth Prowler

1902 Packard Model F

Ford Model A Roadster

Chevrolet Corvette Series 1

Looks like a 1934 Ford

1950 Dodge Coronet

Memorial Day 2007

Today is Memorial Day in the USA.
When I first became really interested in motor racing in the mid-1950s I remember reading that the Indianapolis 500 race always took place on May 30th which was Memorial Day in the USA. From 1971, however, Memorial Day has been officially observed on the last Monday in May, although it apparently took some years for all American states to recognise the new date. (The Indianapolis 500 race is now run on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend - weather permitting.)
In 2007 we were visiting New Jersey in late May and early June and were invited to watch the Memorial Day parade in Edgewater Park on Monday 28th May and below are some of the photographs taken that day on Bridgeboro Road, adjacent to Beverly National Cemetery.

This police car led the parade. I'll show other vehicles which took part in the parade tomorrow.

Friday's Ferrari

Two of the Ferrari 250 GT SWB models which took part in the Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy race at the Silverstone Classic meeting in July 2010. The car on the left is the 1962 model of Conrad Ulrich who shared the driving in the race with Tony Dron and is serial number 3107GT. The car on the right, a 1961 model, is serial number 2563GT and was driven in the race by Lukas Hüni and Gary Pearson.

Falling Educational Standards?

I was walking down this street at the height of summer three years ago when I noticed these intriguing shadows on the pavement. There's a primary school on the right-hand side and the numbers had been placed on the fence to help the children to learn their numbers and how to count.

Passing by the school frequently since then I had noticed that exposure to the elements was taking its toll on the numbers more and more until they were eventually replaced as shown in the next photograph which I took a couple of months ago.

Are they now teaching the children to count only from one to five instead of from one to ten as previously taught?

Sir Jack Brabham OBE

It was sad to hear the news of Jack Brabham's death yesterday at his home in Australia's Gold Coast in Queensland at the age of 88. I saw him race on several occasions in the 1950s and 60s at Oulton Park and Aintree, most notably his winning drive in the 1959 British Grand Prix at Aintree in a Cooper Climax T51 on his way to winning his first World Championship. Here are a couple of photographs I took of him preparing to take part in a demonstration run in a Cooper T51 at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1993.

My copy of the programme of the meeting was autographed by Jack Brabham at one of the signing sessions, together with Lofty England, Tony Rolt and Roy Salvadori, all of whom are no longer with us.

Also competing at the 1993 Silverstone meeting was the Cooper Bristol T40 which Jack Brabham drove in the British Grand Prix of 1955 and which in 1993 was owned by Thomas Bscher and driven in the Champagne Charles Heidsieck Sports Car race at the meeting by Katharina Schmidt.

After winning the 1959 and 1960 World Championships with the Cooper Climax T51 and T53 cars Jack Brabham went on to form his own Brabham team and in 1966 became the first (and so far only) driver to win the Formula One World Championship in one of his own cars. For the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 1996 the organisers paid a special tribute in the programme to Jack Brabham in his 70th year and the front of the programme featured a montage of drawings of him.

Although it did not take part in the racing the Brabham Repco BT19 with which Jack Brabham won the 1966 World Championship was on display in the paddock during this meeting.

Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A

Uppermill is a village which is in the civil parish of Saddleworth, part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham and lies in a valley of the South Pennines about 4½ miles east of Oldham. Saddleworth Museum is in the middle of Uppermill, only a small museum but well worth a visit if you're in the area. Here's a couple of photographs I took there in October 1983 when one of the exhibits was a 1928 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A.

The car was apparently sold at auction by Bonhams in 2007

Friday's Ferrari

One of the cars which took part in the Shell Ferrari Historic Challenge race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1998, this is the 1970 Ferrari 512 S of Brandon Wang which was driven in that race by Gary Pearson.

The car is serial number 1016

Gary Pearson leaving the pit lane on a practice run in the car

Guernsey May 2014

Over to Guernsey again last week to see grandson Edward and join in the Liberation Day celebrations - the 69th anniversary of the liberation of Guernsey from Hitler's Nazis on 9th May 1945.

It's only 2 months since we were last there but Edward's seems to have changed such a lot in that time. This is his multi-purpose gesture apparently signifying "What do I do now?", "I've finished doing that", "Look what I did" or "I didn't do that" as appropriate.

Standing at the top of his slide in the garden

Enjoying a lollipop at Moulin Huet Bay

Albert Pier in St Peter Port was pretty crowded on Liberation Day

Watching the vehicle cavalcade along the Esplanade

The cavalcade of vehicles of the Guernsey Old Car Club and the Guernsey Military Vehicles Group was led by the RAF Lossiemouth Pipes & Drums band.

The vehicles in the parade included this Jaguar XK120 from the early 1950s....

....this 1934 Austin Seven 2-seat Tourer....

....and this WW2 Chevrolet C15 Truck.

We came home on the Sunday evening flight to Manchester and the clear and sunny weather allowed me to take this photograph of the west coast of Guernsey shortly after take-off.

Vazon Bay at the bottom and above that Cobo Bay and Grandes Rocques