Friday's Ferrari

This is a car photographed in the pit garage at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1997.

It's a 1953 Ferrari 250MM Spyder Vignale SeriesIII, owned at the time by Mario Bernardi and driven by him in the Shell Ferrari Historical Challenge race at the meeting. It's serial number is 0390MM, and is a car I have featured before which was previously owned by Jeremy Agace, although it was then painted black.

Lotus 12

The photograph below is of Roger Friend in a 1957 Lotus 12 rounding Lodge Corner at Oulton Park in the Twelve Lap Scratch Race for Post War Racing Cars at the VSCC meeting in August 1996.

The Lotus 12 was the first single-seater racing car built by Colin Chapman and it was used as a Formula 2 and also a Formula 1 car. It was a largely unsuccessful car, although in the 1958 Belgian Grand Prix Cliff Allison, who finished in fourth place in a Lotus 12, might have won the race had it been one lap longer. The winner was Tony Brooks in a Vanwall, but his gearbox seized as he crossed the line. Mike Hawthorn was second in a Ferrari, but his engine failed as he came out of La Source corner and he coasted across the line. In third place was Stuart Lewis-Evans in another Vanwall, but his suspension collapsed on the way into La Source and he managed to crawl across the line, so Cliff Allison finished fourth, over 4 minutes behind the winner.

Fittipaldi

Here's another car which took part in the Thoroughbred Grand Prix Championship race at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2006.

It's a Fittipaldi F5A, entered in the race by MEC Auto and driven by Steve Allen. Fittipaldi Automotive was formed in 1974 by Brazilian Wilson Fittipaldi and his younger brother Emerson, winner of the 1972 World Drivers' Championship. Emerson drove for the Fittipaldi team from 1976 to 1980; the F5A is a modification of the 1977 F5 and is the car which the team used in 1978 and part of 1979. This is what Wikipedia says about the F5A:

'While it was not a great success in 1977, in 1978 the F5A, modified to implement the principles of ground effect demonstrated to excellent effect by Lotus, allowed the former World Champion to score several good results. The best of these was a competitive second place, after fighting with Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, at the team's perennial happy hunting ground in Brazil. Fittipaldi finished the year with 17 points and the team, now known as Fittipaldi Automotive, came 7th in the Constructor's table – one place ahead of Emerson's old team McLaren.

The 1979 season saw the promise of the previous year fade away. Implementing ground effect successfully was becoming crucial to success on the track but understanding of the phenomenon was in its infancy and Ralph Bellamy's F6 was a failure on the track. Fittipaldi was again the team's only driver, although Alex Ribeiro was run in the non-championship race which inaugurated the Imola circuit that year, before attempting and failing to qualify a car for the end of season North American championship races.'

Friday's Ferrari

I showed photographs of the Ferrari 250GT TdF on 25 May 2012 and here's another photograph of one taken at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1993.

It doesn't appear to have taken part in any of the races at that meeting, but the registration number here appears to be TDF 266 which belongs to the car with serial number 0911GT and the owner was Reza Rashidian.

BRM P48

The first BRM was introduced to the public in December 1949, and to mark the 50th anniversary of this there was a special tribute to BRM at the Coys International Historic Festival at Silverstone in July 1999. It featured a display of various BRM models, one of which was the largely unsuccessful P48.

In 1959 it had become clear with the ascendancy of the rear-engined Cooper Climax in F1 that the days of front-engined GP cars was coming to a close and BRM tried to do a 'quick fix' with the P48 which was basically the existing P25 with the engine moved from the front to the rear. The car was a bit of a disaster, the three team drivers (Joakim Bonnier, Graham Hill and Dan Gurney) only managing eight World Championship points all season with a third place for Hill and two fifth places for Bonnier whilst Gurney's best was a single tenth place. Things weren't much better the next season with the P48/57, but in 1962 Graham Hill won the World Championship with the BRM P57.

One of the team's better races with this car was the 1960 Gold Cup at Oulton Park where the three P48s finished in third, fifth and sixth places. The photograph below is one I took of Graham Hill's third-place car in the paddock being driven by, I think, the BRM designer Tony Rudd.

Airbus A340 at 34,000 feet

This is a photograph I took on 11 August 2014 at 2.12pm of an Air France Airbus A340-313X flying over Hyde on its way from Paris to Montreal.

This is the original photograph with the zoom set at its maximum of 300mm and below I've cropped the picture so that the plane can be seen more clearly.

It was Air France flight AF344 travelling at 34,000 feet and the registration number of the plane was F-GLZO. There were no contrails, making the aircraft a bit more difficult to pick out at that height.

Friday's Ferrari

This car took part in the Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy for Historic Cars race at the Silverstone Classic meeting in July 2010 and is here seen in the pit garage.

It was shown in the programme of the meeting as a 1962 Ferrari 330 GTO and the owner Carlo Vögele shared the driving in the 1 hour race with Willie Green. The car's serial number is 4561SA and I've featured it before, with a photograph from a 2003 Donington Park event, on 9th May 2014. This car is classed by www.barchetta.cc as a Ferrari 330 LM and says that six cars were produced, two with GTO style bodywork and four with Pininfarina bodywork similar to the 250 Lusso. The information I gave previously was that it was a 330 GTO (or 330 LM) and that three cars were produced and that information came from a www.supercars.net website which only covered the cars with the GTO style bodywork and says that the first car built (3673SA) was badly damaged before the second car (3765LM) was built, and subsequently:

'At the request of Michel Paul-Cavalier, a third and final 330 GTO on chassis 4561SA was built to his own specification for road use. This included a lengthened wheel base, brake booster, fully covered front lights and a full interior trim in blue upholstery. Despite being made for the road the car featured a full Tipo 163/566 competition engine and Tipo 539/566 chassis but a unique transmission with synchromesh gears.'

So the car in this photograph is the third to be built, but the first car no longer exists as such. It was rebuilt, as www.barchetta.cc says, and is now classed as a 400 Scaglietti Berlinetta GT SWB.

Triumph TR3A

When going to race meetings, as well as taking photographs of the competing cars I've always been in the habit of taking photographs of any cars in the public car parks which catch my eye - and not just expensive supercars or rare and unusual ones. This is one such car which I saw at the Richard Seaman Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1984.

It's a car which I've always called a Triumph TR3A, but this Wikipedia article says that it was only badged as a TR3 and never officially known as a TR3A. It differed externally from the original TR3 in that the original car had a much narrower grille like the earlier TR2, and other minor changes were made. The updated TR3 was produced from 1957 to 1962.

I shall still go on calling it a Triumph TR3A.

Lancia Aurelia B20 GT

I went to quite a few of the Northern Classic Car Shows in Manchester in the 1980s and early 1990s, first at one of the old Belle Vue exhibition halls and later at the G-MEX Centre, formerly the Manchester Central railway station (not 'train' station) and now the Manchester Central Convention Complex. These shows usually included an auction of vehicles and today's photograph is of a rather dilapidated Lancia Aurelia B20 GT amongst the auction lots at the Belle Vue show in September 1985.

There are three photographs of a Lancia Aurelia with the number plate OFV 570 on Flickr, though it's now painted green, the car seems to have lost its distinctive mesh radiator grille and there are also minor changes to the lower part of the front of the car. One of the photographs says that the car is a 1953 model and another says it's from 1958 - I'd guess it's the older model.

Friday's Ferrari

This is a car which took part in the Maserati UK Race for Pre-1961 Grand Prix Cars at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1999.

It's a 1959 Ferrari Dino 246 F1 car, driven in the race by its owner Robin Lodge and appears to be serial number 0006. I understand that Ferrari, and in fact Maserati and other Italian racing teams, would often test racing cars on the public roads and a kind of temporary registration number would be stencilled on the car, as we see on the rear of this Ferrari - it's something like the trade plates we use in this country. The 'prova' stands for 'test', 'MO' indicated 'Modena' and the '31' is just a numerical identifier. Presumably it's on this car to show some kind of period authenticity.

Aeroplanes (4)

Some of the aeroplanes on their way to Manchester Airport in just an hour on the afternoon of 6th August 2014. As usual I have flightradar24.com to thank for the details of all the aircraft and flights.

At 4.02pm this is the Germania flight ST4195 from Rhodes to Manchester. It's a Boeing 737-75B and the registration number is D-AGEP.

4.17pm and this is the Lufthansa flight LH2502 from Munich to Manchester. The registration number of this Airbus A320-214 is D-AIZB.

At 4.48pm Emirates flight EK205 from Milan to New York JFK passed overhead at 34,000 feet (that's almost 6½ miles, or about 10½ kilometres). The flight originally started in Dubai and the aircraft is a Boeing 777-31H(ER), registration number A6-EGD. I used the maximum zoom of 300mm on my camera, and I've cropped the photograph below to show the plane better. The Emirates logo underneath the aircraft is clearly visible (though upside-down in this picture).

Just after the Emirates plane passed overhead, and still at 4.48pm this Pakistan International Airlines flight PK709 from Lahore arrived. As it came over the landing gear was lowered, as you can see from the three photographs I took.

It's a Boeing 777-240ER and the registration number is AP-BHX

Most of the aircraft landing approach from the East so in the afternoon the sun is behind me as I take the photographs, but in the next photograph the plane came from the West and turned into the landing flightpath earlier than usual, so the sun is in the 'wrong' place in the next photograph.

At 4.43pm this is the Brussels Airlines flight SN2177 from Brussels to Manchester. It's an Avro RJ100 and the registration number is OO-DWL.

This Flybe flight BEE 3TW from Belfast to Manchester arrived at 4.58pm and it's an Embraer ERJ170-200STD, registration number G-FBJB.

This plane I noticed on flightradar24.com approaching Manchester Airport from the North and losing height as if to land, but the flight details showed that it was Lufthansa flight LH434 from Munich to Chicago. Looking at the track of the aircraft it had taken off from Munich and headed over the North Sea along the East coast of England, but when it got just about level with Middlesbrough it did a 90 degree turn to the left (or 'to port' I suppose I should say) and headed across the North Yorkshire Moors and thence to Manchester. After the melodrama of the Qatar Airlines plane the day before I half expected this Lufthansa flight to also be escorted by an RAF Typhoon, but that wasn't the case. It came over at 5.06pm, it's an Airbus A340-642X and the registration number is D-AIHP.

Footnote
Since posting this I've read the following report in today's Manchester Evening News:

I hope the child has responded to the treatment.

Lagonda V12 Le Mans

These photographs were taken at the Hawthorn Memorial Trophies Race Meeting at Oulton Park in June 2008. The car is a 1938 Lagonda V12 Le Mans and you can read about the car here.

The car competed in two races at the meeting and here it is at Britten's Chicane during the Brooklands & Goddard Trophies race being driven by the owner, Mark Butterworth.

Manchester Airport Emergency

I was in the kitchen just after 1pm today when I heard the sound of an aircraft coming over on its descent into Manchester Airport and it sounded just a bit different than the usual. Going to the back door I saw the airliner and alongside it a (presumably RAF) Typhoon fighter plane so I grabbed my camera, which unfortunately didn't have my biggest telephoto lens on, and managed to get one hurried shot before they disappeared over the rooftops opposite.

I've cropped the picture to show the planes better and you can read all about the incident here. Flightradar24 told me that the plane was a Qatar Airways Airbus A330-302, registration number A7-AEH and on flight QR23 from Doha to Manchester.

Eliza Gillian Mary Williams

This is a picture of our granddaughter, Eliza Gillian Mary Williams who was born a week ago today, on 28th July 2014, in Guernsey. Below is a picture taken with her mother and her brother Edward on the day she was born.

Apart from some Skype sessions we've not seen her yet, so I've had to pinch these photographs from our daughter-in-law's Facebook page. Below, though, is a photograph I did take just over a couple of weeks previously of Edward and his dad at Le Friquet Garden Centre meeting Peter Rabbit.

The relevance of Peter Rabbit here is that his creator, Beatrix Potter, was born exactly 148 years to the day before Eliza, on 28 July 1866

Friday's Ferrari

I've featured this model before, on 24 May 2013, and it's not only the same model, but the same car which I showed previously. I showed two photographs of it the last time. taken at Silverstone in 1997 and 2000, and now I've found another photograph of it taken at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 2001.

It's a 1954 Ferrari 250 Europa GT and I've now found out that the car is serial number 0375GT and is (or was) owned by Mark Finburgh.