1973 Opel GT

This car was displayed at the Footman James Classic Car Show Manchester at EventCity in September 2018.

It's a 1973 Opel GT and has the larger 4-cylinder inline 1,897cc engine. Over 103,000 of the cars were produced between 1968 and 1973.

1960 Aston Martin DB4

This car took part in the AMOC Thoroughbred & Classic Sports Car Championship Race at the Aston Martin Owners Club's Autumn Historic Car Races meeting at Oulton Park in September 1993.

It's the 1960 Aston Martin DB4 of Simon Draper .one of 1,185 that were produced between 1958 and 1963, together with 19 of the DB4GT Zagato models. The body of the DB4 was designed by Carrozzerie Touring of Milan and it had the 6-cylinder inline 3,670cc engine created by Tadek Marek, although according to the programme of the event Simon Draper's car has a 4½ litre engine.

1915 Hispano Suiza T30

This car is pictured in the Exchange Station car park in Manchester just before the start of the LAC's Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run in June 1990.

It's a 1915 Hispano Suiza T30, and this is the only information given in the programme of the event:

1915 Hispano Suiza T30

Reg:  DS 7838  4 cylinder  30 hp

(B. Dearden-Briggs,  Mirfield,  Yorkshire)

1934 Alfa Romeo P3

This was one of the competitors in the Pre 1952 Grand Prix Cars Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 2000.

It's Rodney Felton's 1934 Alfa Romeo P3 that was driven in the race by Sir John Venables-Llewelyn. The P3 was introduced in 1932 with a twin-supercharged 2,654cc straight-8 engine which by 1935 had been enlarged to 3,165cc. By then, with the exception of Tazio Nuvolari's victory in the German Grand Prix that year (with the engine further enlarged to 3,822cc), the car was unable to match the Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz cars. This car is chassis #50009 that was destroyed in an accident in 1949 but the remains were eventually reconstructed by Rodney Felton.

1960 Standard Companion

This is one of a variety of cars that were in the Pallot Museum in Jersey that we visited in May 2013.

It's a 1960 Standard Companion, an estate version of the Standard 10 with the same 4-cylinder inline 948cc engine. The Companion was produced between 1954 and 1961 when it was replaced by the Triumph Herald Estate.

1955 Jaguar D-Type

This car competed in the 1950's Sports Car Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1993.

It's David Pennell's 1955 Jaguar D-Type and has the later 3,781cc 6-cylinder inline XK6 engine. The DVLA show it as a 1955 car that was first registered in 1978 but I've not been able to ascertain the chassis number of this car after going through chassis details of all the Jaguar D-Types on the Coventry Racers website. It may well be a replica.

Friday's Ferrari

This is one of the then current range of cars displayed at the Ferrari Racing Days meeting at Silverstone in September 2017.

It’s the Ferrari 812 Superfast that replaced the Ferrari F12berlinetta and has a 6,496cc V12 engine which produces 800 PS.

1972 March 721

I took this photograph at the Donington Park Museum in September 2014.

It's the March 721, chassis 721/3, that was driven by Henri Pescarolo for the Williams Motul team in the 1972 season. Famed for its 'tea-tray' front wing, it was powered by the 2,993cc V8 Ford Cosworth engine, but gained no points for him that season, Pescarolo's best finish being eighth place in the Argentinian Grand Prix.

1934 Wolseley Hornet

This car was displayed on the stand of the Wolseley Register at the Northern Classic Car Show at  the G-Mex Centre, Manchester in August 1993.

It's a 1934 Wolseley Hornet Special with a 1,271cc 6-cylinder inline engine. 31,686 Wolseley Hornets were built between 1930 and 1936.

1951 Cooper

This car competed in the 500cc Formula 3 Cars Class in the Historic Formula Junior Championship race at the Aston Martin Owners Club's Autumn Historic Car Races meeting at Oulton Park in September 1992.

It's shown in the programme of the event simply as a 1951 Cooper with a 500cc engine and if it's a 1951 car it should be a Cooper Mk V. It's obviously been considerably modified and even has wire wheels instead of the alloy wheels that most of Cooper's 500cc cars had, and I've not been able to find photographs on the internet of any car that resembles this one.. The driver was a Shirley Dickson of Chichester, and again a search of the internet has revealed nothing.

1854 HWM Jaguar

This car competed in the 1950s Sports Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1999.

It's the 1954 HWM Jaguar of Julian Bronson and has a 3,442cc 6-cylinder inline Jaguar engine. John Abecassis and John Heath had built and raced their Formula 2 HWM cars since 1950 and in 1953 built their first sports car on a Formula 2 chassis. The team remained involved in sports car racing till 1956 when John Heath was killed during that year's Mille Miglia race.

1967 Atkinson 'Silver Knight'

This was one of the entrants in the Greater Manchester Transport Society's Trans Lancs Historic Vehicle Rally at Heaton Park, Manchester in September 1993.

It's a 1967 Atkinson 'Silver Knight' which has a Gardner 6LXB diesel engine and is not listed in the programme of the event. It was there in 1995, though, when the programme of the event said this about it:

Atkinson "Silver Knight" T3046XB, 1967                                                  GBV759E

Entered by    C.J.Gardner for W.H.Bowker Limited, Bamber Bridge, Preston

Owned by the Company since new, this much travelled vehicle remains in original condition, the last engine overhaul having been undertaken in 1978.

1938 ERA E-Type GP2

This car took part in the Historic Memorial Trophy Race and the Allcomers Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in August 1992.

It's Gordon Chapman's 1938 ERA E-Type, GP2 which was the last ERA to be built and didn't make its racing debut till after the Second World War. It has a supercharged 6-cylinder inline 1,488cc ERA engine and was driven that day by Bill Morris.

A note about the car in the programme of the event reads as follows:

'Bill Morris is down to drive an example of the last ERA pre-war design. Entered by Gordon Chapman, the 1938 E-Type - chassis number GP2 - was not raced until after the war. GP1, incidentally, did run in 1939. The 1.5 litre E-Type had a rather similar career to the post-war V16 BRM car: it showed promise, but recorded few hard results. Lighter, lower and more modern-looking than the previous ERA chassis, the E-Type differed from the earlier cars in having a synchromesh gearbox (instead of a pre-selector) and de Dion rear suspension.'

Friday's Ferrari

This is one of the cars that featured in a tribute to Ferrari at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1997, taking part in a paddock display and track demonstration.

It's a 1949 Ferrari 166 chassis #011F that had been raced in the late 1940s and early 1950s in Argentina by Juan Manuel Fangio and José Froilán Gonzáles. It was powered by a 1,995cc V12 engine designed by Gioacchino Colombo and was originally used in Formula 2 racing, but became eligible for World Championship races when they were contested by 2 litre cars in 1952 and 1953. The 'YPF' decal on the side of the car denotes the Argentinian state energy company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales.

2000 Jaguar R1

I took this photograph at the Donington Park Museum in September 2014.

It's the 2000 Jaguar R1 with a 3 litre V10 Ford Cosworth engine. Ford had taken over the Stewart Racing Team after the 1999 season and the resulting cars were badged as Jaguars, Johnny Herbert being retained as one of the drivers and teamed with Eddie Irvine. The car didn't have much success, but the team persevered for the next four seasons without any great improvement and were taken over by the Red Bull Racing Team in 2005. The board at the side of the car reads as follows:

2000 Jaguar R1

The Jaguar R1 was the chassis with which the

Jaguar Racing Formula One team competed in

the 2000 Formula One season, and the first

Jaguar-badged car after Ford’s purchase of the

Stewart team the previous year.

The car proved largely disappointing, despite

flashes of promise. It generally proved difficult

to drive and suffered from an unreliable

gearbox. Eddie Irvine, the 1999 championship

runner-up could only score 4 points, placing

the team ninth overall in the Constructors’

Championship.

The R1 was the last F1 car that Johnny Herbert

raced, the experienced Englishman retiring at

the end of the season. It was also the car in

which Luciano Burti made his race debut.

1965 Leyland Titan PD2/37

This bus took part in the Greater Manchester Transport Society's Trans Lancs Historic Vehicle Rally in Heaton Park, Manchester in September 1995.

It's a 1965 Leyland Titan PD2/37, not listed in the programme of the event but it was also present in 1993 when the programme gave this information about the vehicle:

Leyland Titan PD2/37, East Lancashire H64F, 1965                                       KTJ204C

Lancaster City Transport 204

Entered by South Tyne Preservation Group

This vehicle passed from Lancaster through a number of operators, ending up with

Go Ahead Northern as a training vehicle. Purchased for preservation in 1992.

1958 Alfa Romeo Giulietta

This car competed in the QED Standard Road Sports Championship race at the Historic Sports Car Club's Summer Race Meeting at Oulton Park in July 1992,

It's the 1958 Alfa Romeo Giulietta of Nick Savage and has a 4-cylinder inline 1,290cc engine. The car was produced from 1954 to 1965, undergoing some restyling in 1959 and 1961.

1954 Lancia D50

The Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1998 included a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the opening meeting at the circuit in 1948. There was a display in the paddock that weekend of representative vehicles for each of those 50 years which included this Lancia D50 of 1954.

The programme had this to say about the car:

'The Lancia Ferrari D50

Silverstone is proud to display a Grand Prix car that has not been seen in Britain for over 40 years. The Lancia D50 was not only a winner, giving Fangio his fourth world title, but the project itself was so costly that it was instrumental in bringing the company to its financial knees and forcing a takeover by Fiat.

Vincenzo Lancia, while one of Italy's leading racing drivers in his day, kept the car company he founded out of serious competition, fearing the cost and diversion from the main task of building road cars. However, his son Gianni had a rather different approach and thus Lancia successfully raced sportscars in the 1950s.

For the 1954 season he decided the company should take in the might of Mercedes Benz and Maserati at the highest level of the sport: Grand Prix racing. Designer Vittorio Jano produced an innovative design with a high-revving 2.5 litre 90-degree V8, and the engine was utilised as a stressed member with the front suspension assembly bolted to it.

The engine was also mounted at an angle in the chassis to allow for an offset propshaft that assisted with a low cockpit. But the most obvious innovation was the outrigger pannier tanks between the wheels which improved the airflow and the balance of the car as the fuel load lightened.

The suspension incorporated a De Dion tube at the rear with a tubular front wishbone and leaf spring set-up at the front. The chassis was largely constructed from small diameter tube and overall the car was beautifully detailed and also very light.

After two wins in minor Formula 1 races in Italy, the D50-mounted Alberto Ascari qualified second at Monaco and was set to take the lead when he crashed spectacularly into the harbour, amazingly sustaining only a broken nose. Tragically, he was killed four days later in an accident at Monza while testing a sportscar.

By then Lancia was in financial trouble, and Fiat struck a deal whereby the D50 project, including six cars, were handed over to Ferrari. Engineers Jano and Luigi Bazzi moved over to their former rivals at Maranello to further develop  the cars and the following year they were developed into true winners. Using a car, now known as the Lancia Ferrari, in 1956 Fangio took the machine to victories in Buenos Aires, Silverstone and the Nürburgring on the way to his fourth World title. Peter Collins won with the car at Spa-Francorchamps and Reims.

The car was further modified in 1957 and re-designated the 801 but no major victories followed. Two of the ten D50s have survived, one at the Biscaretti Museum and one retained by Fiat which is the car Silverstone proudly displays today.

by Andrew Marriott'

1924 Bentley 3 litre

This is one of the cars that took part in the Lancashire Automobile Club's Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run in May 1992 and is pictured moving up to the start line in the Exchange Station car park in Manchester.

This is the only bit of information about the car in the programme of the event:

'21   1924 Bentley 3 litre Tourer

        Mr K. Bothamley, Rochdale, Lancashire'

According to the Vintage Bentleys website the car is chassis no. 474, has Freestone & Webb bodywork and was delivered new to a Capt. R F Vane in March 1924.

1924/26 GN Morgan 'Salome'

This car competed in a 4-lap scratch race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in July 1987.

It's the 1924/26 GN Morgan 'Salome' of Jonathan Giles with a 981cc JAP engine. 'Salome' started life as a Morgan Aero and was converted to four wheels by its then owner Jan Breyer in 1931 who fitted a GN rear axle.

Friday's Ferrari

This is one of the cars I photographed in the car park at Old Trafford before a match there in October 2019.

It's a 2017 Ferrari 488 GTB with the 3,902cc twin turbocharged 32 valve F154 V8 engine which has two overhead camshafts per bank. Manufacture of the 488 started in 2015 and ended in February 2019. Its successor is an updated version of the 488, the Ferrari F8 Tributo.

1955 Maserati 250F

This car competed in the HGPCA Pre '60 GP Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 1996.

It's indistinguishable from a 1950s Maserati 250F, but it's one of 12 replicas built by Cameron Millar and this one has the chassis number CM8. Cameron Millar acquired a genuine Maserati 250F in 1964 (originally 2501, later renumbered 2523) which he kept and raced for 8 years. In this time he purchased all the remaining cars and spare parts belonging to the Scuderia Centro Sud who had competed with the 250F in the 1950s, and also the chassis jigs from the Maserati factory. He then set about creating this series of replicas, using as far as possible genuine period parts, which are so well crafted that the FIA has allowed them to race alongside the genuine Maserati 250F and its contemporaries in competitive historic racing events. At the time of this Silverstone event CM8 was owned by Swedish driver Gunnar Elmgren.

1935 Morris 8

This was one of the vehicles at a car show in Ashton-under-Lyne in March 1987.

It's a 1935 Morris 8 and has a 4-cylinder inline 918cc side-valve engine. Over 160,000 of these cars were produced between 1935 and 1937 and they were produced in saloon and open tourer versions. According to the DVLA record this car hasn't been taxed since January 1994.

1971 Surtees TS9B

This was one of the competitors in the HSCC Pre '71 Single Seater Championship Race at the Historic Sports Car Club's Spring Historic Race Meeting at Oulton Park in May 1987.

It's the 1971 Surtees TS9B of Brian Tyler that was raced by the Surtees team in the 1971 and 1972 seasons, being uprated from a TS9 to a TS9B before the start of the 1972 season. The Surtees TS9 was powered by the 2,993cc Ford Cosworth DFV V8 engine and was not particularly successful, the best result being Mike Hailwood's second place in the 1972 Italian Grand Prix. 

1959 Cooper T49 Monaco

This car took part in the Louis Vuitton '50s Sports Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1995.

It's the 1959 Cooper T49 Monaco of John Beasley and has a 4-cylinder inline 1,960cc Coventry Climax engine. The name 'Monaco' was given to the car to mark Maurice Trintignant's win in the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix in a Cooper Climax T45. It was the successor to the smaller centre-seat Cooper T39 'Bobtail' that the company had produced since 1954.

1968 Brabham BT25

This is a car I photographed at the Donington Park Museum on a visit there in October 1989.

It's the Brabham BT25 that competed in the Indianapolis 500 race in 1968 and 1969, and the book 'Great Cars of the Donington Collection' says this about it:

'The Indianapolis BT25

Brabham’s first Monocoque

 The late Peter Revson raced a turquoise-painted 4.2 litre Repco-Brabham at the Indianapolis Raceway Park road course in 1969, and won. It was his first success in the United States Auto Club’s race series, and marked the high-tide of the first monocoque Brabham’s career.

Jack Brabham had raced a rear-engined Cooper-Climax in the Indianapolis ‘500’ in 1961, pioneering the road-racing involvement which culminated in Clark’s win for Lotus in 1965. Indy rules for 1968 demanded that the cars’ fuel tanks be sheathed in metal panelling, and so Ron Tauranac’s practical mind decided that a monocoque should replace his long-standing allegiance to the spaceframe. The special 4.2 litre Repco V8 engine was slung in a tubular spaceframe behind a forward monocoque nacelle, and so the BT25 was born.

Brabham and Jochen Rindt drove the first cars, unsuccessfully, in the 1968 ‘500’, and in 1969 Jack returned with Revson as team-mate in developed BT25s. The American starred in the race, starting in thirty-third position and coming through to fifth by the finish. It was his first Indianapolis and signalled the beginning of his rise to new-found prominence as Can-Am Champion and Formula 1 Grand Prix winner before his tragic death.'

2011 Nissan GT-R GT1

This was one of the exhibits at the Footman James Classic Car Show Manchester at Eventcity in September 2018.

It's a Nissan GT-R GT1, and it appears to be the car driven by Michael Krumm when he won the 2011 FIA GT1 World Championship series. The car has a 5,552cc V8 engine and was acquired by Shaun Lawless from Nismo (Nissan Motor Sports International) when the FIA ended the series in 2012.

Friday's Ferrari

This is a photograph I took at the Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992 which featured a special display of Ferraris in the paddock numbered 1 to 32, and a page in the programme of the event gave details of each of the cars.

This is a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta Competizione, chassis #2735GT, and is the Rob Walker entered car with which Stirling Moss won the 1961 Tourist Trophy race at Goodwood. The car was rebodied by Piero Drogo after competing in the 1962 Tourist Trophy race, but was restored in stages from the 1970s, the complete restoration being finished in 2009. The car on the left is a 1950 Ferrari 166 MM Touring Barchetta that the factory brought up to 195, and later to 212 specifications. Owned by Dudley Mason-Styrron it is chassis #0040M. On the right is a Ferrari 250 GT LWB Berlinetta Scaglietti TdF at the time owned by Peter Hannen and is chassis #1353GT.

Jaguar D-Type Replica

I took this photograph at the Jaguar Drivers' Club's Cheshire Cats Trophy Meeting at Oulton Park in April 1987.

It resembles a 1956 Jaguar D-Type, but it's obviously a replica as the shape of the car isn't quite right. I can't find out much about the car, except that the DVLA says it's a Jaguar that was manufactured in 1970 and has a 4,235cc engine - which is the capacity of the 4.2 litre version of the Jaguar XK engine.

1959 Lister Jaguar

John Fitzpatrick drove this car in the Classic Car Sports Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1994.

It's a 1959 Lister Jaguar and is bearing the white bodywork with blue stripes that adorned the second of these Costin bodied cars to be made, chassis BHL123, which went to the American Briggs Cunningham's racing team. Gary Pearson at one point restored the former Briggs Cunningham car, and this car at Silverstone has the same 6-cylinder inline 3,781cc Jaguar XK engine that was fitted to BHL123. The 1959 car was designed by Frank Costin to accommodate a Chevrolet Corvette engine, which most of them did, although a few of the cars used the same Jaguar engine as the earlier Lister 'Knobbly' cars.