1950 Talbot Lago T26 GS

I took this photograph at Lodge Corner during the Cheshire Building Society Allcomers Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club’s Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1981.

It’s Richard Pilkington in his 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.