Friday's Ferrari

I took this photograph at the RAC International Tourist Trophy race at Oulton Park in May 1965.

It’s Mike Salmon in the John Danway Racing’s 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO approaching Lodge Corner. The car is chassis 4399GT and it was rebodied in the 1964 style by Scaglietti  at the end of 1963. It finished the race in 12^th position on aggregate over two heats.

1959 Aston Martin DBR4

I took this photograph at the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's a 1959 Aston Martin DBR4, originally called the DBR4-250, which has a 6-cylinder inline 2,493cc engine. The book ‘Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection’ has this note about the car.

In 1958 the rear-engined, or more accurately ‘mid-engined’, Cooper-Climaxes had proved themselves capable of winning Grand Prix races. They were smaller, lighter and more nimble than the classic front-engined cars, and several designs were overtaken by this fundamental revolution in thinking. Aston Martin had built a single-seater version of their successful DB3S sports car as early as 1955, racing it New Zealand, and from this project grew Formula 1 ambitions. But development was slow with most of the racing department’s time taken up by sports car programmes. A car was designed contemporary with the later Maserati 250F’s and the Vanwalls, but when it appeared in 1959 it was too late. On its debut at Silverstone in the 1959 non-Championship meeting, Roy Salvadori put the 280bhp six-cylinder, De Dion rear axled car on pole position and finished second, and that was to prove its best performance. Failure with the Formula 1 car took some of the prestige away from Aston’s World Sports Car Championship victory that year, and although lighter cars were built for 1960 they were totally out-moded and were withdrawn before the season’s end. The Collection’s car is believed to be the first 1959 chassis, but it was acquired in disassembled and drearful condition, and has been totally restored in the Collection’s Leicester workshops.

1939 Maserati 4CL

This is a photograph I took in the paddock at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies race meeting at Oulton Park in June 1984.

It's Rodney Felton’s 1939 Maserati 4CL, chassis 1567, and has a supercharged 4-cylinder inline 1,492cc engine. The 1939 racing season was curtailed by the outbreak of the Second World War but when racing recommenced in 1946 it proved to be the most successful of the cars taking part, and even more so in the 1947 season.

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'

2023 Audi R8

This is a car that I saw in the Manchester United car park in April 2023.

It's a 2023 Audi R8, a Second Generation model.

 It has a 5,204cc V10 engine.

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.

1925 Lancia Lambda

This is a photograph I took at the Lancashire Automobile Club's Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run in June 1980 with the vehicles lining up to be flagged off one by one to start the Run.

This is a 1925 Lancia Lambda and the programme of the event has this note about the car:

107     J.V. Muschamp, Cowling, Nr. Keighley, W. Yorks.

            1925 Lancia Lambda, 4-cylinder, 2570 c.c.

This is a fifth series Lambda Torpedo Tourer. It was completely rebuilt four years ago. Interesting features on the Lambda are the sliding pillar independent front suspension, monocoque chassis and V4 engine.