1960 Maserati T61

I took this rather blurred photograph with my Kodak Brownie 127 camera in the paddock at the August Bank Holiday meeting at Aintree in 1960.

It's John Coundley in the 1960 Maserati T61 that he drove for the American Camoradi team. The car has a 4-cylinder inline 2,890cc engine and seems to have been one of the cars that competed in the Le Mans 24 Hour Race in June of that year. I've not been able to confirm the chassis number, but it seems likely that it was either 2461 or 2464.

Geoff Duke

This is one of the competitors in the Aintree Trophy Race at the BARC Bank Holiday meeting at Aintree in August 1960.

It's four times World 500cc Motorcycle Champion (and twice 350cc Champion) Geoff Duke who drove a Reg Parnell Racing Formula 2 Lotus 18 in the race, but failed to finish. He started his motorcycle career with Norton, racing with them from 1950 to 1952, winning one 500cc and two 350cc Championships. In 1953 he switched to the Italian Gilera team remaining with them until he retired from motorcycle racing in 1959, winning three further 500cc Championships. In 1953 he had joined the Aston Martin car racing team and partnered Peter Collins in an Aston Martin DB3 at the Sebring 12 Hour race, but retired following an accident. After his retirement from motorcycle racing he tried his hand at motor racing again, joining the Reg Parnell Racing team and racing for them at several events, including this one at Aintree.

1960 Jaguar D-Type

I took this photograph at Aintree at, I think, the August Bank Holiday meeting on 7 August 1960.

It's an Ecurie Ecosse D-Type Jaguar in the rather ridiculous looking guise adopted to comply with the FIA Appendix J Regulations that specified a minimum height for the windscreen and a mandatory luggage space. You can barely see the added luggage space here, but there's an unsightly bump on the rear of the car next to the tail fin, and you can just see the top of it over the driver's door. I don't know who drove the car at this meeting, but it took part in the Le Mans 24 Hour race that year driven by Ron Flockhart and Bruce Halford, retiring after 168 laps with a broken crankshaft. It appears to be chassis XKD606.

Jaguar D-Type

This is a photograph I took of a car that competed in the sports car race at the Aintree 200 meeting in April 1960.

It's Mike Salmon's 1955 Jaguar D-Type, chassis #XKD504, originally a Jaguar works car but later campaigned by Ecurie Ecosse. Sotheby's related the history of XKD504 when it was offered for auction in September 2013.

Cooper Climax T45

This car is pictured in the paddock at Aintree in April 1960 where it took part in the BARC 200 race for Formula 2 cars.

It's the Scuderia Centro Sud Cooper Climax T45 and was driven in the race by Maurice Trintignant, finishing in fifth place. It's the ex-Rob Walker car and is chassis #F2-9-58.

BRM P48

Here's another of the old photographs, this time from the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in September 1960.

It's Graham Hill in the paddock in his BRM P48, the unsuccessful rear-engine version of the P25. Graham Hill finished in third position in the race which was won by Stirling Moss in a Lotus 18. This was the last season for the 2½ litre cars and BRM competed in the 1961 season with the P48/57, a car that was basically a P48 fitted with a 1½ litre engine, which was no more successful than the P48. The next season, however, a new car, the P57 with a new 1½ litre V8 engine was built and with this car Graham Hill won the 1962 World Championship.

Porsche 718

On 15th October 2013 I showed a photograph of the two works Porsche 718s that finished in second and third positions in the BARC 200 race at Aintree in April 1960, and here's the car that won the race.

It's Rob Walker's Porsche 718 which was driven to victory in the race by Stirling Moss. This site about scalextric slot cars gives you some information about the car.

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.

Fiat 'Mephistopheles'

In 1923 Ernest Eldridge created a car using the chassis of a 1908 Fiat SB4 Grand Prix car with a 6-cylinder 21.7 litre Fiat A12 aeroplane engine in an attempt to break the World Land Speed record. In 1924 he achieved that record at a speed of 146.0 mph at Arpajon in France. 

This photograph of the car was taken at the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in 1960:

The car is now in the Fiat museum in Turin, and you can read about it here. (NB: That article says that it's got an 18 litre engine, but the Wikipedia article and other sites I've looked at agree that it's 21.7 litres)

Porsche 718

These are the two works Porsche 718 formula two cars pictured in the paddock at the 1960 BARC 200 race at Aintree 200. I think the photographs were probably taken during practice as the number 5 car on the right doesn't yet have the number on its nose. That car was driven by Graham Hill and finished third in the race. The number 6 car was driven by Jo Bonnier who finished second and the race was won by yet another Porsche 718, Rob Walker's car, driven by Stirling Moss.