Old Hairpin, Donington Park

This is a photograph I took from the straight between McLean's Corner and Coppice Corner of the field rounding Old Hairpin Corner on the first lap of the Pre-1961 Sports & GT Cars Race at the VSCC's SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in May 2011.

The two leading cars are an Austin Healey and a Lotus Elite, and as far as I can make out the 12 cars in the photograph are:

44  1955 Austin Healey 100M, Michael Thorne

59  1960 Lotus Elite, Robin Longden

7    1959 Lotus Elite, Brian Arculus

98  1955 Austin Healey 100M, Mark Pangborn

97  1954 AC Ace, Mark Morgan

49  1957 Aston Martin DB MkIII, Jon Gross

18  1955 Austin Healey 100M, Robert Rawe

5    1957 AC Ace, Andy Shepherd

65  1951 Bristol 401 ‘Mitchell Special’, Andrew Mitchell

47  1959 Aston Martin DB MkIII, Simon Jefferies

48  1955 Aston Martin DB2/4, James Campbell

85  1948 Frazer Nash High Speed, Ned Spieker

Bristol Cars

I took this photograph at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 2000, and I presume that the cars belong to members of the Bristol Owners' Club.

From the left the cars are:

SMT 259 - A 1947 Pininfarina bodied Bristol 400 Cabriolet with the inline 6-cylinder 1,971cc Bristol engine and 3 SU carburettors.

1951 BT - This is a Bristol 401 with bodywork by  Beutler Brothers of Switzerland. It also has the 1,971cc Bristol engine, and I've seen it's year of manufacture given as 1950, 1951 and 1953. The DVLA record says 1953.

265 HYL - This is the standard Bristol 400 and is a 1949 model, again with the 1,971cc BMW-derived Bristol engine.

Bristol 401 'Mitchell Special'

I'd not heard of this car before I saw it at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in May 2011, but it's the Mitchell Special, based on an early 1950s Bristol 401 and you can read about it here. It was driven in the Pre-1961 Sports & GT Cars race by the builder of the car, Andrew Mitchell, and I took the photograph below during that race at McLeans Corner.

I would have liked to have included here a photograph of the standard Bristol 401, but on looking through my photographs it seems that I've never actually taken a photograph of one, nor of the virtually identical Bristol 403.