1958 BRM P57

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 Bruce McCaw's 1958 BRM P25, chassis P25/7, and was driven in the race by Robin Hall. BRM’s in-period Project 25 classification covered the engine design alone, the spaceframe chassis structure comprising Project 27. This car is the seventh of the team’s 2,491cc 4-cylinder Type 25s to be built and was the second to use the `1958 spaceframe Project 27 chassis in place of an original semi-monocoque design which had been used for the preceding five cars. Those semi-monocoque BRM Type 25s built from 1955 to 1957 are recorded within the team archive as cars ‘251’ to ‘255’. The subsequent six pure spaceframe cars built 1958-1959 were then referred to as ‘256’ to ‘2511’, even though their Project 27 chassis frames were numbered in sequence ‘27/1’ to ‘27/6’. The P25 was said to be the fastest of the 1954-1960 Formula 1 era, partly due to the oversquare (102.87 mm bore x 74.93 mm stroke) engine allowing for larger valves to be fitted. The car was plagued with reliability problems, however, and the only Grand Prix win was Jo Bonnier's victory in the 1959 Dutch Grand Prix in chassis 258.

BRM P261

These cars took part in the Maserati UK Race for Pre-1966 Grand Prix & Tasman Cars at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1999.

They're the BRM P261s of Paul Alexander (no. 14) and Bruce McCaw (no. 46) - the latter being driven in the race by Richard Attwood. The programme of the event said this about Paul Alexander's car:

Few models beyond the 1950s - let alone individual cars - enjoyed Grand Prix careers spanning several seasons, but BRM P261-5 has the distinction of having competed at the highest level from 1964-'68, in both 1500cc and three-litre Formula 1 guises.

One of three raced by Graham Hill in 1964, it excelled on the road circuits, finishing second in the French Grand Prix at Rouen and fifth in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa. A back-up car in 1965, it contested the final 1500cc Grand Prix  in Mexico with Jackie Stewart.

Privateer Bernard White's Team Chamaco Collect fitted it with a two-litre BRM 'Tasman' V8 for 1966, Vic Wilson taking it to fourth in the non-championship Syracuse Grand Prix. By Monaco, Bob Bondurant was in, the American finishing fourth and last in a race of attrition.

Innes Ireland placed fourth in the Oulton Park Gold Cup, and went on to win the US and Mexican GPs. David Hobbs ran it in the '67 British and Canadian GPs, and was back in '68 with a three-litre V12 engine installed. Sixth in Silverstone's International Trophy, Hobbs took a Honda drive for the Italian GP, where Frank Gardner gave 261-5 its last outing, but failed to qualify.

Superbly rebuilt to its two-litre specification by Hall & Fowler, 261-5 is finally winning races, 35 years on, with Paul Alexander.

On 31 August 2016 I showed photographs of Paul Alexander's car at the 1992 Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park.