1991 Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato Sanction II

This was one of the competitors in the BRDC '60s GT Race at the Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992.

Shown in the programme of the event as Simon Draper's 1960 Aston Martin Zagato, but it was actually built in 1991. The original intention in 1960 was to build 23 of the Aston Martin DB4GT Zagatos and chassis numbers were set aside for them, but only 19 were actually completed. In 1991 Aston Martin approached Zagato with the suggestion that they should build four additional cars to the same specifications, except that they would have the 4,212cc engine instead of the original 3,670 unit. The four cars were given the unused chassis numbers 0192, 0196, 0197, and 0198 (Simon Draper's car being 0196) and they would be known as Sanction II models.

Bredbury TV Scramble

In the early 1960s Motor Cycle Scrambling was frequently shown on the television at weekends, and occasionally I would go along and watch if it was somewhere local. I came across this programme recently of a meeting held in Bredbury on 4 March 1962 where I took one or two photographs.

This is Dave Bickers who was one of the top riders in the early 1960s, winning the 250cc European Motocross Championships in 1960 and 1961, and was a member of the British teams that won the Trophée des Nations event in 1961 and 1962. He was also a member of the teams that won the Motocross des Nations in 1966 and 1967. He's riding a 250cc Greeves.

I'm not sure who this is, but it may be Jeff Smith, who won the 500cc Motocross World Championship in 1964 and 1965. If it is Jeff Smith he's riding a 250cc Dot.

1954 Cooper T39

This car took part in the Bonhams Drum Brake Sports Cars [HGPCA] race at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in August 2003.

It's the 1956 Cooper T39 of George Cooper, more commonly known as the Cooper Bobtail because of the truncated tail of the car which was aerodynamically effective, but which John Cooper claimed to have been shortened so that it would fit inside the works transporter. The car was used in the 1,100cc and 1,500cc classes of sportscar racing and this car has a 4-cylinder inline 1,450cc Coventry Climax engine. It was reputedly the road-holding characteristics of this car that led John Cooper to produce first the rear-engined 1½ litre Formula 2 car and then the 2½ litre Formula 1 car that gave Jack Brabham the World Drivers' Championship in 1959 and 1960. Cooper's successes led all the other teams to adopt the rear-engine layout, and the last Formula 1 Grand Prix to be won by a front-engined car was Ferrari's victory in the 1960 Italian Grand Prix.

Friday's Ferrari

Ferrari uses the Corse Clienti Ferrari Racing Days meetings at various circuits to allow a group of specially selected customers to test limited edition cars developed exclusively for the track and to provide feedback on the performance of the cars to Corse Clienti engineers, thus helping Ferrari to develop its cars for the future. The Ferrari Racing Days meeting at Silverstone in September 2017 included a series of test sessions involving the Ferrari FXX-K, the 'K' referring to the KERS kinetic energy recovery system with which the car is equipped. Here's one of the cars pictured at Club Corner during one of the sessions.

This is Canadian driver Eric Cheung in his Ferrari FXX-K, which is based on the LaFerrari. The car has a 6,262cc V12 engine that develops 848 hp, to which the 140kW electric motor adds 188 hp.

1962 BRM P578

This is a photograph I took in the paddock at Aintree on practice day for the British Grand Prix in July 1962.

It's the 1962 BRM P578 that Graham Hill drove in the race and is chassis P578/1 with the upright 'stack pipe' exhausts. He qualified in fifth place on the grid with Jim Clark in the Lotus 25 in pole position. In the race Jim Clark led from start to finish and Graham Hill ended up in fourth place, thanks in part to mechanical problems suffered by the Lotus 24 of Innes Ireland who had qualified ahead of Graham Hill. The BRM had been introduced in 1961 as the P57 with a 4-cylinder inline 1,496cc Coventry Climax FPF engine as BRM's new V8 1½ litre engine was still on the drawing board at the start of the season. By 1962 the P56 BRM 1,498cc V8 engine was available and the car was re-designated as the P578 in acknowledgement of the V8 unit. Jim Clark was the man to beat that season, but although he won three of the races he was plagued by retirements in another four and Graham Hill won the Drivers' World Championship with four victories and four other points-scoring places. BRM also won the Constructors' World Championship.

1955 Maserati 300S

This was one of the competitors in the Coys Race for Pre-1959 Drum Brake Sports Cars at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in August 2002.

It's the 1955 Maserati 300S of Rodney Smith, chassis #3060, and was driven in the race by Mark Gillies. The Maserati 300S has a 6-cylinder engine based on the 2½ litre unit of the 250F Grand Prix car with a lengthened stroke to bring the capacity up to 2,991cc. The car's first major race was the 1956 Sebring 12 Hour race where it was driven by Cesare Perdisa and Carlos Menditéguy, but Menditéguy crashed and overturned the car during the race. The car was then badly damaged when the trailer retrieving it was hit by a truck. The rebuild wasn't completed till 1957, but on its return to Sebring in 1959 the car was once again badly damaged in Edwin Lawrence's fatal accident during practice. It was rebuilt yet again with a fibreglass body, and later a 3.9 litre Chevrolet V8 engine was installed.  The car was fully restored to its current form in the early 1990s.

1928 Riley Brooklands

This car took part in the two hour long VSCC Team Relay Race for Pre-war Sports Cars at the Vintage Sports Car Club's SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in May 2011.

It's David Furnell's 1928 Riley Brooklands with a tuned version of the Riley Nine's 1,087cc 4-cylinder inline engine. The Riley Nine was designed by two of the Riley brothers, Percy and Stanley, and the Brooklands was the work of John G Parry Thomas and Reid Railton who shortened the chassis by some 15 inches and fitted an undershield the full length of the car. The engine had high compression pistons, special camshafts and 2 carburettors, increasing its output to 50bhp.