1954 Maserati 250F

This is a photograph that my brother Peter took at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in September 1955.

It's Maserati chief mechanic Guerino Bertocchi behind the pits in the 1954 Maserati 250F that Luigi Musso drove in the race, finishing in 8th position. It has the 6-cylinder inline 2,491cc Maserati engine and is chassis 2501.

Mike Hawthorn

This is a photo my brother took in the paddock at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in September 1955.

It's Mike Hawthorn who drove one of Ferrari's recently acquired Lancia D50s in the Gold Cup race, finishing in second place to Stirling Moss in his Maserati 250F. Mike Hawthorn had won the Le Mans 24 Hour race earlier that year following the dreadful accident when Pierre Levegh and 83 spectators were killed when his Mercedes Benz 300SLR crashed into the crowd in the grandstand opposite the pits after colliding with Lance Macklin's Austin Healey 100S. In 1958 Mike Hawthorn won the World Drivers' Championship despite only winning one race out of the 10 contested but finished in second place in 5 races, whilst Stirling Moss won 4 races but only finished in second place in the Championship - the only other points he won were for a solitary second place. At this Gold Cup meeting Mike Hawthorn's team mate Eugenio Castellotti finished in seventh place and my brother took a photo of his car returning to the paddock after the race with the nose of Mike Hawthorn's car showing just behind it.

1953 Alfa Romeo 6C 3000 CM

My brother took this photograph at the Daily Herald International Trophy meeting at Oulton Park in August 1955.

It's Joakim Bonnier's 1953 Alfa Romeo 6C 3000 CM, chassis #0125, with a 6-cylinder inline 3,495cc engine. The number 36 next to it is Gunnar Carlsson's 1954 Ferrari 750 Monza chassis #0470MD. The cars with numbers 20 and 18 in the background are the Lister Bristols of Ken Wharton and Archie Scott Brown, and immediately behind the Alfa Romeo is what looks like Mike Anthony's Lotus Mk X.

Connaught

Finance was always a problem for Rodney Clarke's Connaught racing team and only two years after making history when Tony Brooks won the 1955 Syracuse Grand Prix in a Connaught B Type the team was disbanded when the money ran out.

Here's Rodney Clarke at the Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting in September 1955, just a month before the Syracuse race, in the Connaught B Type, chassis B1, which Tony Brooks drove in that race. In the Gold Cup race the car was driven by Reg Parnell. who finished in fourth place.

Lancia D50

When Lancia pulled out of racing in the middle of the 1955 racing season due to financial pressures the team of D50 Formula 1 cars was passed over to Ferrari. At the time their appearance at the Gold Cup race at Oulton Park in September 1955 they were still badged as Lancias and it seemed that Ferrari had not yet carried out any modifications to the cars. This photograph, taken with a Kodak Brownie 127 camera by my brother, shows the two cars returning to the paddock at the end of the race.

This is Eugenio Castellotti's car, which finished in 7th place, and behind it is Mike Hawthorn's car which finished second in the race to the Maserati 250F of Stirling Moss.

Friday's Ferrari

Two Ferraris today on an old Kodak Brownie 127 photograph taken at the Daily Herald International Trophy race at Oulton Park in August 1955.

Number 50 is Tony Parravano's 1954 Ferrari 121 LM which was driven in the race by Carroll Shelby, but did not finish the race. This car has the Ferrari serial number 0484LM. Car number 30 is Masten Gregory's Ferrari 750S Monza, driven by Masten Gregory in the race and is serial number 0554M. This car finished fourth in the race.

Friday's Ferrari

I've mentioned before that the first race meeting I ever attended was the 1955 British Empire Trophy event at Oulton Park and in this race there were two Ferrari 750 Monzas, one driven by Mike Sparken and the other by Luigi Piotti. 

This Ferrari 750 Monza, which took part in the Louis Vuitton '50s Sports Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1995 was entered by Tom Walduck and driven in the race by Kerry McSwan. It's serial number is 0504M and is the car which was driven by Mike Sparken in that 1955 race at Oulton Park.