Friday's Ferrari

This is one of the cars in the Ferrari Owners Club area at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1999.

It's a 1953 Ferrari 166MM Vignale Spyder and the serial number is 0308M

Lotus Elite

One of the cars in the Pre-1961 Sports & GT Cars Race at the SeeRed & Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Donington Park in May 2011 was this Lotus Elite.

It's the 1960 Lotus Elite formerly raced by Les Leston in the 1960s and raced here at Donington Park by Robin Longdon. Les Leston died on on 13 May 2012 at the age of 91 and his life story in the obituary in The Telegraph is well worth reading. It says about the famous 'DAD10' number plate:

'Leston raced in the Le Mans 24 hour race and rallies, and in the 1960s enjoyed great success in the British GT Championships, driving a bright red Lotus Elite with the number plate “DAD 10” — a nod to the jazzman’s nickname “Daddio” by which he was known on the big band circuit.'

This is Robin Longdon at McLeans Corner at the Donington Park meeting leading the 1959 Lotus Elite of Brian Arculus.

Marcos Mantis M70

I've said before that it's always interesting walking round the spectators' parking areas at historic car meeting because you can come across such interesting and sometimes rare cars. Here's one such car photographed at the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1993.

It's a 1971 Marcos Mantis M70, one of only 32 cars made and the only one that I've ever seen.

Deep Sanderson

The Richard Hosken Classic Sports Car Championship race at the HSCC Summer Race meeting at Oulton Park in July 1995 was contested by cars such as Austin Healey, Lotus Elan, TVR and Marcos, but also featured the car show below.

It's the 1961 (1963 according to the programme of the event) Deep Sanderson which competed at Le Mans in the hands of Chris Lawrence & Chris Spender in 1963 and Chris Lawrence & Gordon Spice in 1964. It was entered and driven in the Oulton Park race by John Crowson of Leeds.

Here's John Crowson at Druids Corner during the race

Kurtis Offenhauser KK500G Indy Roadster

A couple of days ago I showed a photograph of a group of cars in 2004 at the Old Hairpin at Donington Park, one of which was a Kurtis sports car. The name Kurtis to me always conjures up pictures of the front-engined Indianapolis cars of the 1950s and early 60s and today's photographs are of one of these cars driven by Stuart Harper at the VSCC Boulogne and Hawthorn Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in May 2005.

It's shown in the programme of the event as a 1957 Kurtis Indy-Roadster, but from other photographs on the internet it seems that it should actually be described as the Kurtis Kraft Offenhauser KK500G Schulz Fueling Equipment Special. In fact this site, which lists all Indy Roadsters that are known to exist, says it has a Watson nose and (on two separate lists) shows it as a 1961 and a 1962 car. I'm not an expert on Indianapolis cars, but I must say that looking at photographs of the Indianapolis 500 race it does look more like a 1961 or 62 car than one from 1957, I assume that it's actually a 1957 car with the nose from a 1961/62 Watson.

In this photograph you can see the offset engine with the drive shaft passing to the left of the driver giving a lower car and better handling for the left-hand turns.

You can see here how the driver sits on the right-hand side of the car

Here's Stuart Harper during the Hawthorn Memorial And Spanish Trophies race, on the straight between Clay Hill and Druids Corner.

And here's Stuart Harper a few laps later rounding Lodge Corner

Peugeot Bébé

This is a car I photographed at the Exchange Station car park in Manchester in June 1990 at the start of the Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run organised by the Lancashire Automobile Club.

It's a 1913 Peugeot Bébé and the entry in the programme of the event reads as follows:

9.    1913 Peugeot Bébé

        Reg. DS 7907  4 cylinder 856 cc

        (Barry Parkinson, Ribchester)

Presumably there's a misprint here as the registration number of the car is DS 7707 and there is no other Peugeot Bébé shown in the programme. Many of the other cars in the run have little programme notes telling you something of the history of the vehicle, but there are no notes about this Peugeot Bébé, just the details shown above. It was named the Bébé or 'Baby' for its small size and the 1913 version was also known as the Type BP1. You can see the Wikipedia article about the car here.

Pre-1959 Drum-Braked Sports Cars

One of the races at the Donington International Historic Grand Prix meeting at Donington Park in May 2004 organised by the Historic Grand Prix Cars Organisation was the HGPCA Race for Pre-1959 Drum-Braked Sports Cars.

Here's a group of cars in that race heading down through the Craner Curves towards the Old Hairpin, Leading the group is Ollie Crosthwaite in a 1956 Cooper T39 Bobtail and behind that number 7 is a 1955 Maserati 300S driven by Mark Gillies. Jeremy Agace is driving the white and blue 1956 Maserati 250Si alongside, behind which is another 1956 Cooper T39 Bobtail with Marshall Bailey at the wheel. Next comes a 1954 Kurtis 500 driven by Christopher Keen - interestingly, although the programme of the event shows the engine size of all the other cars taking part in the meeting in cubic centimetres, that for the Kurtis as shown in cubic inches, appropriate I suppose for an American car. It was shown as 283ci which I understand equates to some 4637cc. Following the Kurtis is Nick Wigley's 1953 Tojeiro Bristol, then Barry Wood's 1952 RGS Atalanta and Michael Ehrlich's 1953 Kieft Bristol.