Friday's Ferrari

I took this photograph at the Ferrari Racing Days meeting at Silverstone in September 2017.

It's a 1997 Ferrari F355 Berlinetta, one of 4,871 cars produced between 1994 and 1999. It has a 3,496cc V8 engine with twin overhead camshafts on each bank of cylinders and 5 valves per cylinder. The F355 replaced the Ferrari 348 and was itself replaced by the Ferrari 360. From 1997 the F355 became the first-ever road car to have the paddle operated F1 style gearbox transmission system.

Three Buses

This is a photograph that I took at the Greater Manchester Transport Society's Trans Lancs Historic Vehicle Rally in Heaton Park, Manchester in September 1993.

All three are from the Transport Society's own collection, and the programme of the event had these notes about them (from left to right):

Leyland Titan PD1/3, Metro-Cammell H30/26R,1949                                                                   JNA467

Manchester City Transport 3166

Entered by P.F.Wotton, Littleborough

Operated by M.C.T. until 1969, this vehicle carries bodywork to Manchester’s own design and is the sole survivor of a batch of 100 identical buses. It operated both North and South of the city during its career.

Bristol K5G, Willowbrook L26/27R, 1939                                                                                      AJA152

North Western 432

Entered by J.Pollock, Marple

The sole survivor of a once numerous batch of pre-war Bristols operated by the Company which were rebodied after the war. This particular vehicle received its new body in 1951. The owners claim they haven’t finished exterior restoration.

Leyland Titan PD2/1, Leyland L27/26R, 1948                                                                               CDB224

North Western 224

Entered by A.Gaskell, Irlams o’th Height, Salford

This lowbridge vehicle ended its days in the training fleet and has subsequently undergone extensive restoration to everything except the steering and the clutch, as anyone who has tried to manoeuvre the vehicle within the confined spaces of the Museum will testify.

1950 Talbot Lago T26 GS

This car took part in the Cheshire Building Society Allcomers Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club’s Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1981.

It’s Richard Pilkington's 1950 4,482cc straight-6 Talbot Lago T26 GS with the offset driving position which meant it could compete in Grand Prix or Sports Car races. It's chassis #110057 and is the car with which Louis Rosier and Juan Manuel Fangio took part in the 1951 Le Mans 24 Hour race, retiring after 9 hours. It was then given an all-enveloping sports car body and ended up in the hands of Georges Grignard in 1953, but after an accident at Montlhéry in 1954 in which his co-driver Guy Mairesse was killed, Grignard locked the wrecked car away in his garage. Richard Pilkington bought the wreckage in 1958 and after racing the car in its sports car form for some years he eventually restored it to its original cycle-wing body form, racing it at historic race meetings in both sports car and vintage GP races.

1960 Porsche 718

I took this photograph at Tom Wheatcroft's Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's a 1960 Porsche 718/2, chassis 202, formerly campaigned by Dutch driver Carel Godin de Beaufort and is finished in the orange Dutch racing colours. A book printed in 1974 giving details of many of the cars in the collection says this about the Porsche (which is now in the Porsche Prototyp Museum in Hamburg):

 

The Porsche 718

Germany's Challenger

French driver Jean Behra began Porsche's single-seater venture into Formula 2 in 1958. He had a central-seat version of the RSK sports car built up and it proved very successful. For 1959 the Stuttgart works produced 'proper' singe-seater cars, with similar air-cooled flat-four engines and trailing-link torsion bar front suspension, and when the 1½ litre Formula 1 came into operation in 1961 they were well prepared to enter Grand Prix racing for the first time.

Dan Gurney and Jo Bonnier drove the cars, which proved quite competitive, and when the new eight-cylinder was introduced for 1962 the old cars were sold. Two of them went to the giant Dutchman, Count Carel Godin de Beaufort, and he enjoyed himself hugely as one of that rare breed of private owner-drivers in Formula 1. He suffered a fatal accident in one of the obsolete old Porsches during practice for the 1964 German Grand Prix at Nürburgring. He was, as ever, trying as hard as he could to reach a qualifying time, and the loss of this jovial, larger than life character took some much-needed colour from the Grand Prix scene.

 

PORSCHE 718

Engine: 180° 4-Cyls; 2VPC; 2OHC; Air-cooled; 85mm x 66mm, 1498cc; c. 155bhp/7500rpm.

Chassis: Tubular spaceframe.

Suspension: IFS by trailing arms and TBs/IRS by wishbones and CSp.

Brakes: Discs.

1953 Alfa Romeo BAT 5

BAT stands for Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica and refers to a trio of cars built in 1953,1954 and 1955 in a joint project by Alfa Romeo and the Italian coachbuilding firm Bertone, and were a brainchild of Franco Scaglione. Nearly forty years later, at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in 1994, I photographed the three cars when they were part of the auction which Coys held on the Saturday evening of the weekend-long meeting. I showed all three cars in a post on 18 February 2013.

This is another photograph I took that day of BAT 5 being wheeled out for display.

1936 ERA R12B 'Hanuman II'

This car competed in the Richard Seaman Memorial Historic Trophy Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting at Oulton Park in June 1973.

It's the 1937 ERA R12B of Bill Morris which has a supercharged 6-cylinder inline1,488cc engine and was driven in the race by Tony Stephens.  Bill Morris owned two ERAs, R12B and R12C and the two cars have a strange history, R12B being a works car that was originally built in 1936 with a 2 litre engine as a B-type car, but in 1937 it was rebuilt to C-type specifications, thus becoming R12C, and given a 1½ litre engine. In 1938 it was sold to Prince Chula to become one of his White Mouse stable's trio of ERAs driven by Prince Bira, where it was given the name 'Hanuman'. In 1939 the car was badly damaged in a crash during practice at Reims and was rebuilt with a B-type frame, reverting to being R12B and the name changing to 'Hanuman II'. After passing through various hands after the Second World War it came to Bill Morris. Bill Morris had managed to acquire the rest of the wreckage left over from the 1939 crash and using the damaged chassis frame rebuilt the car to its 1939 C-type specifications by 1982. That car was now R12C, as if the 1939 accident had never happened, and was given the original car's name of 'Hanuman'.

Citroën 2CV Sahara

This is a photograph that I took at the Footman James Classic Car Show Manchester at EventCity in September 2018.

It's a replica of a 1960s Citroën 2CV Sahara and the information note in the windscreen reads as follows:

Citroën 2CV Sahara

1960-1966

 Created as a specialist addition to the 2CV range an intended for oilfield prospecting and similar uses, the Sahara featured four-wheel drive achieved by means of two completely separate engine/gearbox units. It therefore has an engine at both ends and can be driven on either or both – the car has the rare distinction of being able to push-start itself!

The installation of the second power unit is relatively simple due to the 2CV’s chassis construction; the driving controls are linked to ensure that both units operate in synchronization.

This particular car is a replica constructed in 1996; it was built to be visually as close as possible to the original but benefits from the use of later-generation running gear, notably 652cc  Visa engines which provide a mush improved power-to-weight ratio compared with the 1960s original.