The Roaring Season

...and wait, there's more! Bear in mind this is the Festival hill-climb and not the Revival race meeting. Lord March and his team certainly invite a stunning diversity of machinery to these events.

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See what I mean about trying to get a good pic of the action past the front of Goodwood House? Two for me (above) and 3 for Spgeti...






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Thanks Ray, some I can identify but there a couple I can't. As usual great photos and variety. Cheers Bruce

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A more modern take on the Broadspeed GT. Sorry, but I don't think it looks as good with the later Mini grille and the screen doesn't look as though it has been raked back like the original either.


One of the two 4WD, 4.9 litre Bugattis




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1996 again
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On to 2002 - the Goodwood Festival again of course. Still on film. No (decent) digital until 2004 for me.
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The Indy roadsters always seemed to look immaculate in period whereas many European race cars look much better now than they ever did in period.



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The Festival paddocks are usually open to all, whereas at the Revival Race meeting, you need a pass to get into the paddock - and they are not on general sale.

2002 again. Having learned from my previous visit, I managed to elbow my way to a better viewing position for a while. In pre digital days, there were just far too many great cars to snap, so taking just a fraction of what was around was a limiting factor. Not the sharpest of photographs (or maybe the scanner is playing up again). Two more for Spgeti...
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Having just finished reading Tony Brooks detailed autobiography (Poetry In Motion), I'm glad I managed to get this picture. Probably too much of a gentleman to have received the recognition he truly deserved, he could so easily have been World Champion and is generally acknowledged as being kinder on the car than any of his contemporaries. Later accounts from others almost always rate him very highly as a team member as well as a driver. Probably in my all time top five of favourite drivers.


Milliken's 'Camber car" with the designer driving.




Bevin Chevrolet. Thanks to Lord March, yet another car I'd never heard of before he invited it.

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Ray, should that be Devin, quite a known fibreglass manufacturer from the US?

Thanks Rhys. Must wear my glasses more often...

Ray,
The Red #85 is a DEVIN SS. Bill Devin (usa) was known for building fibre glass body's for sports cars. There were 27 different sizes to choose from i.e. , triumph Tr3 , MGA , C1 corvettes , Porsche 356 or VW floor pans .

The Devin SS was built as a turn key Sports car powered by The small block chevy. Only 15 cars "SS" were made.

Horizon wrote:Ray,
The Red #85 is a DEVIN SS. Bill Devin (usa) was known for building fibre glass body's for sports cars. There were 27 different sizes to choose from i.e. , triumph Tr3 , MGA , C1 corvettes , Porsche 356 or VW floor pans .

The Devin SS was built as a turn key Sports car powered by The small block chevy. Only 15 cars "SS" were made.

This is a Devon Healey 100 V8 powered I saw for sale on the net some years ago. It had a tubular subframe welded to the original chassis and a fibreglass body. Probably a nice quick car that handled pretty well. The V8 would have been a similar weight to the 100/4 engine with a lot more power!!

I love these 1950s American cottage industry sports cars. There were a bunch of different manufacturers, producing some really pretty cars.

Did the Echidna (pictured) use the same same body molds as the Devin?

In the middle picture of #774, is that a knee action shock I see lurking there?

Allan, us vintage guys call those lever arms but yes that's what is in there. Some race series insist on using what was fitted originally, so may be why. When they are working properly they are still a good system, just their maintenance was often overlooked.

Horizon wrote:Ray,
The Red #85 is a DEVIN SS. Bill Devin (usa) was known for building fibre glass body's for sports cars. There were 27 different sizes to choose from i.e. , triumph Tr3 , MGA , C1 corvettes , Porsche 356 or VW floor pans .

The Devin SS was built as a turn key Sports car powered by The small block chevy. Only 15 cars "SS" were made.

Thanks for that. I have a few quandaries when cataloguing the pics. So many cars and so many categories, so generally, manufactured cars are filed by make initial country of origin.

There is also a huge list of 'specials' which range from manufactured specials to total one offs. Although many were body kits plonked onto rather mundane mechanicals, many have volume in their favour.

I do now have a major problem in knowing how to identify and therefore catalogue 'replicas'. For example, if you spy a good Lotus Eleven replica which may be a Westfield, but the owner has put Lotus badges on it or as I saw in the UK, the most stunning recreations/replicas of the 1950's Aston Martin, how do you know? AC Cobra's or replicas? Photographs I took in 1970 are easy, but take a pic today at an overseas venue?

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The other issue is that I file all road car makes by country and also try and keep a copy of all British Race cars by the year I took the photograph.

This makes it difficult with cars that may have been manufactured in more than one country. Do you file the original Ford GT40 as British or American? (So far, I file the originals as British and the more recent one as USA.)

How do you categorise McLarens?

How terrible to be so anal about it, but when and if pictures are published, who wants to be shot down in flames when you post or even worse, publish a picture believing it to be a genuine car and it turns out to be a replica.

What about the 191 shark nose Ferrari and Lancia D50(?) replicas? We know they are recreations as the originals no longer exist.

Thank you for that "Old Fart". I have seen these on many vehicles in my time as I have been around a while, possibly older than you.
Allan

Allan wrote:Thank you for that "Old Fart". I have seen these on many vehicles in my time as I have been around a while, possibly older than you.
Allan

Well into my Maori chequebook now!

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2002 again. These 'shark nose' Ferraris were a favourite for any teenager who liked drawing cars. Instantly recognisable.


I think this is the Jaguar closely associated with Rowan Atkinson.


It says MG, but I'm pretty sure there is far more Lola than MG in in it...


On to 2004 briefly, referring back to recreations. Two of the best known.




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Note: This first hall at Donington is now full of Kevin's military collection. Yeuk... I haven't been in since the Collection was diluted and probably won't go again, as I doubt there are any new racing car exhibits in there. I last visited the collection September 2009, but due to a weird computer hiccup, lost every single picture I'd taken that day. Even though I bought an image recovery programme, the pics were never recovered.

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Not a replica, but a car that Tony Vandervell virtually ignored, wasting time and resources resuscitating the outdated front engine car instead of developing this rear engine car, much to Tony Brooks' obvious disappointment.


Back to the mini theme of recreations and replicas. Not sure, but this could also be a replica driver... (2005)






A bit closer to home...

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Back to Goodwood 2002. Renault were the principal sponsors and the featured marque. Gives you some idea of the number of spectators - now capped at 50,000 per day I believe and ticket only. Remember, this is a hillclimb, not a race meeting!

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The sculpture in the front of Goodwood House is always spectacular.


Lotus Renault - still in JPS colours.


The soap-box Derby cars are works of art - and often produced by company apprentices.

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#782- the 28 SSk Mercedes.
I made up the headlamp covers with the Merc Tristar emblem stitched in.
Car is a replica, previous owner spent a lot of years making this with Merc motor, Bedford front hubs.
Great car, amazing to drive.

Not a lot of action photographs maybe, but I still enjoy the diversity of machinery.

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Porsche Festival coming up in January...






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