Tag Archives: BMW

Hard Day’s Night – Silverstone Classic

On Saturday I got up at 5am in order to get to the start of proceedings for at the Silverstone Classic meeting. After a scenic drive through Gloucestershire with a little early morning fog along the A40 I arrived in good time.

Jon Milicevic, driving a Cooper T59 comfortably won the days opening Formula Junior race, for cars built between 1959 and 1963, from another Cooper T59 driven by Sam Wilson.

Simon Hadfield and Micheal Lyons provided the early entertainment in the Peter Gethin Trophy race for stock block open wheelers, Simon’s F5000 Trojan T101 set up for good performance through the corners can be seen being hounded by Micheal Lyons F5000 Lola T400 which was set up for better straight line performance. Unfortunately Simon who started from third lost it after 6 laps handing pole man Micheal a narrow victory over Mark Stretton driving a much smaller capacity Formula 2 March. Simon recovered to take third.

During the lunch break I caught up with several members of the TNF Forum including John who makes the annual pilgrimage from Australia, on this occasion he brought a pre production copy of F5000 Thunder the Titans of Australian Road Racing 1970 – 1982 co authored by Ray Bell and Tony Loxley, if your a fan of Formula 5000 I guarantee you will enjoy the many stories in this 406 page book with over 800 photographs which ever part of the world you happen to live in.

The Alan Mann Trophy for under 2 litre / 122 cui touring cars looked to be a walk over for the #51 ALFA Romeo driven by Alex Furiani despite the best efforts of Jackie Oliver, who will be celebrating his seventieth birthday in a couple of weeks, driving the #100 BMW 1800 TiSA seen here sliding through Maggotts in third place. An incident requiring the safety car disrupted the event which was won by Sean McInerney driving the #67 Lotus Cortina who started from 38th on the grid ! Simon Hadfield did well to recover from a stop go penalty to bag second place on the last lap to finish less than two seconds behind McIerney in the #1 Lotus Cortina co driven by Leo Voyazides which had started on pole.

Alex Buncombe made the most of pole position in the Stirling Moss Trophy driving the #46 Costin bodied Lister Jaguar he was sharing with Andrew Smith which was never lost it’s lead on it’s way to victory. Second place was initially disputed by the #33 Knobbly Lister Jaguar, of Jon Minshaw and Martin Stretton which made a great start from 6th on the grid, the #61 Birdcage Maserati of Jason Minshaw and the McIntyres #15 Lotus seen above. The #33 Lister failed to finish while the McIntyre Lotus 15 and Jason’s Birdcage finished 3rd and 4th respectively behind the Dodds Cooper Monaco T49.

Two races for Formula One cars were next up after lunch, The Daily Express Trophy for 1970 to 1983 cars was led by Micheal Lyons in the #24 Hesketh 308E who unfortunately could not get his car to complete lap nine after slowing for an incident between two cars which were stopped on the track. A lucky victory therefore
handed to Bill Coombs in the #33 Tyrrell 009 when the race was called early to clear up the mess. Steve Hartley in the #31 Arrows A4 was classified 2nd with Micheal Fitzgerald seen above in 8th place came through to claim 3rd in his #28 Williams FW08.

The pre ’66 rear engined Grand Prix cars race was won by Jason Minshaw from John Harper both driving Brabham BT4’s above 8th place Roger Willis, driving his #48 Cooper T51, is seen leading a pack through the ‘Arena’.

As the Gentleman Drivers Pre ’66 bus got underway I made my way over to the “Wing” pits complex on an open top Leyland Bus, coming the other way we encountered this 1963 GUY Arab Mk 5. Soon after the Mk 5 was built GUY was taken over by Jaguar.

During the Silverstone Classic meeting pits access is unrestricted as evidenced by this photo of Mike Whitaker Snr’s pit stop. I am sure back in the day brake coolers were not ‘de rigueur’ when his 1965 4.7 litre / 286 cui V8 powered TVR Griffith was built. Mike retired shortly after this photo was taken, the race was won by Jon Minshaw and Mike Stretton driving an E-Type Jaguar.

This mid 1990’s Renault Williams Laguna Touring Car is probably legible, for but was not entered in the Fujifilm Touring Car Trophy, it reminded me of the time in late 1998 when I seriously under estimated the power of Play Station and found myself engrossed in a game called TOCA 2 featuring a similar Laguna and seven other vehicles from the same era.

As I got to the end of my pits walkabout, which included a spell on the pit wall during the Gentleman’s race, I stumbled across a hive of activity as the Morgan ‘celebrity” drivers prepared to qualify for their race. Above well known racer and AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson signs an autograph before qualifying third ahead of fellow musician Jay Kaye. Qualifying and the race was won by TV star Kelvin Fletcher who regular readers may remember I saw a couple of months ago driving a #17 Mini at Castle Combe. Brian and Jay came second and third respectively in the race.

I returned to the car after my pit visit for a cat nap which lasted a little longer than intended so I unintentionally missed a couple of races however fortunately I woke up in time to catch the finale of the day for Group C Endurance cars, Gareth Evans won the race despite a late spin relatively easily from Roger Willis in his Lancia LC2. Above the race was not the most entertaining but for my money seeing the Group C cars race in the early evening was worth the price of entry on it’s own. Above one car I did not get to see race in period was the 6 litre / 366 cui IMSA GTP Jaguar XJR 5 seen here with Don Miles at the wheel, after qualifying last from 21 Don finished 12th from 16 finishers. Absolutely cream crackered after a Hard Day’s Night I got home just after midnight and slept like a log.

Thanks for joining on this “Hard Day’s Night” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

007 @ Beaulieu – Bond In Motion

Jubilee Race Day – Castle Combe

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The weather took a turn for the better on the third day of the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations as I headed for the Jubilee Race Day at Castle Combe.

The Super Mighty Mini’s were waiting in the holding area for the days first practice session to commence so I took the opportunity to have a wonder round the paddock.

Lloyd Allards Golf TDi was already queuing up for the practice seesion before the first got underway, unfortunately Lloyd did not complete the entire 2nd practice session and ended up scratching his entry from the Castle Combe Saloon Car Championship.

Novice entrant Penelope Jones had a highly entertaining side ways moment in the pre 1990 Mighty Mini practice session out at the Esses, she caught this slide beautifully and carried on at unabated pace to qualify 24th out of a 31. despite the rear of her car running so low that her tyres were catching on the body work.

Castle Combe VADABAR Sports & GT Championship series sponsor Douglas Watson is seen heading for scrutineering above in his V10 powered BMW E63 M6, prior to qualifying 18th, 2nd in class.

Ben Norton, driving the #111 Spectrum 10b, won pole by half a second for the Castle Combe Formula Ford 1600 Championship supported by Start Line from Roger Orgee. Before the race Orgee father reckoned that his son had not got the best from the #3 Van Diemen.

Designed in Wiltshire with the aid of a home made wind tunnel, the Loaded Gunn TS11 of Craig Mitchell managed to qualify 10th for the Open Sports and GT’s challenge before it was withdrawn from the race.

The opening race of the day was won by Adam Prebble in his Rover 220 Turbo seen taking the chequered flag ahead of Tony Hutchins in his Audi TT, William Di Claudio took class B honours in his Peugeot 106 and Charles Hyde Andrew Bird won Class C in his Ford Fiesta.

The opening lap of the first Super Mighty Mini race, seen above saw Pat Ford spin at Camp Corner in his pursuit of the leaders. The 25 minuet race was won by a contrite and apologetic Gary Patterson, ahead of Bob Bennetts and Neven Kirkpatric after leader Chris Morgan was accidentally taped into the barrier at Tower.

Tony Sinclair, driving the #1 Jade 3 in the special invitation class like wise took a flag to flag victory from pole in the Castle Combe VADABAR Sports & GT Championship. Last years champion Simon Tilling made a typically poor start but recovered some of his lost ground to finish 3rd behind the #86 Radical Prosport of Andrew Shanley. Gary Prebble took class C honours in his Mitsubishi Evo and heads the championship overall.

Jonathon Lewis, seen above, won both 25 minuet rounds of the Mighty Mini series. In the first race be came through from 4th on the grid to beat Chris Slade and Kevin Fletcher to claim top spot on the podium.

Roger Ogree in the #3 Van Diemen made good on his Dad’s assessment and snatched the lead at the start of the Castle Combe Formula Ford 1600 race while pole sitter Ben Norton dropped all the way down to 9th as seen in the photo above. However it was Steven Jensen driving the #22 Spectrum 011b who won the race after taking the lead on lap 3 while Ben Norton recovered to bag second place from Roger Ogree with two laps just to go !

Gary Paterson again had the measure of his competitors in the second, post 1990, Super Mighty Mini encounter and is seen above pedaling the #50 ahead of the #1 of Elliot Stafford, who finished second. Chris Morgan who recorded fastest lap finished third in his repaired Mini, resplendent with tank taped n/s wing / fender, that started at the back of the 18 car field.

With the #122 Loaded Gun being among several non starters in the Open Sports and GT Challenge race it was left to Tony Sinclair to win his second race of the day in his Jade 3. Bob Berridge in his Chevrolet V8 powered Aquila GR1 came second ahead of Craig Flemming in the race which was interrupted by a Red Flag to clear up the mess from George Mitchells accident. Above Martin Baker is seen exercising his recently completed Hillman Imp in anticipation of a forth coming Super Saloon race, Martin finished third in class behind Stuart Dixon and Dylan Popovic.

David Marcussen in the led going into Quarry Corner on the opening lap of the final Mighty Mini race of the day but it was Jonathon Lewis seen hidden behind David’s #42 that came home the winner ahead of David. There scrap for third was eventually settled in favour of the #17 driven Kevin Fletcher taking a break from his day job playing Andy Sugden in the agricultural television soap “Emmerdale”.

Steven Jensen won the “Driver of the Day” award for converting his third place start to a convincing victory in the Formula Ford race.

Thanks for joining me on this Jubilee Race Day edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Futuristic French Le Mans Index of Performance challenger. Don’t forget to come back now !

Hot Business – Ford Business Coupé

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Even after an interest in motoring that goes back over 40 years every once in a while I learn about a Ford model I have never heard of before, such is the case with the 1937 Ford Business featured today which I mistook for a De Luxe.

It turns out the Business was a base model range to introduced in 1937 that replaced the Model B and stayed in production only until 1940.

Many of the features apart from the V shape grill of the Business were shared with the Standard and De Luxe models.

The Business Coupé seen here would have originally been fitted with cable operated drum brakes.

Engine options were either 60 hp 2.2 liter / 136 cui or 80 hp 3.6 liter / 221 cui V8’s, the one seen here is listed as fitted with non standard a 5 liter / 305 cui.

The Business was available in Sedan, 8 seat station wagon, Coupé and Convertible versions.

Thanks for joining me on on this ‘Pleasure Business’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me for Ferrari Friday tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Norma Ann Sykes – MG B Mark III

Head Over Heels – Malta Classic Car Collection

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The Malta Classic Car Collection, in the north east town of Qawara, don’t pronounce the Q, was founded by property developer Carol Galea who found his genetic pattern contained a deep rooted head over heels passion for cars which he has admired, driven raced and collected.

The impressive split level museum houses a cosmopolitan collection of vehicles including this 1957 BMW 250 Isetta bubble car a forerunner of the contemporary Smart Cars, the brainchild of Renzo Rivolta who was behind the Iso Grifo Super 7 I looked at some months ago.

Built by the Stuttgart coachbuilders Baur on the 2 stroke Auto Union 1000 chassis the 55hp Auto Union 1000 Sp was launced in 1958. Known in the German Press as “baby Thunderbird” 6,640 of these 2 door Coupés were built when production ceased in 1965 by which time ownership of Auto Union had been transferred from Mercedes Benz to Volkswagen.

Although forst seen in 1957 the ALFA Romeo Giuleitta Sprint Speciale was only in production from 1959 to 1966. With a 112hp double overhead cam motor and a drag co-efficient of just 0.28, same as a C6 Corvette the ALFA Romeo Giuleitta Sprint Speciale provided stiff competition for the Porsche 356.

The classic four taillight arrangement on this Chevrolet Corvette C1 were first seen in the 1961 – 1962 models and have featured on Corvette’s ever since up to and including the present day. The single colour paint scheme suggests this might be a 1962 model.

Another vehicle in the collection coincidentally launched in 1957 is the Borgward Isabella Coupé built in Bremen Germany. Unfortunately despite the success of the whole Isabella range Borgward went bankrupt when the German economy dipped in the early 1960’s.

Based on the lumpy but loveable Jaguar XJS coupé the vehicle above is one of 67 shooting brake conversions by Lynx known as the Eventer built during the mid 1980’s. IMHO the Eventers looks exceed the standard XJS by some considerable margin.

The name Panhard goes back in the motoring world to the late 1880’s, Citroen acquired a 25% stake in the company in 1955 since when Panhard production appears to have been phased out in order to avoid competition with Citroen’s products and in order to increase production facilities for Citroen’s product lines. The Panhard 24 bt manufactured between 1964 and 1967 is a 2 door five seater powered by an horizontally opposed air cooled twin cylinder motor. Unfortunately with Citroen refusing to countenance the development of a four door model Panhard’s days as a motor car manufacturer were numbered, the company still exists as a military vehicle manufacturer.

Among the pick up’s in the collection is this cool Morris Minor 1000 which is fitted with a load space bedecked in varnished wood !

I am not sure why Austin’s marketing department took a liberal interpretation of the word coupé which usually applies to a hard top vehicle when they named the 42 hp Austin Somerset Coupé, which is actually a convertible, but 7,243 of them were manufactured between 1952 and 1954 by Carbodies, better known these days as the manufacturer of London Cabs. This particular car is said to have been used by HRH The Queen of England during her visit to Malta during a Coronation visit in 1952.

Finally in foyer the fun roadster above looks like an original FIAT 500 but is actually based on much later FIAT 126 mechanical components from the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

If you find your self in Malta I’d highly recommend paying the Malta Classic Car Collection a visit.

My thanks to Barry Boor who’s hospitality made this blog possible.

Thanks for joining me on this Head Over Heels edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Not So Lightweight – BMW 3.0 CSL

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In May 1972 BMW launched the lightweight variant of the CS model based on the E9 platform known as the BMW 3.0 CSL with the L denoting ‘light’ = leicht in German.

The the CSL was a homologation special the purpose of which was to allow a higher specification racing cars to be built. It would appear the car shown here is one of the earliest CSL’s built fitted same 200 hp 2,986 cc / 182.2 cui motor as the CSi model. Over time the CSL was fitted with larger motors to be eligible for the over 3 litre / 183 cui class.

Light weight features included thinner steel body, deleting trim and sound proofing, using aluminium alloy doors, bonnet / hood, boot / trunk lid and perspex side window’s.

BMW’s UK importer however insisted that the 500 CSL’s imported to the UK retain the soundproofing, electric windows and bumpers from the stock CSi meaning UK CSL’s are a higher specification than all other CSL’s and also no quite so light weight.

The final version of the CSL from July 1973 featured a 3,153 cc / 192.4 cui six cylinder motor and a variety of aerodynamic aids both front and rear which led to the model being nicknamed the Batmobile.

In 1973 Dutchman Tonie Hezemans driving a BMW CSL was crowned European Touring Car Champion securing the manufacturers title for BMW. 3.0 CSL’s would continue winning European Touring car races every year all the way through to 1979 with eight drivers sharing championship spoils between 1975 and 1979 securing a further 5 European Touring Car Manufacturers Championships for BMW.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Not So Lightweight’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres. I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Gettin' A Li'l Psycho On Tyres

Art Tidesco blogs on all things motoring