It’s a great thrill to welcome Jay Wollenweber to ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’. Jay has been running a blog called ‘California Streets‘ since 2009 and has kindly sent me some of his photo’s from the recent Danville Concours d’Elegance and a lot of information to use in today’s “Continental Curiosities” blog.

H Mann Esq lost an arm in the 1914/18 Great war and so when he ordered his 1937 Rolls Royce 23/30, seen above, with James Young coachwork he had the gear stick mounted on the floor in the center of the car instead of it’s usual position between the driver and the drivers door.

Jay tells me the 1939 ALFA Romeo 6C 2500 Sport Touring Berlinetta seen above won the Best In Show Award the weekend before last, chassis #915030 also won the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 1998.

In 1950 Allard introduced the K2 to replace the side valve V8 Ford powered K1. 118 similar K2 cars were built with the very first one having an earlier K1 body fitted as part of a rush order making 119 K2’s in all. This particular car is fitted with a 5424cc / 331 cui Cadillac V8.

The Bentley above started life as a four seat 106 mph 1954 R-Type. Chassis #B77ZX was modified for competition with a new coupé body by Robert Peel for Bob Gooda with the registration RG27, that number plate now hangs on a Mercedes. Brian Dumps can be seen racing the car at Silverstone in this linked photograph.

Above is an Austin Healey 100/6 2+2 BN4, distinguished by the smaller distance between the rear of the cockpit and the boot / trunk lid.

In 1962 Chris Lawrence and Richard Shepherd-Barron won their class at Le Mans in a hard topped Triumph powered Morgan +4 similar to the 1962 model above.

The 1965 Lotus Elan S2 was a slightly more refined, quieter and more docile, model of the first series of Elans introduced in 1962. Average Joe motorist would have been put off the fun little car by the price, if he had not one Lotus representative at the time is alleged have said “we’re in big trouble!”

The black London Cab is an icon of London in much the same way as the bright red double deck buses and Buckingham Palace. I do not ever recall seeing one like this 1967 Austin FX4D with white wall tyres, the narrow London streets of 1967 would have made a mockery of the additional expense.

1n 1969 Zagato began manufacturing the ALFA Romeo Junior Zagato based on a shortened 1300 GT Junior chassis pan with a steel shell, aluminium bonnet / hood and door skins. The 1972 model above appears to be one of the last of the 1,108 cars built, before production switched for 12 months to a similar but longer car built on a full length 16 GT Junior chassis of which 402 examples were built.

The Rover 2000 TC above is a one owner car that has lived in San Francisco since new in 1969, you can see more photographs and find out more about this particular car on this link.

The first patent for an exhaust driven turbocharger to force air at more than atmospheric pressure into the cylinder head of an internal combustion motor was awarded to Swiss Engineer Alfred Büchi, who was head of diesel engine research at Gebruder Sulzer, in 1905. Despite the significant increases in performance seen in both commercial diesel and piston powered aircraft. General Motors is credited with bringing turbo technology with first the Oldsmobile F85 Jetfire and a month later on Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spider in 1962. BMW was the first European manufacturer to use a turbocharger for a passenger car application in 1973, the 170 hp BMW 2002 above dates from 1975, not the reverse 2002 turbo stickers on the airdam, a crude attempt to inject the car with ‘eingebaute vorfahrt’ a ‘built in right of way’ normally the preserve in Germany for the 3 pointed star of Mercedes Benz.

Finally it is always great to hear about two GALPOT regulars meeting up, especially on the far side of another continent as Jay did with Geoffrey Horton and his Jaguar XK140 FHC SE MC seen above.

My thanks to Jay Wollenweber for his photographs and the information about today’s featured cars. More of Jay’s photographs will feature in tomorrow’s Americana blog while Geoffrey’s photographs will feature on Ferrari Friday’s blog.

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