Thor Thorson

The Donald Healey Motor Company completed its first car in 1945, going into full-time production in a disused RAF hangar in Warwick the following year. Given Donald Healey’s background, it was inevitable that his firm’s first products would be cast in the sporting mold. An ex-RFC fighter pilot and many-times Monte Carlo Rally competitor during…

In 1959, the T51 was introduced as a development of the earlier T43 and T45. Built using a spaceframe chassis, the new 2.5-liter, 4-cylinder Coventry Climax engine sat behind the driver, with the transmission mounted at the rear. Suspension remained the same as before, with independent coil springs at the front and a transverse leaf…

Completed on February 27, 1964, this Porsche 904 Carrera GTS, chassis 904028, was delivered to German racer Gerhard Koch. Koch, a seasoned driver with a win over Jim Clark at Zandvoort and class wins at the Targa Florio and Nürburgring, excelled with the car, winning the Rheinland-Pfalz Trophy at the Nürburgring and placing 2nd overall…

Following the Great War, Daimler began to consider forced induction using a supercharger. Renowned engineer Paul Daimler’s development path was further justified in 1922 when the Automobile Club de France issued new Grand Prix rules for the following season limiting engine capacity to 2 liters. Daimler designed an extraordinary 4-cylinder engine, featuring twin-overhead cams which…

Here we offer this highly significant and important example of the MG K3 breed, the 1,100-cc supercharged cars from Abingdon-on-Thames, which did so much to enhance the prestige of the British motor industry. The K3 offered here spent many years on display in the Fremantle and York Motor Museums, Western Australia. It is considered from…

Despite Enzo Ferrari’s determination to win the 1955 World Sportscar Championship, very little went to plan that season. The new 118 and 121 LM 6-cylinder models did not pan out as projected, forcing Ferrari to revert to his 4-cylinder cars. And the disaster at Le Mans drew increasing scrutiny from critics of motor racing, which…

The six-wheeled Tyrrell P34 was a pet project of designer Derek Gardner, who had come up with the idea while he was working on four-wheel-drive systems for Indianapolis cars during the late 1960s. A few years later, and with the majority of the Formula 1 grid using the same Ford-Cosworth DFV engine, he revisited the…

Derek Bennett, a shy, intuitive engineer and vastly underrated driver, was once dubbed Britain’s Enzo Ferrari. Yet his most stunning, world-beating Chevron cars emerged from the gloom of a lofty old brick-built Lancashire cotton mill in Bolton’s Old Chorley Road. Debuted in 1969, the B16 sports racer — arguably the prettiest sports coupé ever to…