The late Fitzroy John Somerset, 5th Baron Raglan, is remembered with tremendous affection within the vintage racing world. Following a successful Chairmanship, Lord Raglan was only the third person to become Patron of the U.K.’s Bugatti Owners’ Club, in succession to Ettore Bugatti himself and the illustrious motor racing peer, Earl Howe. Indeed, here we offer the much-loved Bugatti Type 51 that Fitzroy Raglan raced “around the world” for almost 30 years, during which he and his Read More
This month’s column is a tale with both tragic and cautionary threads for those who play in the vintage racing car hobby
This Series 1 E-type roadster was purchased from its second owner in 2005 after being discovered in a garage where it had remained since the mid-1980s. The car was immediately sent to the restoration shop for what became a five-year, race-prepared restoration. This Jaguar is presented with a very high level of finish, Read More
The gulf between an assemblage of parts and a functioning, front-rank racer is immense and can be very expensive to cross
Ford was looking to race the Mk I Cortina in the Group 2 category, for which 1,000 “homologation specials” would be required. The obvious powerplant was the twin-cam version of the ubiquitous Ford “Kent” engine that Lotus genius Colin Chapman had already developed for use in the Elan. A deal was struck, and the Lotus Cortina (or Read More
This car is the sole original survivor of a three-car team put together by MG to publicize the new P-Series, which had been introduced in 1934. The idea was that three identical works cars would be entered in the 1935 Le Mans race, driven by three teams of women, with the whole enterprise to be managed by Captain George Eyston, who had raced at Le Mans in 1928 and 1939.
The press had a field day with Abingdon’s idea, Read More
Bologna-based engineer Aldo Faccioli started out in 1947 when his OSFA workshop (Officina Specializza Faccioli Aldo) designed, developed, and built 750-cc specials based on the Fiat 500 chassis fitted with the Lancia Ardea engine.
The subsequently named OFSA/Lancia spider achieved numerous top-five finishes throughout the 1950s. In 1960, racing driver Massimo Bondi commissioned Faccioli to build a car to compete in the increasingly popular Formula Junior series. The result was one of the first mid-engined Formula Juniors to come Read More
I know a number of extremely knowledgeable individuals who simply state that if they could own only one collector car, it would be an 8C 2300
In the early 1930s, Italian road racing, and motor sport in general, relied on various tiers of competitors to fill the grids: factory entries, successful privateers, loosely organized regional teams, and bold individuals. It was perhaps the most romantic era of motor racing, and was characterized by tremendous variety, national Read More
Steve McQueen was “The Man” for a generation, and racing through the night in a blue 917 became the holy grail of many fevered imaginations
Over three tumultuous seasons of World Championship endurance racing, Porsche’s 4.5-liter—and later 4.9 and 5.0-liter—917s fought a no-holds-barred battle with Fiat-Ferrari and their 5-liter, V12 Ferrari 512s. The Porsches proved dominant, and their 917K coupes played a major role in securing for the Stuttgart marque a hat trick of World Championship Read More
