Monthly Archives: November 2015

Left In Dar es Salaam – Mercedes Benz W18 Typ 290 Cabriolet

The Mercedes Benz W18 Typ 290 series cars were powered by a 60 hp 2,867 cc / 174 cui straight six side valve engine and first seen in 1933 was capable of 67mph.

Mercedes Benz W18 290 Tourer, Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

The W18 was initially offered only with a 113″ chassis which was supplemented from 1934 with a 130″ chassis option, the front suspension was by transverse leaf and coil springs while the rear wheels were attached to swing axles, hydraulic breaks were fitted all round.

Mercedes Benz W18 290 Tourer, Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

Among the body options offered on the original short wheel base chassis were three cabriolets, 4 door 4 seat as seen here, 2 door 4 seat and 2 door 2 seat which was supplemented by a fourth 2 door 2 seat cabriolet with a lower body in 1936.

Mercedes Benz W18 290 Tourer, Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

This particular right hand drive Cabriolet was built for the German Consul in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika Territory which had been handed over to British Colonial rule, where driving on the left was the norm, from German Colonial Rule, where driving on the right was the norm, by a League of Nations Mandate in 1922.

Mercedes Benz W18 290 Tourer, Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

The Consul did not have long to enjoy the car before Adolph Hitler, who had no interest in the British colony, became the Chancellor and recalled the Consul and his staff back to Germany in 1934.

Mercedes Benz W18 290 Tourer, Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

The car appears to have remained warehoused in Africa until 1987 when it was shipped from Durban in South Africa to the UK with just 3,678 documented miles on the clock.

In all 3,566 short wheel base models, 3,929 long wheel base models and 719 military variants of the W18 were built between 1933 and 1937 when the 290 was replaced by the W142 Typ 320.

Thanks for joining me on this “Left In Dar es Salaam” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a three seat sports car. Don’t forget to come back now !

Coventry Dealer Car – Peugeot 205 T16 EVO 1

In 1983 Peugeot launched the Gerard Welter styled 205 front engined front wheel drive hatchback that would be declared Car of the Decade by CAR magazine in 1990.

Peugeot 205 T16 EVO 1, Classic Motor Show, NEC, Birmingham,

In 1984 Peugeot built two hundred 205 Turbo 16’s with a turbocharged transverse petrol engine, using the the cast iron block of the Diesel version of the XU engine with a 16 valve cylinder head, mounted behind the passenger seat that powered all four wheels through a Citroen SM sourced gearbox.

Peugeot 205 T16 EVO 1, Classic Motor Show, NEC, Birmingham,

Having built the 200 Turbo 16’s Peugeot had a vehicle with which they could compete in the top Group B Rally class with an evolution of the car known as the 205 Turbo EVO 1, or T16 EVO 1 in the UK.

Peugeot 205 T16 EVO 1, Classic Motor Show, NEC, Birmingham,

Today’s featured 205 T16 EVO was built from factory supplied parts by the Peugeot UK dealer funded Peugeot Sport UK at their base in Coventry for Finns Mikael Sundström and co driver Voito Silander to drive in the British Rally Championship in 1985 and 1986, it was registered on the 1st of June 1985.

Peugeot 205 T16 EVO 1, Classic Motor Show, NEC, Birmingham,

Mikael’s best result in this car came in the 1986 Scottish Rally which he won from the Ford RS200 driven by Mark Lovell with co driver Roger Freeman, Mikael finished 4th in the World Championship RAC Rally at the end of the season.

Peugeot 205 T16 EVO 1, Classic Motor Show, NEC, Birmingham,

Mikael went on to win the 1986, ’87 and ’88 Finnish Rally Championships driving a Group A Mazda 323, he retired from driving Rally cars in 1992. While running his own Rally team in Finland in 2001 Mikael died unexpectedly of a heart attack aged just 43.

Peugeot 205 T16 EVO 1, Classic Motor Show, NEC, Birmingham,

206 Turbo 16’s in EVO 1 and EVO2 form would become the most successful of the Group B cars that entered Rally events from 1984 to 1986 when the class was abruptly abandoned in the interests of safety.

Peugeot 205 T16 EVO 1, Classic Motor Show, NEC, Birmingham,

The model claimed 16 World Rally Championship wins, seven for Timo Salonen partnered with Seppo Harjanne, five for Ari Vatanen and Terry Harryman, three for Juha Kankkunen and Juha Piironen and one for Frenchman Bruno Saby and Jean-François Fauchille, Peugeot also finished the 1985 and 1986 seasons as World Rally Manufacturers Champions.

Scottish Hillclimb Champion – Chevron Holbay B17 #F3.70.08

1967 Chevron started building cars with 1 litre / 61. cui “Screamer” motors to comply with the tertiary international Formula 3 regulations.

The manufacturers first Formula 3 model was the one off B7 driven by Peter Gethin towards the end of 1967, this was followed by a batch of 8 production versions of the B7 built in 1968 known as B9’s

A one off B9B with stressed panels incorporated into the frame was built at the end of 1968 and again raced by Peter Gethin who drove the car to a debut win.

The following year Chevron built 14 production versions of the B9B known as the B15 and in 1970 9 upgraded Formula 3 cars followed known as B17’s.

I believe today’s featured car seen in these photographs at the recent Grand Finals Castle Combe meeting where it was driven by Jim Blockley is the same car as that advertised by David Pullen in October 2013.

Distinguishing features include the one piece top body work from the back of the cockpit to the nose, the exhaust, and the universal joint with sliding spline driveshafts in place of the more common for the period Rotoflex driveshaft couplings.

According to former Derek Bennett Engineering employee Kevin ‘Ossy’ Hodge, who was involved in building nearly all the B17’s, the car formerly belonging to David Pullen is the eighth Formula 3 B17 to be built and was originally supplied to Ken Sedgley.

Kevin also established recently that unlike Chevron’s GT’s chassis frames for the B8, B16 and later B19 models which were built by sub contractor Arch Motors the frames for the open wheelers were subcontracted out to Racing Frames in Ware, Hertfordshire.

In his notes on Ken Sedgley’s B17, see note 13 on this link, Allen Brown records that #F3.70.08 was raced by Ken in Formula 3 and Libre events with Holbay motors and upgraded the following year with a 1600 cc / 97 cui Holbay motor compliant with the new for 1971 spec Formula 3.

John Finch of Chesterfield bought and raced the car midway through 1971 and shared it with Graham Lynch in 1972, the following year a Formula Atlantic Spec production based twin cam was fitted and the car was raced in both Formula Atlantic and Formula Libre events.

Alan Thompson bought the car for hillclimbing campaigning it in 1975 and 1976 which culminated in him securing the 1976 Scottish Hillclimb Championship.

Russell Paterson acquired the car in 1977 but crashed it before it passed through the hands of Bobby Howlings and M Wakefield-Brand in 1978.

David Pullen bought the car in 1991 and in the spring of 2009 the car was significantly rebuilt with a 1964 to 1970 F3 spec 1 litre / 61 cui Holbay R70 MAE engine rebuilt by Stuart Rolt and Mk8 Hewland 4 speed gearbox by Cavan Riley.

John Pearson raced this car in 2014 prior to selling it to Jim Blockley who raced a Brabham in Historic Formula 3 events up until appearing in the Chevron at Castle Combe.

The 1964 to 1970 Formula 3 engine specs required the use of a production engine block and a single choke carburetor fitted with a 36mm restrictor twixt the carburetor and inlet manifold.

The cylinder heads were free to be modified with gear driven cams replacing cam chains and dry sump lubrication for the crankshaft, the 1 litre / 61 cui Formula 3 motor’s were known as “screamers” because they could occasionally be buzzed up to 13,000 rpm with little or no damage.

By far the most popular blocks used in the “Screamer” formula were the three crank bearing 105E and 109E blocks from Ford, Cosworth built a Modified Anglia Engine known as the “MAE” based on 105E but the term “MAE” appears to have carried over onto products for the same market from both Holbay and Novamotor who also used Ford 3 bearing engine blocks.

It was soon realised that the least resistance to flow was offered by a twin choke Weber IDA down draught carburetor with a blanked off choke, for which special inlet manifolds were built to fit engines that were tilted over at 30 degrees along the crankshaft axis in the chassis.

My thanks to all who contributed to the B17 thread at TenTenths and to the Ford 105E thread at The Nostalgia Forum especially Snakedriver, Ray Bell, John Saunders and David Birchall who kindly answered my question regarding the use of the blanked off twin choke carburetors.

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

Giving Up Secrets – Ferrari 750 Monza #0462M

On September 4th 1954 Joe Kelly to took delivery of today’s featured 3 litre / 183 cui 4 cylinder Ferrari 750 Monza chassis #0462M in Dublin, Ireland.

This car was the second of the total 31 750 Monza’s built by the factory and a week after delivery Joe entered the car for himself and Desmond Titterington in Tourist Trophy at Dundrod in Northern Ireland where they retired with gearbox issues.

Ferrari, 750, Monza, Hillsborough, Concours, d'Elegance,

Joe entered the car for Desmond to drive in the Leinster Trophy a week later celebrated his second week of ownership with a win, Mike Hawthorn drove the car for Joe in the Goodwood Trophy and retired with a broken rear axle.

The cars next owner was the Jaguar Car Company who disassembled the car and repaired the damaged rear axle and then put it back together after closely inspecting it to see why it was so much better than the Jaguar C and D types which had been comprehensively thrashed by Ferrari in the 1954 World Sports Car Championship.

Ferrari, 750, Monza, Hillsborough, Concours, d'Elegance,

After giving up it’s secrets to the engineers at Browns Lane in Coventry Peter Whitehead acquired the car and it then went via Jack Brabham to Australia where it was raced by Stan Coffey in 1956 without any success and Norm Crowfoot in April 1959 who recorded a third place finish in a race at Bathurst.

Oliver Steel also raced #0462M in 1959 but retired from his race, in 1963 Geoffrey Davis bought the car and kept it until 1980, by the mid 1980’s it had found it’s way to the USA where it remained until 1998 when it returned to Italy where it stayed until 2012.

My thanks to Geoffrey Horton for sharing these photograph’s of #0462M taken at Hillsborough Concours d’Elegance earlier this year. Don’t forget to come back now !

Ak’s Iron Horse – Caballo de Hiero

When Zeke and Larry Miller needed someone to keep the four-banger Chevy roadster they had just built from running into the back of their daily driver as they towed it on the end of a chain up to Muroc Dry Lake they nominated their younger kid brother Akton, born in 1920, to take the drivers seat and act as brake man for the 100 mile journey to the frozen lake.

When the three Danish born brothers got their Ak was surprised to be offered the drive and set a 94mph time as a career in speed got kicked started that would see Ak become a founding member of the Road Runners car club in 1937, from which he was later ejected for refusing to bow to the flathead Ford Hot Rodders dogma by building and running a straight eight Buick in his Chevy, President of the Southern California Timing Association, SCTA, and one of the founding officers of the National Hot Rod Association, NHRA, in 1951.

Caballo de Hiero, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, Laguna Seca,

While transforming countless Southern California ragamuffins enthusiasm into a recognized sport of which he became the acceptable face in a blazer and tie, he built and ran a variety of vehicles to compete on the lakes, 1/4 mile, road racing and Pikes Peak.

Today’s featured Caballo de Hiero was built using an Oldsmobile V8 in a Ford frame to compete in the Carrera Panamericana in 1953, Ak drove the car with Doug Harrison in the passenger seat and came home a respectable 14th overall and 8th in class that included sophisticated Ferrari’s and Talbot Lago’s .

Caballo de Hiero, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, Laguna Seca,

The following year the hot rodding duo came in an even better seventh overall and 5th in class, they had hoped to return in 1955 but the race was cancelled in the wake of the disaster at Le Mans.

Ak and Doug had a crack at the Mille Miglia in 1957 with an all new El Caballo II but retired and Ak then moved onto competing at Pikes Peak, with a Chevy powered chassis of his own design with a Devin body, where he won his class on his debut which would be the first of eight class victories over 20 years.

On his 71st birthday Ak joined the 200 mph club at Bonneville, a speed event he helped found in 1949, driving a 225mph Crosley coupé built by his long time business partner Jack Lufkin and Ron Benham that was owned by Earl Wooden.

My thanks to Geoffrey Horton who kindly asked Karl Krause to take these photo’s at Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion held at Laguna Seca a couple of month’s ago.

Thanks for joining me on this “Ak’s Iron Horse” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for Ferrari Friday. Don’t forget to come back now !

Five Cylinder Tim – MANBAT Pegasus Sprint Castle Combe

Last month saw the Bristol Pegasus Motor Club organise it’s final sprint of the year the MANBAT Pegasus Sprint at Castle Combe, as ever with an event involving over 100 competitors many members of the BPMC the Bristol Motor Club and a few others besides along with the team at Castle Combe all mucked in to make it happen.

GTM K3, Graham Matthews, MANBAT Pegasus Sprint, Castle Combe

Here are a few random snaps of the day taken from my vantage point on the start line that I hope give a flavour of the day that was probably better suited to ducks than Motor Sport, above Graham Matthews only made one successful practice run in his GTM K3 before withdrawing from the event.

Marcos Mantis, Philip Jones, MANBAT Pegasus Sprint, Castle Combe

Before the weather was forecast Philip Jones must have fancied his chances of Marcos Mantis competing for the fastest time of the day in his 4.6 litre V8 powered machine but he had to settle for 1st in the Road going Specialist Production Cars class and consul himself that the conditions kept him 14 secs off the fastest time of the day.

MG PA, Howard Harman, MANBAT Pegasus Sprint, Castle Combe

If there had been a prize for being quickest of the two pre war MG’s present it would have gone to Howard Harman seen above in his 1 litre MG PA who was one and a half seconds quicker than Martin Price in his 1 1/4 litre MG TA.

TVR Vixen, Ian Stallard, MANBAT Pegasus Sprint, Castle Combe

Given the power of some of the more recent TVR’s present it is perhaps surprising that the fast TVR time was set by Iain Stallard, above, in his four cylinder Ford powered TVR Vixen which had less than half the cubic inch capacity of all the other TVR’s present.

Triumph TR3A, Tom Purves, MANBAT Pegasus Sprint, Castle Combe

Tom Purves Triumph TR3A was the oldest and slowest representative of the marque present of those who set a time.

JCB LOADALL, Les Rawlins, MANBAT Pegasus Sprint, Castle Combe

Les Rawlins, Castle Combes Mr Fixit, might have struggled to set a competitive time in his JCB LOADALL, fortunately his skills fixing the barriers were only called on the once.

Mitsubishi EVO6 GSR, Mike McBraida,MANBAT Pegasus Sprint, Castle Combe

Mike McBraida set fastest time at the wheel of his turbocharged Mitsubishi EVO6 GSR in the Road going Series Production Cars over 2600cc class.

Reliant Scimitar GT, Nick Hall, MANBAT Pegasus Sprint, Castle Combe

The Reliant Scimitar GT driven by Nick Hall was third in the Road going Specialist Production Cars, Car engines over 1800cc and Motor Cycle engines class.

Audi Quattro, Tim Clarke, MANBAT Pegasus Sprint, Castle Combe

Winner of the MANBAT Pegasus Sprint was Tim Clarke who set the fastest time of the day in his five cylinder turbocharged Audi Quattro, a car last seen on these pages indulging in a spot of lawn mowing at Hullavigton.

My thanks to all those who contributed to such a splendid day in the rain, and thanks for joining me on this “Five Cylinder Tim” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a cool one off contender for the Carrera Panamericana. Don’t forget to come back now !

Voiture Des Copains – Matra Simca 530LX

In 1967 Matra replaced it’s René Bonnet inspired Djet model with the 530 an all new mid engined 2+2 deigned by Philippe Guédon who had previously worked for Simca.

Conceived as the car for buddies, Voiture Des Copains, the 2+2 with pop up lights and a targa top was powered by a German sourced 70hp V4 Ford accessed by through the rear window.

While the engines and drive train were built in Germany the steel back bone chassis were built by Carrier in Alençon, Normandy and assembly was completed 150 miles away by French coach builder Brissonneau et Lotz at Creil in Picardy.

Matra Simca 530LX

In 1969 the 530 was upgraded with the engine now producing 75hp and a deal was done with Chrysler Europe to distribute the Ford powered cars through their Simca network from 1970 and to work on a joint replacement.

Production of all but the motor and drive train for the 530 was also brought together under the single roof of the Matra Automobiles facility at Romorantin in the Loire Valley around this time.

Giovanni Michelotti was responsible for minor styling upgrades to the 530 which became the 530LX in 1970 these included replacing the acrylic glass removable rear window with a glass hatch held open with gas struts and the removal of a nudge bar from the front bumper.

Matra Simca 530LX

These 530LX ads found in the French journal “Connaissance des arts” date from March and May 1971 respectively five months before the introduction of the budget black bumper, orange or white only 530SX which had the targa top and pop up headlights deleted.

The under powered 530’s competitors included the Lotus Elan +2 and Porsche 912 which were both more expensive and the cheaper MG B GT.

9,609 530s, 2,062 530As, 4,731 530LXs and 1,146 530SX’s were built by the time production ceased in 1973.

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