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Autumn Motorsport Day at Brooklands

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 3:04 pm
by Spacenut
Another popular event at Brooklands, organised by the man behind Auto Italia (as is the Supercar day I attended earlier in the year). Unfortunately the weather gods were not good to us again, which dissuaded some of the visitors but worse still some of the exhibitors as well :(

Still, as with the Supercar day I only had to pay £2.50 to get in, so it was a no-brainer, in spite of the gloomy weather forecast. The initial run to Brooklands was fine, and the rain held off for the first hour or so. Once on site, I was directed to the “motoring village”, which seems to be the place were all the uncategorised (or uncategorisable) cars are sent. This in spite of me telling the marshal that the Nova does have some competition history (not much I grant you, but some history nonetheless).

So I found myself parked next to some sport coupe that was for sale, a couple of American pickups, a Morris Minor (woody), an Escort Mk1 Mexico (replica probably) and an early Lotus Elan. Still, the “motoring village” is on one of the two main routes into the museum, so the car started attracting attention quite early on…

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So what else was about to tickle the automotive taste buds? Well, the first thing that I spotted in front of the clubhouse was Matt Hollingsworth’s Sam Posey Trans-Am Challenger tribute, in its authentic Dodge “Sub Lime” green…

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Obviously the ride height is a bit higher than the racing car and the donor came with a factory steel sunroof, but apart from that it looks pretty convincing…

Apart from the Lancia Delta next door there was suprisingly little else in the clubhouse area, apart from this lone Dallara spider…

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Now I’ve seen this on new Top Gear so I know it is insanely fast and powered by a lowly Ford 4-cylinder, but what I hadn’t appreciated was the size and depth of the venturi tunnels – no wonder this car has so much downforce!

Of course part of this performance advantage comes from being very light, in this case too light to bother with weather equipment, which was to prove a problem later…

Outside the “Aircraft Factory” hanger I found Ted Pearson, queuing up for the action on the adjacent Mercedes-Benz World track. This time Ted had brought along his beautifully-prepared trackday Alfasud, in green of course :D

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Lovely. What else – the guy that brought the tiny Lombardi sports car to Auto Italia brought his other car this time…

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...And the Fiat 500 with the Alfa 33 running gear was there as well…

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Outrageous. What else? Well, I wondered up to the top of the banking an spotted this tasty Porsche 912 amongst a sea of bland GT2s…

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...And coming back down the hill, a blast from the Vauxhall past – first, this very tidy HB Viva GT…

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Very Shaw & Kilburn/Gerry Marshall I think you will agree. And further along the same row…

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A Snoop Droot, looking fabulous in factory Silver Starfire paint. This particular example sports afterrmarket headlamp lens/reflectors, as the original Cibies in serviceable condition are getting very hard to get hold of now. A bit like Alfasud and GTV headlights really…

At the bottom of the hill was Ferrari corner, where I saw this nice example of the 512BB…

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I’m pretty sure I saw this the day before leaving Dunsfold. Maybe doing a future episode of Top Gear? Alas, no time to speculate, the cars are forming up for the track, and the rain is coming down harder than ever – time to relocate to the capacious rain canopy afforded by Concorde’s massive delta wings and watch the increasingly soggy parade go by…

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Barwell Motorsport Huracan…

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Ted’s Alfasud…

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Blower Bentley (note rain gear)…

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Wicked ‘72 Aston DBS V8, ex-Tony Jardine apparently…

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Seems like only yesterday… in this case, it was only yesterday that I saw the Napier Railton run at Dunsfold…

I didn’t go over to M-B World to watch the track action, as my 18-55 kit lens would have shown precisely nothing. What glimpses I did catch were of a lot of spray and some cautious driving by most, with the exception of the Barwell Lamborghinis, who seemed to be treating it as a test day and were howling around overtaking pretty much everything in sight.

After the track action was over the cars reformed in front of the clubhouse…

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Noisy…

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Beautifully prepared…

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Beautifully original…

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Driven all the way from Somerset to be here today :D

So that was it. The rain abated, but most of the visitors and quite a few exhibitors had been driven away by then, and there was some doubt as to whether the test hill would run at all, given the conditions. So I went home as well. But as I was preparing to leave some teenagers stopped by the Nova and exclaimed “it looks like a spaceship”, which given the level of sophistication in modern cars today (particularly dashboard displays) was the biggest single compliment I could hope to receive. Thanks guys, you made it all worthwhile!

Lauren

Re: Autumn Motorsport Day at Brooklands

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 5:05 pm
by junior
Good photo's. Very much like the DBS and the Arbarths.

Whats with the trans am challanger I know nothing about that :?:

Re: Autumn Motorsport Day at Brooklands

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 7:51 pm
by Kegsti66
Great photos ,again, Lauren. Such a shame about the weather, It has been a lovely day here today, pity it wasn't at Silverstone.
I saw the Fiat 600 Abarth rep with the Twincam on ebay recently. Always good to see "The Mean Greeny" ready for action. Liking the Viva gt, lovely colour :D as well as that cracking Bentley blower with the "roof" up. 8-)

Re: Autumn Motorsport Day at Brooklands

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 9:32 pm
by Spacenut
junior wrote:Good photo's. Very much like the DBS and the Arbarths.

Whats with the trans am challanger I know nothing about that :?:
Ah yes - for one glorious year both Plymouth and Dodge ran in the Trans-Am series, both with de-stroked 340 c.i. motors. The Plymouth 'Cuda was run by Dan Gurney and his All American Racers team (AAR) and used Keith Black engines. The Dodge effort was run by Ray Caldwell and his Autodynamics team and driven by Sam Posey.

Both spectacularly unsuccessful, but the best looking Trans-Am cars ever, in my opinion :D

Much info on Google. I have actually sat in the original T/A Challenger, back in my Mopar days...

Re: Autumn Motorsport Day at Brooklands

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 6:30 pm
by junior
Ah ha, get where you coming from now with The Dan Gurney connection. A name I do know but had not linked too.

Super. Thanks for posting that.

Re: Autumn Motorsport Day at Brooklands

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 10:28 pm
by Johnboy
Great photos .looks like a top day ,apart the weather ;)