Motoring Classics
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www.motoringclassics.co.uk www.bmh-ltd.com AUTUMN Wheels For FUEL FOR THOUGHT The Wall BMH To Sell An Inside Line On Automotive Art Ethanol-Free Petrol LE MANS LEGEND HAPPY BIRTHDAY GT40 Dealer Spotlight 3 Le Mans Legend 4-5 New News From BMH 6 Visiting MG Motorsport for the first In those days the firm also offered undoubtedly the red example reserved Marques & Trademarks 7 time, one can’t help wondering high ratio steering racks and uprated for Doug’s 34 year old son Tom Smith how such a renowned multi-faceted torsion bars for the C, since when the who, when he’s not working in the Missing Moniker 8 business can operate in so relatively range has mushroomed to include kits family business, has a habit of winning small an area. It doesn’t. That first for: triple Webers; twin electric cooling on the race track – some 82 times out Classic Character 9 bespoke wooden workshop leads to fans; five-speed gearboxes; and ball- of 130 in 14 years according to his Classic Motorsport 10-11 another and another in true Tardis-like joint front suspension. MG Motorsport father. fashion, slowly revealing the secrets of also supplies replacement front floors From Cody To Concorde 12-13 24 years of organic growth. and engine push-rods for the MGC to As the company name suggests, MG Bexhill – Sand, Sea, And….. 14-15 much of the trade as well as private work is the priority, but the four full- The company’s amiable owner/founder customers. Myriad MGB and some time staff (a fifth is currently being Twin Town Challenge 16 Doug Smith, started life as a civil en- MGA race and road parts are also on sought) regularly turn their hands to Fuel For Thought 17 gineer and was selling construction offer; sales of which are split approxi- other marques and models including equipment in the Middle East when mately 50/50 between the UK and the Healey 3000s, TRs, Minis and Wheels For The Wall 18-19 two of his fellow villagers, Colin Pearcy rest of the world – the company has Lotus Elans. For further information and Martin Dell, persuaded him to start customers in America and Australia as on all the above and more, log onto Above: This highly evocative 1950s shot shows a D-Type Jaguar on test in Farnborough’s 24ft wind racing - a pastime he then pursued well as much of Europe. www.mgmotorsport.com. tunnel. Photo – FAST Museum Motoring Classics reproduction with relative success from 1984 to in whole or any part of any text, 1996 aboard a self-prepared Sebring The rebuilding side of the business photograph or illustration without MGC. By 1990 he’d used the knowl- has continued apace too and the tally written permission of the publisher edge gained to create an alloy-bodied currently comprises a further 14 Se- is strictly prohibited. The publish- Sebring evocation for somebody lucky bring MGC replicas; 8 MGC roadsters; er makes every effort to ensure enough to own one of the original 7 MGC GTs; 13 MGB roadsters; 2 MGB the magazine’s contents are correct Welcome to the 19th edition of Motoring Our Classic Character is Tony Crook, Works examples. This inspired a simi- GTs; 3 MGB V8s; and an astonishing Classics. I’m conscious it would have a man who will be best remembered lar request from a second customer 39 MGB FIA specification race cars – 3 2 but can accept no responsibility for any effects from errors or been numerically neater if we’d waited for his years of devotion to the Bristol and MG Motorsport crept into being oh, and a Tornado Talisman FIA racer. omissions. until issue 20 to increase the number marque and his considerable racing almost by accident. The best known of the FIA MGBs is of pages from the previous 16 to, well, prowess, while this edition’s Missing NB Motoring Classics is the printed 20, but we were in a hurry to deliver Moniker is Frazer Nash – the marque and online publication of British Motor more to our reader. behind the wheel of which Crook Heritage and its retail trading arm. delivered many of his best results. Like me, you probably associate cir- Publisher: cuits such as Silverstone and Brands Add talk on trademarks, automotive British Motor Heritage Limited, Hatch with motorsport and Bexhill with art and BMH’s appointment as a Range Road, Cotswold Business sand and sea. In which case the fact distributor of VP’s range of ethanol Park, Witney OX29 OYB, UK that that pleasant Sussex resort gave free-fuels (bet that’s got your atten- Tel: +44 (0)1993 707200 birth to motorsport in the UK may come tion!) and there is hopefully something Email: [email protected] as something of a shock – discover in here for everybody. more on P.14-15. While on the subject Editorial: of pioneering, the history of aviation at Happy reading! Gordon Bruce Associates Farnborough and Britain’s first aviator, Email: [email protected] the colourful and outrageously talented Web: www.gordonbruce.com S.F. Cody, are inextricably linked and equally full of surprises – see P.12-13 Design and production: for an insight into that story. Flipside Group www.flipsidegroup.com Classic motorsport is never far from our thoughts and in this edition we bring you up-to-date with the travails of Gordon Bruce Follow us on: BMH’s racing Managing Director, and Editor @MotoringClassic deliver a profile of renowned marque specialists, MG Motorsport. It’s hard to Motoring Classics credit, but Ford’s original racing super- car, the GT40, is 50 years old this year and we pay tribute to this automotive icon with a few factoids that might just have evaded you to date. FRONT COVER PHOTO OF GT40 COURTESY FORD www.motoringclassics.co.uk www.bmh-ltd.com www.motoringclassics.co.uk www.bmh-ltd.com LE MANS Above: Ford MKIV – the first American car to win Above: The Mustang I, some design cues from which were carried over into the GT40. Photo - Ford LEGEND Le Mans. Photo – Ford Two existing cars GT40 – the Mustang I. The man Studying its timeless curves, it is hard to credit that Ford’s legendary GT40 is currently What prompted Ford responsible for its chassis design celebrating its 50th birthday. The story of its evolution and development into a four-time to build the MKIV? influenced the and creation of the two concept Le Mans winner is pretty well known, but here we pay tribute to this automotive icon with five 3 At the time the GT40 was conceived, no 4 design of the GT40 cars in just 100 days was English- factoids that may just have passed you by: American car or driver had ever won Le Though Eric Broadley’s Lola MK6 fin- man Roy Lunn, who was tasked with Mans. Wealthy privateer Briggs Cunningham ished the 1963 Le Mans race in the heading up the GT40 programme had come the closest to evoking such a sleepers at The Esses, it had shown just a year later. The Mustang’s mid- victory, with cars of his manufacture com- considerable promise. Among those engined configuration, high nose, Le Mans 1966 ing third in both 1953 and 1954. Breaking who’d been impressed were the fixed seats and adjustable pedals With three of its cars way ahead of the this duck was Henry Ford’s prime task for Ford contingent en route to the UK were all features of at least the 1 chasing pack, Ford attempted to mastermind his racing supercar, so you might think the to find a partner for the Blue Oval’s first prototype GT40. Others such a dead heat for optimum publicity. Folklore historic MKII win of 1966 ticked all the Blue own embryo Le Mans campaign – as side ducting for rear-mounted says that the organisers declared McLaren Oval’s boxes. Not so. Firstly, the MKII was hence the aforementioned meeting radiators and pop-up headlamps and Amon the winners because their car basically a GT40 with a bigger engine and with Broadley and the subsequent were initially considered but had travelled furthest in the 24 hours. therefore considered by many as a British purchase of his expertise and two designed out along the way. The 5 4 Not so! Such detail would have mattered rather than American car. Secondly the of his three MK6s. Less has been first production car to wear the had the dead heat worked. The truth is winning drivers were both New Zealanders! written about the other design that Mustang name was, of course, a the McLaren/Amon and Miles/Hulme cars Hence the alloy honeycomb-chassied MKIV had at least some influence on the horse of very different character. were indeed side by side coming up to the that was conceived and built entirely in the finish, when McLaren couldn’t resist tick- USA and driven to victory at Le Mans 1967 ling the throttle of car No.2 to cross the by the all American team of Dan Gurney and Many more such facts and figures, plus line first. This cruelly denied Ken Miles the A J Foyt. Job done! numerous previously unseen images can be unique treble of Daytona, Sebring and Le found in Haynes newly-published Manual on Mans in the same year and he sadly died the GT40, that’s been written to coincide Above: A twitch of the throttle was all it took for Bruce two months later testing the J Car at the McLaren to destroy Ford’s plan for a dead heat and win with the car’s 50th anniversary by Motoring Riverside circuit, California.