Category: Classic Sportscar

Jimmy Clark’s Championship Winning Lotus 25 at Auction

Post author By Harlo
Post date November 10, 2008
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The car he won the ’63 World Championship in

This weekend, Bonhams & Goodman is hosting an incredible collection of Lotus Formula cars in Sydney. The Important Sports, Competition and Collectors’ Motor cars, Motorcycles and Automobilia certainly lives up to its name, offering TWO ex-Jim Clark Lotuses.

One, a ’66 Tasman Series Lotus 39 carried Clark through several races in this important series: a first in the Warwick Farm International 100, a second at Levin, Wigram, Lakeside and Sandown Park, and third place finishes in the Australian Grand Prix and in the Examiner 45 at Longford, Tasmania.

Already, this is an amazing auction opportunity. Shocking then, that this car can be completely overshadowed by another offering at the auction. The other car available, and drawing an estimate of $1.8-2Million, is Jimmy Clark’s & Richard Attwood’s 1962 Lotus 25. The car that Clark won the Formula 1 World Championship with in 1963. Any Lotus single seater is a rare collectible. Any that was driven by Clark, even more so. This car however, represents the absolute pinnacle of any collection. It was the Lotus 25 that leapfrogged Lotus from Formula 1 also-ran to dominant force of the 1960’s and beyond. The rear engine layout that Cooper proved was the way of the future was embraced by Chapman full-force, even perfected here in the Lotus 25.

Lotus built only seven examples of the Lotus 25. Of these, serial numbers R1, R2, R3, and R5 were destroyed in period accidents. This example, R4, rose to the top as Clark’s longest serving and winningest chassis. Carrying him to on a trot victories in 1963 at the Belgian, Dutch, French and British GPs, a 2nd at the German GP, then further victories in Italy, S. Africa, and Mexico. This chassis has won SEVEN world-championship Formula 1 races. and a further victory at a non-championship Oulton Park race. Those are just the Jim Clark wins! the car has a further history with Richard Attwood under Reg Parnell racing.

What an amazing car this is, and what an amazing opportunity this auction represents for a very lucky collector. If you happen to attend this event, I’d love to see some photos.

Update: Clark’s Championship Winning Lotus 25 sold for a final hammer price of $1,350,000. with his Tasman Series racer bringing in $320,000.

Tags Colin Chapman, Formula 1, Grand Prix, Jim Clark, Jimmy Clark, Lotus, Vintage Racing

Classic Sportscar

Now Where Did I Leave that D-Type?

Post author By Harlo
Post date November 9, 2008
No Comments on Now Where Did I Leave that D-Type?

This is a project I can really get behind. The Coventry Racers project hopes to locate and catalog every Jaguar C-Type, D-Type, E-Type Lightweight and XKSS; both those that are still gathering concours and racing trophies, and those that haven’t survived. The open nature of the Coventry Racers project is its real appeal.

Unlike secret catalogs of cars that dealers and collectors use to track down potential purchases, the Coventry Racers project is managed, Wiki-style, by the public at large. These contributors offer their own photographs, accounts of car locations, and articles about particular examples. All of these are sorted by serial number, and help to build a complete repository of information on each and every example of these cars. What a wonderful resource for sportscar nerds (like myself) who just want to read about these tremendous cars, and for collectors who want any bit of information on their example to increase the provenance of their vehicles—before or after purchase.

I’ve included a photo here that I shot at the July 2008 VSCDA Continental Grand Prix at Autobahn Country Club this past July. This was one of two D-Types at the event. While neither raced, it was fantastic to see these remarkable cars out at the track. One of these cars actually sees a bit of road time, the owner drove the Jag to the track, and shared a story of driving it up to Elkhart Lake as well—perhaps a 2-hour highway drive in a car that I’m sure drew quite a bit of attention on the freeway.

Tags C-Type, D-Type, E-Type, Historic Race Car, Jaguar, Vintage Racing

Classic Sportscar

Happy Birthday, Lola.

I’m a bit late in telling you about the 10,000-strong group of spectators that lined the streets of Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, UK on October 12th for a parade celebrating 50 years of Lola Racing Cars. Lola found her roots in a 1957 Special built and raced by cousins Eric and Graham Broadley. The 1172cc Ford powered open wheeler raced in England’s “Ford Ten Special” class, where it was a quick success. They immediately started on a second sports car to compete with a Climax engine. Before long, the Lola Cars organization was started in earnest in a small workshop down the road from Cooper and Brabham.

Lola followed a few steady years of MK1 sports car production with their first foray in to single-seaters, starting with a front engined formula junior and quickly transitioning into rear-engined formula 3s. All these years later, Lola participates in nearly every branch of motorsport: From sports racing cars to the US’s CART championship, to endurance racing. Through all of these developments, Lola has a remarkable tradition of maintaining their lineage, with strong support for vintage Lola cars. You can order a brand new continuation of the iconic T70 prototype racer.
Congratulations of 50 years, Lola.

Thanks to Flickr users Jason and Ian (Madie) for letting us experience this event alongside them. I think that’s a T61 Formula 2 car up top from Jason’s photo stream.

Tags lola, Racecar, Vintage Racecars, Vintage Racing

Classic Sportscar For Sale Porsche

Ex-Matsuda Porsche 904 For Sale

Post author By Harlo
Post date October 8, 2008
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The Porsche 904 once owned by renowned collector/museum curator/tycoon/lucky bastard Yoshibo Matsuda is currently among the cars for sale by German dealer Jan Lühn. Ordinarily the non-racing owner of a car doesn’t improve it’s provenance terribly, but Mr. Matsuda is no ordinary car collector. In the 1970s and 80s, Matsuda started pickup up exotic Porsches: the first Porsche to win outright at LeMans (a 917), a 910 Spyder, a 550 Spyder, an RSK Spyder, a 906, 908. The guy’s collection was no joke. So fantastic was it, that he opened a historic Porsche museum in Tokyo. After several years, Mr. Matsuda decided to shake things up and sold off the bulk of his collection and replaced them with historically significant Ferraris and hung a new sign on the door of his museum. I understand that he’s now sold off the Ferraris as well.

But getting back to Porsche 904-092. The car was originally delivered in 1964 to gentleman F1 driver, Count Carel de Beaufort. This 904 was his third—he also owned 904-019 (which he raced at Sebring), and 904-072 (which was crashed by his friend Gerard van Lennep).

The Count only owned 904-092 for a short time before selling it to England, where it was raced by Patrick Godfrey and Alain DeCadenet. After a short time in the states, Matsuda picked up the car in the late 70’s.

Such was Mr. Matsuda’s love for the 904, that he wrote an absolutely marvelous book on the history, development, and current whereabouts of the remaining 904s. I spent several years trying to track down a copy of “Porsche 904 GTS Great Cars of Great Collections Volume 3”, with little luck. I finally tracked down a copy at online bookseller T.E. Warth Autobooks, but $180 seemed a bit steep. Ultimately I was able to order a copy from the publisher at cover price. Go order a copy right now, it’s an amazing book – and the price is fantastic when compared to the odd prices it’s fetching in the secondary market.

Mr. Matsuda sold the car at RM’s Monterrey Auction in 2000—for the now astonishingly low price of $264,000. (Is it wrong for me to hope that the current financial market causes classic car prices to tank and once again become attainable?). After that sale, however, the story becomes even more interesting. The Floridian buyer repainted the car to its original Silver color and shortly thereafter sold the car to a man in Germany. Incredibly, the German tracked down the car’s original twin-cam 4 cylinder Koenigswellen engine, which had been spending some time as a decorative piece in a retired Porsche engineer’s home. Now that is an art piece I’d love to have in my living room.

So now, impeccably maintained and newly reunited with her original engine after 25 years apart, Porsche 904-092 is available. Jan Lühn doesn’t list a price, but I’m sure they’ll be receptive to an offer of the $264,000 that this car fetched in 2000.
Sure they will.

Tags 904-092, Matsuda, Porsche, Porsche 904

Classic Sportscar Porsche Video

Seen at Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival: Porsche 910-25

Post author By Harlo
Post date September 24, 2008
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Walking the paddock at any vintage race is half the fun of attending. There are scores of wonderful racing cars and dozens of friendly drivers happy to chat about them. At this year’s Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival, we did even more chatting with drivers than usual, as Paul is on the hunt for a vintage Formula Vee. One car this year, however, stopped me dead in my tracks—along with everyone else that passed—the Porsche 910.

Parked among some of the most arresting cars of the weekend, a Maserati 250 and a Cooper Formula car, it was the only car I can think of that could draw all attention away from these 2 other iconic cars. Immaculately restored in 2001, this car has competed recently in such estimable races at the 24 Hours Lemans Classic and the Monterrey Historics.

But of course the truly remarkable story of this prototype racer begins much earlier than that. The 910 series was originally conceived of as a hillclimb car, but quickly found success as an endurance racer. Think about that for a moment. Hillclimbs are short sprints up a mountainside. One way, one trip. The fact that this hillclimber was readily adaptable to endurance racing speaks volumes about Porsche’s late-60’s engineering. That a car designed for short bursts of speed could also run competitively for 24 hours is simply staggering.

910-25

This example ran the Targa Florio in ’67 (a race won by fellow works drivers Paul Hawkins and Rölf Stommelen in 910-08), and won the 1000km at the Circuit of Mugello with Gerhard Mitter and Udo Schuetz at the wheel. Sadly, 910-25 didn’t complete the Sunday race at Road America, dropping out of competition in the 1st lap. The car was hauled out of the track on a flatbed, but I didn’t see any signs of damage. Does anyone know what happened?

Update:

This article in Washington CEO Magazine shows that the current owner of Porsche 910-25 is AEI Music Founder and Real Estate developer Michael J. Malone. Congratulations, Mr. Malone, on one fine automobile.

Tags 910-25, elkhart lake vintage festival, Porsche, porsche 910, Road America, vscda

Classic Sportscar

Breaks your heart, doesn’t it?

Post author By Harlo
Post date September 11, 2008
No Comments on Breaks your heart, doesn’t it?

$4,200.

Don’t call and yell at poor Sid. It’s not his fault.

Audio Classic Sportscar Ferrari

Thanks to the Rescuers

I must admit to giving up a week of my life to Tom Yang’s Ferrari restoration journal. A wonderful story of a sound engineer who undertook the daunting task of restoring a Ferrari 330 America purchased in boxes. We often throw the term “basket case” around when discussing cars that require a huge amount of effort — but when the project literally comes in baskets; well, that’s something else.
Something that should be applauded.
Having brought myself up to date on Tom’s site — and the remarkably victorious restoration of his beautiful, driven, Ferrari 330 — i dug a bit deeper into his site and came upon Tom’s collection of audio conversations with other vintage Ferrari owners telling their own rescue stories. I love stories like this, and even if these were videos, they wouldn’t capture the twinkle in the eyes of these proud rescuers any better than hearing them tell their stories does.
$Admiral Phillips\' Ferrari 500 Mondial II$
One story stood out in particular, of a very early rescue. Admiral Robert Phillips was a humble Lieutenant in 1960 when a series of happy circumstances brought him in contact with a broken down and neglected Ferrari 500 Mondial racer. In an era when people paid cash for their cars, he took out a loan of most of a years’ salary to purchase the wreck, and slowly brought it back to life on his own. No workshop manual, no reliable parts supplies, no local aluminum body shop.
Give the story a listen: here.
Thanks, Tom, for collecting these stories. And thanks to Admiral Phillips for sharing his with us.
Update: Admiral Phillips showed his restored Mondial at Pebble Beach this year. read more at Tom Yang’s site.

Classic Sportscar

Absolutely Stunning Ferrari Featured on Hemmings

Post author By Harlo
Post date May 9, 2008
No Comments on Absolutely Stunning Ferrari Featured on Hemmings

This month, the Hemmings Motor News blog is featuring Ferrari in their annual Days of Ferrari theme. Today they ran a post about this absolutely magical 1962 250 GT/L.
There is a beauty to purpose built racing machines that is absolutely unparalleled in functional design. Yet somehow, this magnificently gorgeous machine was not conceived as a dual purpose road/race car. How is it possible that Ferrari’s incredible run of beautiful racing machines can get one-upped by its own luxury model, never intended for the track?

Thanks Hemmings, keep them coming.

Update:

the mighty Bring a Trailer just featured this car as part of their coverage of this year’s Monterey Historics. While I agree it’s a stunner, I’m not convinced that it takes the 250 SWB’s crown..

Classic Sportscar