The piece of whimsy that is the Little Big Mans is almost reason enough on its own to attend the LeMans Classic. It’s absolutely marvelous, and it looks like there’s still room on the grid for a few more entries. Is it wrong to envy a 10-year-old?
The phenomenon of miniature sportscars for children is absolutely fascinating. There are a handful of workshops crafting high-quality reproductions of some of the world’s most desirable autos in 1:2.3 scale—marvelous!
Blanc Chateau seems to be heavily involved in the running of the Little Big Mans race and offers their junior versions of the BMW 328, the Ferrari P-2, and Porsche Speedster. Porsches abound from Pennewitz Design, who offers their own version of the Speedster, plus a 550 Spyder and Porsche 904 for good measure. They are all absolutely incredible, if you look quickly you’d be convinced it’s the genuine article and not an extravagant plaything. Although if I were to spring for one, I’d be too tempted to keep it for myself rather than hand the keys over to Junior. Maybe it’s best, hard to tell if this would make him the coolest kid ever or the wicked preppie in a John Hughes movie.
RM Auctions will be hosting their first ever event in Monaco in a few weeks, “Sporting Classics of Monaco“, and they’ve certainly pulled out all the stops. The catalog is absolutely mesmerizing, with offerings including the 1937 BMW 328 Mille Miglia “Bügelfalte”, The stunning Birdcage Maserati we looked at a few weeks ago, and some high-demand Ferraris (275 GTB, Tour de France, Daytona Spider).
This car though, hasn’t been featured much in the sportscar press and I didn’t know it was included in the sale until I happened upon the full catalog today. You are looking at one of the three M14A Formula 1 cars that McLaren built to compete in the World Championship for 1970. The McLaren team entered the new decade in absolute dominance of the motoring world. Their Can-Am effort the previous year was in complete control of the series, with Bruce McLaren or Denny Hulme standing atop the podium at all 11 races of the season. They’d also claimed a handful of wins in ’69 in Formula 1 as well. It was time now to continue that amazing success into the 1970s. This car looked well poised to do it too, with a 2nd place finish in her debut race at Kyalami for Hulme—in this very car. The team was on the podium twice more in the next three races. Not a bad start.
That’s when everything went South. Denny suffered a bad methanol burn following practice at Indianapolis. Bruce of course died in a crash at Goodwood testing the new Can-Am car. Amazingly, Denny missed only two races and returned to the car for the French GP. In the next 8 races, Hulme would finish on the podium 3 times more and finished the season in 4th. Incredibly, he won that year’s Can-Am drivers’ championship—oh for the era of driver versatility.
The car itself, chassis M14A2, looks absolutely perfect. Although it had a short stint in her post-F1 years as a Formula 5000 car, the car was fairly quickly returned to the original specification (is this the original engine?) Ford-Cosworth DFV and Hewland gearbox. The car is presented in the livery she wore during the 1970 season and that orange shade is just so brilliant. The photography for the catalog is absolutely stunning and looks like you could just reach into the photo and take her for a spin. I’m surprised that RM’s estimate is as low as it is at $340,000 – $400,000. I can’t believe I just referred to $400K as a low price on something. But really, who needs a house (or two), when you could take a few laps in this.
More information in the auction catalog – I hope more auction houses follow this practice of releasing their full catalog online.
Here’s a short but important film from the John McClure Archives. This was the 2nd annual Agoura Hill Climb presented by the Singer Owners’ Club on February 6, 1955, and I think it can be safely described as a smashing success. West Coast Sports Car Journal reported in their March ’55 issue that the event drew 160 competitors and over 2,000 spectators. Even if those numbers are an exaggeration, that is still incredibly impressive. Can you imagine 2,000 spectators coming out to the secluded mountains for a hillclimb? Unless it’s the Goodwood Festival of Speed, or maybe Pikes Peak, the public simply doesn’t care about hillclimbing—not in those kinds of numbers anyway.
I also think this film is incredibly important because it captures something we’re unlikely to ever see again; high performance sportscars driving as fast as they can up a dirt road. Have you ever driven behind a sportscar on a dirt road? Chances are they are driving VERY slowly, just crawling in 1st gear, repeating a silent prayer that no stone is kicked up to mar their paintwork. Even Pikes Peak is almost completely tarmac today. Boo!
Not so in ’55. These drivers are putting everything they have into taking their factory fresh XK120s from the bottom of the hill to the top; bodywork be damned. I think this is what I most enjoy about these vintage club racing films, sportscars just weren’t the luxury status symbol that they are today. They weren’t precious jewels to be polished and parked in front of the dance club. They were simply tools—tools that were built for a purpose—and in 1955 that purpose was to get the Hell to the top of Agoura.
Race Results:
Frank Livingston in the Eliminator Model-T Hot Rod (anyone know this car?) at 27.83 seconds
Ennals Ives Jr. in a Cad-Allard J2X at 27.86 seconds.
Paul Parker, also in the Eliminator, at 28.03
Paul Poole in a Jaguar XK120M at 28.63
A young Richie Ginther took the Austin-Healey class victory at 29.66 seconds.
Update:Chris sheds some light on the Eliminator Model-T in the comments, which quickly lead to this article from Street Rodder. Another example of the greatness of the era; when a T-Bucket shares the track with Siatas and Ferraris. Thanks, Chris!
Drama on the closing lap of the ’67 Italian GP at Monza. Clark set pole and fastest lap, and had a tremendous drive after coming back from a puncture—but he’d end up on the orangeade end of the equation.
The crew over at Veloce Today scored some fantastic shots of the floor of Europe’s largest classic racing and sportscar sale.
There’s a tremendous example of the Alfa Romeo Stradale not too unlike the one we featured in an Art Appreciation segment a month or so back. Also among their shots is a lovely Ferrari 212 Export and curious little 1948 Giannini Fiat 1100 (I’m all about the late-40s Italians lately). And why not throw in an ex-Chris Amon Matra for good measure?
Head on over for the complete writeup and more photos. Great stuff!
Hard to believe that anyone would part with this magnificent machine. We’ve featured this car twice before on the Chicane, after seeing her at the 2008 Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival, and later some video footage of the car in action at Watkins Glen.
When I first encountered this stunning car in the pits at Road America, I was struck by how very compact it was. I’m always surprised how small these 60’s racers are in the flesh, they seem so larger-than-life in photos and film. They’re long low proportions seem somewhat large when you’re not standing right next to them and realize how very low they are—the hood line is well below my waist.
I simply cannot fathom selling this car. As I mentioned in my previous post about the 910, this was a car designed as a hillclimber and ended up as a successful endurance racer. I like the 917 and 908 as much as anyone, but for me, the fact that this car was so adaptable to any racing style—from short burst sprints up the hillside to 24 hour events—puts this car very near the top of Porsche’s engineering achievements. It’s simply remarkable.
Today the car is on offer from Grand Prix Classics in La Jolla, California. There’s no information posted on the car yet, but the collection of photos of the car is well worth seeing.
What could be better than a spirited drive in the mountains and a picnic lunch with friends? Ask “Quick” Vic Elford, seen here doing just that. Pausing to relax during his own spirited drive in the mountains, indeed.
Of course, the mountains in this case are those surrounding Palermo, Sicily. The lunch is served on the short tail of a Martini International Racing Porsche 908/3. And his fellow diners are the team and competitors of the 1971 Targa Florio. Perhaps this was to celebrate his fastest lap of that year’s race-rounding the 72km course in 33:45.6, an average over 127km/h.
