Cars

I am grateful to Andy Downes, longtime Morgan Sports Car Club member and past Competitions Secretary, for some recent snaps of the SLR mentioned at the end of this page.  It seems there are 3 Morgan+4 SLRs and one TR5 SLR running around exposing themselves.



The snap above taken at Goodwood in 2006.  The one below taken at Spa in 2007.



Still looking good.

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As a young engineer I spent a lot of my life messing about in, under, and around cars.  My first car was an 'Aerodynamic' HRG - you can see some pictures here if you scroll down on the right.  A truly fearsome machine - but largely because of its lack of brakes. 

I learned something about being a race-car mechanic helping John Campbell-Jones in a dingy garage in Shaftesbury Mews, London.  Sitting in a little room at the back, clocking camshafts, was a young chap called Keith Duckworth - he of Cosworth.

I got into racing, both mechanicking and driving, while at Balliol - lots of odd stories there.  I began with a Morgan +4 (with the TR3 twin SU engine) but shortened it by about 12" on my way to its first race. 

While it went off to rest in Malvern I moved on to an ex-factory LeMans Austin-Healey Sprite and then to a Lotus XI, a quite remarkable and forgiving car.  It was a 1220cc Climax-engined version purchased from David Buxton Racing's Derby business - he being at one time Lotus's Sales Manager.

I guess I'm being overtaken on the inside here - probably by Tony Lanfranchi in his brand new Lotus XXIII?  Age gives way to youth !  This is Copse corner, Silverstone 1962.

We also built a bunch of interesting racing cars.  Here's a picture of our 1963 Le Mans Deep Sanderson prototype with a rear-mounted Mini-Cooper engine, with me pushing - and driving in due course.  We retired after 15 hours or so.

Here we are at scrutineering - both Chris Lawrence and myself - and boy, are we exhausted!

A few months ago I learned that this protoype still exists and is being slowly restored to its full glory by David Ramsbotham in Somerset, UK.

Lawrence and I met through our Morgan +4s.  We designed and had built a special bodied version - which we called the LawrenceTune Morgan SLR - for the Brand's Hatch Double 500 - I forget which year, must have been around 1965.  Here it is - though the windows are not yet in.  Quite a handsome motor, no?  We did really well for a while but then had the lower tube of that weird Moggie front suspension break.  We fixed it and finished, but the delay of over an hour did for our chances. 

You can see that we knew nothing about air-dams when we designed these bodies - though we had learned enough to control the airflow between the body and the road with a complete underpan.  Progress is slow and hard !

Jenkins, Mark, Ken Pasternak & Richard West (2005)  Performance at the Limit: Business Lessons from Formula 1 Motor Racing,  Cambridge UP.

And now for the Lotus that even I never knew about:

I hope you can read the label above.  It says:

"Trials Special (Lotus Mk II)

Production 1 car 1949 - Variants - None

One of the few accessible forms of motor sport after the War was Trials, where you had to drive as far up a series of muddy hills as possible. After his first Austin Seven Special Colin Chapman built a second car in 1947 designed for Trials competition as well as use on the road.  It was based on an Austin Seven with a Ford 1172cc side-valve engine.  In due course this car was entered in events as a Lotus.  the engine was gradually developed and together with Hazel, Colin Chapman achieved considerable success.  In mid-1950 he entered a race at Silverstone for the first time, and that event truly began the Lotus story.  The car was sold in late 1950 and passed through many hands before being acquired by the present owner, Nigel Halliday, in 1989.  Nigel has retained the car in original condition and also now has the original engine.

Engine: 1172cc 45HP          Performance: Max 80 mph - 0-60 10 secs"

This is what the car looks like:

I think the chap in the top left of this photograph - taken by my brother in October 2007 in the Gower Street quad at UCL - is clutching his sides with laughter?

From small acorns do great oaks grow - alas Sir Colin.