Who built how many?

I'm curious to compare the scale of various racecar constructors in simplistic terms: "number of cars constructed". Obviously it's a fool's errand for dozens of reasons: all cars weren't created equal, many racecars were sold in incomplete form, some of the great marques kept lousy records, some classic marques deliberately falsified build records (for tax reasons, for promotional reasons, etc.), etc. etc. etc. But has someone already collected this sort of data and published a summary? Assuming the answer is no, here's a very preliminary start to illustrate what I have in mind:

Commercial Producers of Racecars... and numbers built (updated to reflect subsequent posts)

• Brabham............. ~592 (per "Brabham + Ralt + Honda - The Ron Tauranac Story" by Mike Lawrence)
• Brawn GP............ 3 (per RJ Colmar, ref: post#14)
• BRP................. 5 (per www.BritishRacecar.com by Curtis Jacobson, ref: post#16)
• Chevron............. ~495 (per "Chevron - The Derek Bennett Story" by David Gordon)
• Connaught........... ~20 (per Peter Morley, ref: post#63)
• Cooper.............. ~750 (per "Cooper Cars" by Doug Nye plus 500 O.A., ref: posts#66-68, 83)
• Crosslé*............ ~920 (per Paul McMorran, ref: post#37)
• Duesenberg.......... ~35 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#19)
• Élan*............... ~376 (per vandiemen.co.uk, ref: post#84)
• Elden............... ~252 (per "eldenracingcars.moonfruit.com", ref: post#29)
• Estonia/TARK........ ~1353 (per Tehnika, 1996, 6-7, table compiled by Margus Kuuse, ref: post#6)
• Fiat................ ~75 (per www.zuckerfabrik24.de, ref: post#48)
• Gerhardt............ ~32.5 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#19)
• Hawke............... ~205 (per www.vintagegarage.com/hrefs.html - by Nathen Poole, ref: post#27)
• Kurtis Kraft........ ~699 (per "Genealogy of Speed" by Bill Montgomery, ref: post#28)
• Lightning........... ~15 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#24)
• Lister.............. ~57 (per "Archie and the Listers" by R.Edwards and "Powered by Jaguar" by D.Nye, ref: post#4)
• Lotus............... ~1238 (per Race-Cars.com by ?, ref: post#3)
• Macon............... ~40 (per Peter Alexander, ref:post#52)
• March............... ~1467 (per "The Story of March - Four Guys and a Telephone" by Mike Lawrence)
• McRae............... ~17 (per www.oldracingcars.com et al, ref:post#53)
• Melkus.............. ~85 (per www.melkus-sportwagen.de, ref:post#75)
• MG.................. ~146 (per "Maintaining the Breed - The Saga of MG Racing Cars" by John Thornley, ref: post#47)
• Miller.............. ~70 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#19)
• Mongoose............ ~10 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#19)
• MTX................. ~172 (per "Ceskoslovenske Formule" by Michel Velebny, ref: post#18)
• Nota................ ~300 (per Joe Bosworth, ref post#38)
• OTZ PZM............. ~82 (per Grzegorz Chyla, ref: post#15)
• Palliser-Winkelmann. ~150 (per www.pallisercars.com, ref: post#56)
• Johnny Pawl......... ~50 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#28)
• Ralt................ ~1051 (per "Brabham + Ralt + Honda - The Ron Tauranac Story" by Mike Lawrence)
• Royale.............. ~735 (per "Nowhere to Hide - The Story of Royale Racing Cars" by Paul Lawrence)
• George Shilala...... ~50 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#28)
• Shrike.............. ~15 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#19)
• Swift............... ~527 (per Swede917, ref: post#40)
• Tiga................ ~400 (per www.brdc.co.uk biography of Howden Ganley, ref: post#56)
• Titan............... ~400 (per www.titancars.com, ref: post#16)
• Tyrrell............. ~122 (per Ralt12, ref: post#34)
• Vanwall............. ~18 (per "Vanwall Green to Glory" by Ed McDonough, ref: post#25)
• Watson.............. ~45 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#19)
• Wildcat............. ~15 (per Michael Ferner, ref: post#19)

* still building new racecars!

The following additional constructors have been mentioned in this thread:
All-American Racers, Alpine, BRM, Dallara, DNC, Elfin, Elva, Ford, Gemini, GRD, Holmen & Moody, PRS, Jaguar, Lola, Mallock, Mclaren, Merlyn, Panoz, Reynard, Shelby American, Van Dieman.

Please help us add racecar constructors to this list! (And please cite sources of production information.)

Edited by BritishV8, 25 December 2012 - 08:02.

I've no numbers I can add. What would also be interesting would be a breakdown by model.

Adding up the Lotus open wheelers on this linked list turned up a number of a minimum of 1238, with all the caveats already mentioned this number is of course completely meaningless

I've dug out Archie and the Listers and Powered by Jaguar, combining the information and treating recycled identities as separate cars gives:

Lister-MG - 1
Lister-Bristol - 13
Lister-Rover - 1
Lister-Maserati - 1
Lister-Jaguar (flatiron or Gomm) - 3
Lister-Jaguar (knobbly) - 13
Lister-Jaguar (Costin) - 5
Lister-Jaguar (spaceframe/coupe) - 1
Lister-Chevrolet (knobbly) - 6
Lister-Chevrolet (Costin) - 8
Lister-Maserati (Costin) - 1
Lister miscellaneous (chassis only, engine unspecified etc) - 4

Total - 57 or so

As some cars had engine changes Bristol-Jaguar, Jaguar-Chevrolet, Maserati-Chevrolet and Chevrolet-Jaguar, the list is based on the engine originally installed or planne.

Ten-tenths have attempted to list chassis numbers and potted histories for a variety of cars, but I don't know how complete or well-moderated their lists are.

Edited by D-Type, 10 December 2012 - 16:25.

Ten-tenths have attempted to list chassis numbers and potted histories for a variety of cars, but I don't know how complete or well-moderated their lists are.

Moderated by (and populated by) Chris and myself until early 2009 when we withdrew. Since then, little of any structure has been added. Our work continues elsewhere.

How many racecar constructors can you add to this list? (Please cite sources.)

Estonia - 1353 (Tehnika, 1996, 6-7, table compiled by Margus Kuuse)

Kraco KR-1 Indy car, designed by engineer Don Halliday. Good looking, well turned-out car.

To my knowledge it ran only once in a test at Laguna Seca, probably sometime in the '80s. Pete Halsmer was the driver and my recollection is that it ran competitive times. I don't know if it still exists as it was an exercise commissioned by Kraco car accessory poobah Larry Kraines.

I may be the only one who has pics of it in action. Someday I'll dig the snaps out of my archives and post them in my flickr stuff.

There are pics of Kraco sponsored cars driven by Mike Moseley, Geoff Brabham, Kevin Cogan and Bobby Rahal in my Indy car set. Dick Ferguson also drove a Kraco sponsored car but I don't have any snaps of him uploaded yet.

http://www.flickr.co...81980@N03/sets/

Kraco KR-1 Indy car, designed by engineer Don Halliday. Good looking, well turned-out car.

To my knowledge it ran only once in a test at Laguna Seca, probably sometime in the '80s. Pete Halsmer was the driver and my recollection is that it ran competitive times. I don't know if it still exists as it was an exercise commissioned by Kraco car accessory poobah Larry Kraines.

It appears that it's been offered for sale recently:

http://www.motorspor..._Prototype.html

It appears that it's been offered for sale recently:

http://www.motorspor..._Prototype.html

Very informative little piece about the car. Not surprised by the story about Robin Herd selling Kraines on using Marches. There are lots of good reasons why we always lovingly referred to Robin as the "snake charmer".



Wish I had the time to get into my archives right away and dig out pics of the car in action.

Cool! I've edited the first post to bring the list to eight entries.

I had no idea Estonia built so many cars! I guess that's the sort of insight I hoped this thread might spread. I looked the company up and read a little more about their history. Not sure I understand the TARK connection though. Is it analogous to McLaren engineered/badged cars being built under license by Elva/Trojan?

Kraco KR-1 was a one-off prototype, right? Let's leave those alone for now, or else the list would be forever long.

What other marques can we add?

Edited by BritishV8, 11 December 2012 - 17:00.

Cool! I've edited the first post to bring the list to eight entries.

I had no idea Estonia built so many cars! I guess that's the sort of insight I hoped this thread might spread. I looked the company up and read a little more about their history. Not sure I understand the TARK connection though. Is it analogous to McLaren engineered/badged cars being built under license by Elva/Trojan?

Kraco KR-1 was a one-off prototype, right? Let's leave those alone for now, or else the list would be forever long.

What other marques can we add?

I don't have numbers but here are some marques that had reasonable production runs that you can add
from the UK
Reynard
Jaguar
Elva
Mclaren
Cooper
Crossle
Gemini
Ford (as in GT40 Mk1)
Lola
Mallock
Merlyn
Titan
Van Dieman

From thew rest of the world
Swift - USA
Ford via Shelby and H & M (as in GT40 Mk 2 and beyond) - USA
Dallara - Italy
Panoz - USA
The DP crowd - USA
Various NASCAR teams

I'm sure there are more that don't come to mind

Kraco KR-1 was a one-off prototype, right? Let's leave those alone for now, or else the list would be forever long.

What other marques can we add?

Before we do and since I'm not planning on going anywhere other than the Kilton GP in the next week or so, we should add Connew to the list, two monocoques but only one actual car used in both F1 AND F5000 I believe

I had no idea Estonia built so many cars! I guess that's the sort of insight I hoped this thread might spread. I looked the company up and read a little more about their history. Not sure I understand the TARK connection though. Is it analogous to McLaren engineered/badged cars being built under license by Elva/Trojan?

TARK was an Estonian acronym for Tallinn auto repair factory, which produced racing cars under the Estonia name in 1958-1989. In 1989, the department of racing cars became an independent small-scale enterprise named Kavor, which went on producing Estonias till 1996 and was finally closed down in 2002.

Speaking of small time operations how about Brawn GP, just three cars built and one, BGP 001/02, used by 2009 Champ Button in every race and practice session of the season, netting 8 wins between two cars one drivers championship and one constructors championship

Some racing cars were produced in Poland, by a small factory called OTZ PZM (Ośrodek Techniczno-Zaopatrzeniowy Polskiego Związku Motorowego - Technical and Supply Center of Polish Motoring Federation). First was produced in 1961 as Rak (crayfish), then Rak-Promot, finally Promot.
Last car was produced in 1986 with chassis number of 82. Source? Yours truly... and my source were observations, I also have about 30 kgs of entry forms from 1980s.

Also worth mentioning is Czech Metalex. I don't know exactly how many cars they made, but I know a car with chassis number 193.

Some of the marques have great registry websites. For example, Andy's website for Titan... http://www.titancars.com/

Andy breaks down their production numbers by type, explains type differences, and even correlates owners to serial numbers. Total production: almost exactly 400 cars.

The Lola Heritage folks apparently stopped counting cars when they got to 1000. Surely Lola produced two or three times that number, eh? Where would you go to get it?

Is this really the right thread to discuss outfits that built just one or two cars? When I wrote the first post I was thinking of commercial constructors.

BRP built five cars according to this article: http://www.britishra...DelBene-BRP.htm (three Formula One cars for their own use plus two Indy cars for outside sales.)

I wonder how many cars BRM built.

The Lola Heritage folks apparently stopped counting cars when they got to 1000. Surely Lola produced two or three times that number, eh? Where would you go to get it?

Some Lola info here but far from complete

Is this really the right thread to discuss outfits that built just one or two cars? When I wrote the first post I was thinking of commercial constructors.

Brawn GP turned and recorded a profit of £98 million allegedly, sounds pretty commercial to me

I wonder how many cars BRM built.

Over to Doug, if he ever gets BRM Vol 4 finished we might find out

For Czech Metalex (or MTX) I have to check Michal Velebny's book 'Ceskoslovenske Formule'
It goes:
1-01 35 pcs
1-02 24 pcs
1-03 53 pcs
1-04 1
1-05 10 pcs
1-06 40 pcs
1-06cx 2?
1-08 1 unfinished prototype
1-09/10 6 ?

That totals to 172, which seems to few to me, since I saw a 193 chassis number on one car.

Interesting thread idea! Of course, "definite" numbers will be hard to establish, with rebuilds of varying degrees of existing cars and usage of "leftovers" from obsolescent cars to build new ones muddying the waters. Also, some constructors would build specials for outside customers, like the Rebaque which was actually built by Penske, or the 1978 ATS built by March (from Penske parts!). I remember trying to "count" the total number of Formual 1 cars many years ago, but giving up for above reasons. Still, approximate figures will be interesting to juxtapose.

From my more recent US research, I can give the following numbers:

- Kurtis-Kraft: approx. 700 (if I can work up the energy to rise from my chair and pick up a couple of books, I may be able to give a more precise figure)
- Miller: approx. 70 (here the difficulty is mostly to decide whether to include a customer's special, since Miller sold a number of engines to outside special builders besides building a few complete customer specials in-house)
- Duesenberg: approx. 35 (same problem as with Miller)
- Watson: approx. 45 (even more problems, as Watson sold blue prints to other builders to build copies from)
- Shrike: approx. 15
- Mongoose: about ten
- Gerhardt: about 30 to 35
- Wildcat: about 15

Elfin Sports Cars, one touted as the largest manufacturer of racing cars in the Southern Hemisphere. There is several threads on here about the company.
No end of other Australian manufacturers both large and small, and both kit cars to complete cars.Again there is threads about these too.

When I first started racing in 1979 my mode of making a fool of myself was a DNC Mk6 - which suggests that there were at at least 5 before it





My Formula Ford PRS RH01 was, IIRC chassis 54. I think that was the last one built before the RH02.

Interesting thread idea! Of course, "definite" numbers will be hard to establish, with rebuilds of varying degrees of existing cars and usage of "leftovers" from obsolescent cars to build new ones muddying the waters. Also, some constructors would build specials for outside customers, like the Rebaque which was actually built by Penske, or the 1978 ATS built by March (from Penske parts!). I remember trying to "count" the total number of Formual 1 cars many years ago, but giving up for above reasons. Still, approximate figures will be interesting to juxtapose.

From my more recent US research, I can give the following numbers:

- Kurtis-Kraft: approx. 700 (if I can work up the energy to rise from my chair and pick up a couple of books, I may be able to give a more precise figure)
- Miller: approx. 70 (here the difficulty is mostly to decide whether to include a customer's special, since Miller sold a number of engines to outside special builders besides building a few complete customer specials in-house)
- Duesenberg: approx. 35 (same problem as with Miller)
- Watson: approx. 45 (even more problems, as Watson sold blue prints to other builders to build copies from)
- Shrike: approx. 15
- Mongoose: about ten
- Gerhardt: about 30 to 35
- Wildcat: about 15

Michael, any information about the Lightning, the house Lindsey Hopkins car of the late 1970s? I know there were quite a few that other teams were using from about 1977-79 or '80, but I don't know how many were just old cars that were originally run by the "factory," such as it was, and sold off.

Also somewhat surprised no one has mentioned All-American Racers/Eagle yet.

Michael, any information about the Lightning, the house Lindsey Hopkins car of the late 1970s? I know there were quite a few that other teams were using from about 1977-79 or '80, but I don't know how many were just old cars that were originally run by the "factory," such as it was, and sold off.

Lightning about fifteen, too.

From Vanwall Green for Glory by Ed McDonough

Counting chassis as Vanwall had a policy of dismantling the cars after each race and only having a maximum of 4 complete cars at any time

1954 Vanwall Special - 1
1955 (Cooper designed chassis) - 4
1956 (Chapman/Costin) - 4
1957 (Chapman/Costin) - 10 (but as these included many components from the 1956 cars you could say 6 new cars)
1958 - recycled 1957 cars
1959-60 (Lowline VW11) - 1
1960 (Lotus 18-based VW12) -1
1961 (rear engined VW14) - 1

Total number of chassis: 1+4+4+6+1+1+1 = 18

Speaking of small time operations how about Brawn GP, just three cars built and one, BGP 001/02, used by 2009 Champ Button in every race and practice session of the season, netting 8 wins between two cars one drivers championship and one constructors championship

It is quite extarordinary in 21st Century GP racing; a fact which I am sure the TNF ers of 2042 will endlessly agonise over. Good job that Ross Brawn didn't sign Roman Grosjean ...

The Hawke registry website has a summary of models and build totals here: http://www.vintagega....com/hrefs.html - Looks like ~186 cars for the popular models. There are gaps in the record for Super-Vees, Formula Atlantics, and the last year or two of Formula Fords. The same website has an owners registry page here: http://www.vintagega....com/hregs.html At that second link we can see that at least one DL5, three DL6s, eight DL17s, four DL19s, two DL20s, and 1 DL21 were produced. Grand total: ~205 cars.

- Kurtis-Kraft: approx. 700 (if I can work up the energy to rise from my chair and pick up a couple of books, I may be able to give a more precise figure)

Having now worked up the courage and energy to have a look at Bill Montgomery's "Genealogy of Speed", I can quote the number 699 which is Montgomery's chief estimate; however, that number is flawed in more ways than usual because it is based on sub-par calculating skills - his actual figure is 679! The book also mentions the number 688, an estimate by former Kurtis shop foreman George Shilala. The same book also gives estimates for the following constructors:

- George Shilala: ~50
- Johnny Pawl: ~50

A list of Elden production numbers is here... http://eldenracingca...cars/4525782368

Edited by Cirrus, 12 December 2012 - 16:40.

Van Diemen reached the 1000 chassis mark around 1985 and they probably built a few hundred more after that.

Indeed, when I owned a Van Diemen RF89 it was chassis no 1400.....

Indeed, when I owned a Van Diemen RF89 it was chassis no 1400.....

That's interesting. Chassis 1002 was an RF85, so if your RF89 was 1400 they were still building around 100 cars a year. Although FF1600 was still popular, there wasn't the volume of earlier years. I wonder where all these cars have gone?

How about Crossle Cars in N. Ireland? Started 1957 and still going strong

Edited by bill p, 12 December 2012 - 21:06.

Around 122 Tyrrells between 1971 and 1998, depending on how the 020/020B/020C cars are counted.

Kraco KR-1 Indy car, designed by engineer Don Halliday. Good looking, well turned-out car.

To my knowledge it ran only once in a test at Laguna Seca, probably sometime in the '80s. Pete Halsmer was the driver and my recollection is that it ran competitive times. I don't know if it still exists as it was an exercise commissioned by Kraco car accessory poobah Larry Kraines.

It appears that it's been offered for sale recently:

http://www.motorspor..._Prototype.html

Very informative little piece about the car. Not surprised by the story about Robin Herd selling Kraines on using Marches. There are lots of good reasons why we always lovingly referred to Robin as the "snake charmer".

Marc, I wonder just how committed the Kraco team was to this car, since it already had run Marches for three years before working this up. Maybe the team just said, "Ah, why bother when we can buy something we're pretty familiar with?"

As for other Kraco drivers, I seem to recall Ferguson in a Kraco Penske PC-7 or PC-9 around 1981 or '82. Before that, the CART yearbook for 1980 has a photo and blurb on Larry Cannon in a Kraco Wildcat-Offy (not the shovel-nose one, but one of the ones with side radiators -- from 1975?)

Sorry about hijacking the thread, hopefully just temporarily.

Edited by racinggeek, 12 December 2012 - 22:08.

That's interesting. Chassis 1002 was an RF85, so if your RF89 was 1400 they were still building around 100 cars a year. Although FF1600 was still popular, there wasn't the volume of earlier years. I wonder where all these cars have gone?

Just a vague recollection: wasn't there a report at some stage of Van Diemen actually pipping Lola's tally before they stopped?

How about Crossle Cars in N. Ireland? Started 1957 and still going strong

Just spoke to Paul McMorran, the new "custodian" of the Crossle Car Co. - approx. 920 cars built to date

Australia's Nota Engineering.

About 300 cars in over 55 years.

Almost all saw or have seen competition use.

Does anyone have a good count for the number of Cooper's that father and son built?

Regards

Joe

Edited by Joe Bosworth, 13 December 2012 - 12:41.

I put an asterisk next to Crosslé to note that they're still going.

Shall I do the same for Nota Engineering? Their website's "future" page is blank and its "current" page only shows a 2001 model (but very retro) thingy with cycle fenders...

Please keep talking about Van Diemen... surely someone on TNF can provide a more precise build number.

Edited by BritishV8, 13 December 2012 - 16:35.

You can put Swift USA down for 527 cars. Of course there were many more spare chassis made, this is complete car totals.

DB-1 Formula Ford 132
DB-2 Sports 2000 32
DB-3 Formula Ford 2000 16
DB-4 Formula Atlantic 88
DB-3/89 Formula Ford 2000 8
DB-5 Sports 2000 25
DB-6 Formula Ford 2000 30
007.i Indy Car 7
008.a Formula Atlantic 53
009.c Champ Car 9
010.c Champ Car 15
011.c Champ Car 3
014.a Formula Atlantic 41
016.a Formula Atlantic 44
017.n Formula Nippon 24

It is quite extarordinary in 21st Century GP racing; a fact which I am sure the TNF ers of 2042 will endlessly agonise over. Good job that Ross Brawn didn't sign Roman Grosjean ...

There's something else extraordinary about one of the chassis in particular. It was built as a Honda, raced as a Brawn and spent its final official public appearance as a Mercedes at the teams official launch (which was prior to the launch of the real 2010 car)

Regards Mike

Marc, I wonder just how committed the Kraco team was to this car, since it already had run Marches for three years before working this up. Maybe the team just said, "Ah, why bother when we can buy something we're pretty familiar with?"

As for other Kraco drivers, I seem to recall Ferguson in a Kraco Penske PC-7 or PC-9 around 1981 or '82. Before that, the CART yearbook for 1980 has a photo and blurb on Larry Cannon in a Kraco Wildcat-Offy (not the shovel-nose one, but one of the ones with side radiators -- from 1975?)

Sorry about hijacking the thread, hopefully just temporarily.

Simplistic but plausible response is that Kraines was not the kind of team owner like a Penske or Haas. I'm sure Robin Herd put on plenty of pressure too so the easier path was to go with customer cars from March.

Not a bad choice but it did keep the racing world from seeing just how good the car was that Halliday designed.

You can put Swift USA down for 527 cars. Of course there were many more spare chassis made, this is complete car totals.

DB-1 Formula Ford 132
DB-2 Sports 2000 32
DB-3 Formula Ford 2000 16
DB-4 Formula Atlantic 88
DB-3/89 Formula Ford 2000 8
DB-5 Sports 2000 25
DB-6 Formula Ford 2000 30
007.i Indy Car 7
008.a Formula Atlantic 53
009.c Champ Car 9
010.c Champ Car 15
011.c Champ Car 3
014.a Formula Atlantic 41
016.a Formula Atlantic 44
017.n Formula Nippon 24

What;s your source for these?

It is exceedingly difficult to calculate how many cars most constructors turned out. In the 1990s Reynard for example would sell not only full cars but also spare tubs and suspensions, gearboxes, bodywork etc. I owned a Reynard 903 which was constructed from the spares sold to a single race team. It didn't have a chassis number but did have a tub number.

I suppose it like the old adage about ERAs that suggests more cars survived than were ever built!

No numbers, sorry, but off the top of my head:
Autodynamics
Autoresearch (David Brun-designed, same as ADF?)
Caldwell
Chaparral
Cheetah
Cobra
Dulon
Ferrari
Frisbee
Leda
Mckee
McRae
Prophet
Riley & Scott
Scarab
Schkee
Spice
Truesports
Tiga
Winkleman
Zink

Edited by E1pix, 14 December 2012 - 09:43.

It is exceedingly difficult to calculate how many cars most constructors turned out. In the 1990s Reynard for example

I'd be very pleased to see an estimate of Reynard's production to within a hundred cars or so. Surely someone on TNF is familiar enough to give us such an estimate... and when they post it there's plenty of room to include disclaimers.

There can be no dispute that MG is the most historically important marque in the history of racing. Right? MG's post-war T-series was the basis of club racing in the colonies. In U.S.A, our "Sports Car Club of America" started as a branch of the MG Car Club. However, most of the MG's production models were initially designed for transportation on public roads. "Sports cars" have been re-fashioned into racecars countless times. Countless indeed!

John Thornley, who led MG for so many years wrote a fantastic book entitled "Maintaining the Breed: The Saga of MG Racing Cars". (Highly recommended.) Thornley started his book with a family-tree diagram of MG models (with racing-specific models in bold print) and in the first appendix he elaborated on the list (with models marked "S" or "R" respectively.) However, he didn't go so far as to include production numbers.

So this morning I took John Thornley's list and added production numbers from (mainly) the websites of the two main MG car clubs. Note: "EX" indicates experimental cars... which in MG parlance generally means one-offs for company use.

MkIII (a.k.a. "Tigress") - 5 cars
C-type (a.k.a. "Montlhery Midget") - 44 cars
M12/12 (a.k.a. "Double 12 Midget") - 25 cars
EX120 - 1 car
EX127 - 1 car
J4 Midget - 9 cars
K3 Magnette - 33 cars
EX135 - 1 car
NE Magnette - 6 cars
Q-type Midget - 8 cars
R-type(!) - 10 cars
EX179 - 1 car

to which I propose to add two cars produced after the 1st edition of the book was published:
EX181 - 1 car (the land speed record car)
EX186 - 1 car (Le Mans racecar, special aero body, DeDion rear, Twin-cam engine, tested but never raced)

-------
146 purpose-designed, purpose-built racecars

Fiat: ~75 cars (from http://www.zuckerfab...ten_corsa27.htm)

Edited by Michael Ferner, 14 December 2012 - 19:36.

Fiat didn't build a racecar after 1927? Can that be right? I know next to nothing about Italian racecars, but I expected to see a lot bigger number for Fiat. I thought Fiat was still a player through the thirties, so I pulled up a few season summaries. The last Fiat I found credited with winning a Grand Prix was Riccardo Carú's victory at Rio in 1935. (Interestingly, MG driver Eddie Hertzberger is credited with a Grand Prix victory at Chimay in 1936!)

Carú's Fiat was not a factory-built GP car

Hertzberger's Chimay-winning car was an MG...