Who built how many?

This thread is relatively promising, except it is missing some ingredients.

Unless I am mistaken, nobody has mentioned GRD (ostensibly the follow-on to Lotus Components in that the principals all left Chapman and set up on their own). There are other absentees e.g. Ensign, Modus Argo, etc., etc.

(Sorry for the edit - new laptop and not used to the smaller keyboard).

Edited by MCS, 14 December 2012 - 21:14.

Macon Race Cars was a constructor of Formula Fords. They also produced some Formula B and Formula Two cars. Rights to the marque name belong to Peter Alexander (d.b.a. PA Motorsports) who supplies spare parts. Alexander puts the total number of Macon racecars produced at ~40 cars.

articles here:
http://www.warm.org..../macon-history/
http://www.britishra...y-Macon-MR7.htm

McRae Cars Ltd:

GM1 (Formula 5000) - 14 cars
GM2 (Formula 5000) - 1 car
GM3 (Formula 5000) - 1 car
GM5 (Can-Am) - 1 car*
GM9 (Can-Am) - 1 car*
---
~17 cars

* I believe the GM5 is actually the GM3 with single-seat Can-Am body fitted. Was GM9 the same chassis again but with a more advanced, ground effects body?

ref:
http://www.oldracing...om/f5000/mcrae/
http://www.racingspo.../McRae/GM5.html
http://www.britishra...l-McRae-GM1.htm

What about Ginetta and Radical? Both are churning out race cars as fast as they can these days for their many one make series around the world.

This is a massive task surely?
Connaught springs to mind and I recall seeing a 'Syracuse' under a dust sheet in the corner of a workshop a few years ago, the identity given away by a glipse of a Dunlop wheel not covered by the sheet. When I enquired which car it was, I was told that it was number 7 of the 6 produced by the factory!
Good luck.
Tony

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

About 150 Palliser-Winkelmanns were produced (www.pallisercars.com) for Formula Atlantic, FF, FB, FSV, F3 & Hillclimbing.

Approximately 400 Tigas were produced for a very large array of classes, FF, Formula Atlantic, WEC (Group C1 & C2), Sports2000, IMSA GT (GTP & Camel Light), etc., etc., plus about another 400 in spare parts.

This is a massive task surely?

We're up to 36 marques already! I think the list could easily be expanded to over a hundred. The list will never list all marques, but I think it's still an interesting project.

========================

Great news today for the Lola marque! In all the press reports and announcements, surely someone will try to put a number on that glorious company's total production. IF YOU SEE A PRODUCTION ESTIMATE FOR LOLA, PLEASE POST HERE.

Edited by BritishV8, 18 December 2012 - 02:52.

According to the info I could find, this is the McRae GM-1.

http://www.flickr.co...157626135973193

I should have some images of the Can Am car when it ran at Mosport all those years ago. A lasting memory of that car is that it was "porposing" in a serious manner as it went down the front straight. Not a pretty sight.

Don't hold your breath waiting for images of the Can Am car as there are a lot of more important images to deal with first.

Edited by Marc Sproule, 18 December 2012 - 04:47.

According to the info I could find, this is the McRae GM-1.

It's the GM3, Marc, not a GM1.

http://www.oldracing...php?RaceID=L76G

Connaught springs to mind and I recall seeing a 'Syracuse' under a dust sheet in the corner of a workshop a few years ago, the identity given away by a glipse of a Dunlop wheel not covered by the sheet. When I enquired which car it was, I was told that it was number 7 of the 6 produced by the factory!

I can't offer more than a quick comment that B7 was one of the cars in the Connaught sale, the catalogue of which is an appendix in Johnny Johnson's book. B2, B3, B5 & B6 were also listed in that sale as was B4 (pencilled in the catalogue) and B1 certainly existed. Identities got confused later, but so what?

I can't offer more than a quick comment that B7 was one of the cars in the Connaught sale, the catalogue of which is an appendix in Johnny Johnson's book. B2, B3, B5 & B6 were also listed in that sale as was B4 (pencilled in the catalogue) and B1 certainly existed. Identities got confused later, but so what?

B7 was the last car built by the factory and was bought by Bernie Ecclestone at the closing down auction (along with B3) eventually it ended up with Paul Morgan of Ilmor who displayed it at Donington and now belongs to his son & daughter and Bernie now has the car built from the remains of B1 (the burnt chassis was also sold at the closing auction).
The later cars are:
B8 built by Stephen Langton on a replica chassis and belongs to Josh Sadler.
B9 is our car built on a chassis that was sold at the closing auction to Dudley Gahagan and completed with original bits from the Langtons.
B10 has been built up over many years by Spencer Longland and Roger Hart on a Langton replica chassis.
These are the numbers allocated to them by Duncan Rabagliati.

Strangely the one-off C-type was numbered C8 when C1 would have made more sense.

Does the seven cars being discussed represent all Connaught racecars or a subset? Their Formula One cars only? Obviously Connaught built full-tilt racecars. They also built some street cars, for a combined production of ~27 according to the book Standard Guide to British Sports Cars by Johnny Johnson.

You might be able to read relevant page here: (page 60)
http://books.google....h...p;q&f=false

The third-to-last paragraph on the page starts: "The Connaught sports/racing car debuted at the Silverstone racecourse in June 1949. The first road going model appeared the following year."

Does the seven cars being discussed represent all Connaught racecars or a subset? Their Formula One cars only? Obviously Connaught built full-tilt racecars. They also built some street cars, for a combined production of ~27 according to the book Standard Guide to British Sports Cars by Johnny Johnson.

You might be able to read relevant page here: (page 60)
http://books.google....h...p;q&f=false

The third-to-last paragraph on the page starts: "The Connaught sports/racing car debuted at the Silverstone racecourse in June 1949. The first road going model appeared the following year."

There were 7 x B-type F1 cars plus the 1 x C-type F1 car.
Prior to that they built the A type F2 cars of which there were at least 10
There were 2 x ALSR sports cars based on the F2 car.
And the earlier L-type sports cars.

Cool. Sounds like "~20" to me. Okay?

What marque comes next?

What marque comes next?

It's been mentioned already, but what about Mallock. There must be hundreds of U2's out there. Mainly Clubmans, with the odd Formula Ford and F3, but always front engined.

To quote Doug Nye in Cooper Cars

Surviving factory records of cars built1946-1969 are fragmentary and incomplete, but here we reproduce basic data from them, starting with the 1951 Mark Vs

Here are his figures (single seaters only):

1951 T15 Production 500 - 52
1951 T16 Stretch chassis 1000 - 8
1957 T42 500 F3 Mark XI - 19
1957 T43 Production F2-Climax Mark II - 31
1958 T42 500 F3 Mark XII - 12
1958 T45 Production F2-Climax Mark III - 23
1959 T42 500 F3 Mark XIII - 4
1959 T51 Production F1/F2 Mark IV - 28
1960 T52 Formula Junior Mark I - 17
1960 T51 Production F1/F2 Mark VI - 15
1960 T53 Works 'Lowline' - 2
1961 T53 Production F1 - 19
1961 T56 Formula Junior Mark II - 22
1962 T59 Formula Junior Mark III - 28
1963 T63 F1 - 6
1963 T65 Formula Junior Mk IV - 15
1963 T 70 Formula Libre (Tasman) - 2
1964 T69 F1 - 3
1964 T71 F2 - 3
1964 T72 F3 - 20
1964 T79 Formula Libre (Tasman) - 1
1964 T72 F3 (ex Tyrrell) - 2
1964 T77 F1 - 2
1965 T75 F2 - 8
1965 T76 F3 - 20
1966 T81 F1 - 7
1966 T82 F2 - 2
1966 T83 F3 - 7
1967 T81B F1 - 1
1967 T85 F3 - 2

In the text he gives some more figures:

1946 T1 Prototype Cooper-JAP Mark 1 - 1
1947 T3 500 Mark 1 F3 Eric Brandon - 1
1948 T5 Production 500 Mark II - 12
1949 T7 Production 500 Mark III - 17+
1949 T9 Stretch chassis for 1000 twins - included with T7
1950 T11 Production 500 Mark IV - ? As he says "By the end of the season Cooper had produced around 100 single seaters" this is probably about 40
1951 T17 Streamlined record car - 1
1952 T18 Production 500 Mark V - ? 40 assumed as for 1951
1952 T19 Production Stretch Mark VI - included with T18
1952 T20 Cooper-Bristol F2 Mark I - 8
1953 T23 Cooper-Bristol F2 Mark II - 14
1953 T24 Cooper-Alta F2 - 2
1953 T26 Production 500 Mark VII - ?
1953 T27 Stretch Mark VII - ?
1953 T28 Mark VIII ® Record car – 1

The 500 Owners Association Website state that approximately 320 Cooper 500s were built

Combining this figure with Doug Nye's figures for Bristol, Alta, Climax and Maserati engined cars gives a total of 590 Cooper single seaters
- in round figures 600.

Edited by D-Type, 18 December 2012 - 22:22.

Some of us are currently excising ourselves about early Cooper numbers, not least about exactly what (and when ) constitutes each Mark No. But there are some numbers that would appear to be better than Duncan gives, and increase quantities.

1948: I am aware of chassis plates as high as 20 (including high teens). Early 1949 reports suggest two batches of a dozen each were built (some doubts on that, though), so let's say c.20
1949: (T7 & T9). Again, plates go to 33 (several Australian chassis up there. This broadly tallies with the number of cars we see around and about.
1950: (T11 & T12). Last plate seems to be 55 (actually the prototype Mk V), with Australian chassis up to 54.
So about 107, plus two prototypes = 109 official plates for 500s and 500-style cars to the end of 1950. As an aside, it seems to me that factory exports all seem to have plates (perhaps because it was easily traceable?), but there are myths and legends about innumerable 'midnight deliveries' to avoid purchase tax, and there were certainly some builds that either never got plates, or got them late. It explicitly excludes upgrades, where most cars were magically Mk IVs by the time they were advertised for sale.

1951: I haven't seen anything to suggest the official 60-odd is too far wrong (although there seem to be quite a lot more than the eight stretch chassis running in 100cc format)
1952: My records aren't good enough, but this was a major redesign and a lot of drivers upgraded. 40-50 feels about right though.
1953: Ditto, but as this was a very small performance upgrade, sales seem to be much lower. Perhaps 30 worldwide, excluding a number of chassis that were upgraded from Mk VI
So a ballpark of 130-140 for the three 'mid-period' chassis types.

1954: Chassis plates run to the 40, but I believe there were a lot more - a lot of British racers upgraded for 1954 and a healthy number are seen on the hills (1100s) and across Europe. Guess 50+
1955: Also very popular, this time particularly for exports. Most leading British racers upgraded, and a lot of cars went to America, the Antipodes, etc. Guess 40-50
1956: Sales slowed a bit, but British sales remained strong. Perhaps up to 40 at a stretch.
1957 - 1959: Sales slow quickly as interest is waning and stocks of old Mk VIII-X are good. I've seen nothing to stretch the official records of 19/6/4.
So c.160-170 of the later chassis. However it's notable how few chassis plates or records survive from the busy 1954-56 years. It is possible that chassis upgrades (theoretically difficult) were more common than estimated.

All that gives a slightly higher 'officially declared for tax purposes' figure of a bit over 400 500-style cars, including various specials and the cars built as 1100s. You can then start arguing about ghost chassis, duplicate plates, and faithful replicas, but that should only be tackled with a pint to hand...

Those are my estimates, but I'd welcome any criticism or better evidence.

I bow to superior knowledge. 400 rather than 320 increses 590 to 670. Allowing for, shall we say, omissions does that make the total in round figures - 700

It's been mentioned already, but what about Mallock. There must be hundreds of U2's out there. Mainly Clubmans, with the odd Formula Ford and F3, but always front engined.

Apart from the few rear-engined cars, that is. I'm a bit out of touch these days, but Mks 32 and 34?

Cool. I've updated the Cooper estimate. I also edited the first post to include a list of nineteen other constructors mentioned in this thread. Can we fill in production numbers for these firms to take the grand total from 38 to 57?

I think if you're serious about compiling such a list, you need to define "racecar"

Even if limited to single-seaters the total of makes will be in the hundreds

racecar: a car built specifically for racing.

I wouldn't restrict the list to single seaters. Can-Am cars for example were certainly purpose-built for racing. On the other hand, I don't believe we should include cars that were originally designed/built for public roads and then converted into racecars.

There may be 10,000 MGB racecars in the world - I love them as much as anyone - but for the purposes of this thread I probably wouldn't include any of them here - probably not even for example the "long-nose" MGBs specially styled by the works for Le Mans (one of which won the "Best British Car" trophy at Le Mans in 1964.)

From 2003 through 2008 the MG brand was once again seen at Le Mans. However, those "MG" cars were actually designed and built under contract by Lola. Lola gets credit as the constructor.

MG built at least one or two racecars for other marques. After the success of the EX181 streamliner (which Stirling Moss and Phil Hill drove to multiple speed records), in 1959 MG was commissioned to design and build a speed record car for the Austin-Healey division. The words "Austin Healey Sprite" were painted on the side of the EX219 streamliner, but it was 99% percent MG. In post 47 I estimated MG's production of purpose built racecars at 146. Let's raise that to 147!

Total number of makes in the hundreds... Would that be a bad thing?

Edited by BritishV8, 20 December 2012 - 17:54.

What;s your source for these?

Let's just say I have some inside information..........

Way back in post #3, Art Tidesco suggested a number of Lotus. IMHO, the number is too low because Art added up Lotus open-wheelers. The Lotus Eleven is an interesting case-study because it was designed to be racecar but was also offered in a street version. I think we should count "Le Mans" and "Club" Elevens as racecars and leave out the "Sports" variant even though some Eleven Sports were ultimately raced. The Lotus 15 and 19 model cars should all be counted as racecars, right?

Worth mentioning is Melkus from GDR.
see:
http://www.melkus-sp...ticles/182.html

If I count correctly it totals to 82 open wheel single-seaters, 3 spider/prototype and 101 road cars RS1000. Many of the RS1000s participated in races, but I can't tell exactly how many.

Hertzberger's Chimay-winning car was an MG...
[/quote]

Yes, K3031

JH

Worth mentioning is Melkus from GDR.

Yes! Thank you. I'd never heard of Melkus before...

Hertzberger's Chimay-winning car was an MG... K3031

Way cool.

Way back in post #3, Art Tidesco suggested a number of Lotus. IMHO, the number is too low because Art added up Lotus open-wheelers. The Lotus Eleven is an interesting case-study because it was designed to be racecar but was also offered in a street version. I think we should count "Le Mans" and "Club" Elevens as racecars and leave out the "Sports" variant even though some Eleven Sports were ultimately raced. The Lotus 15 and 19 model cars should all be counted as racecars, right?

Is this opening a can of worms?

For example Cooper made the Bobtail and all the versions of the Monaco. Chevron, Crosley, MG and many of the other manufacturers also made sports racers. In the case of Lotus, should the Elite (Lotus 14) be considered? It was designed as a competition car that you could also use on the road while the Elan was designed as a road car (apart from the 26R) the Renault powered Europa was intended as a road car while the Ford version was intended for racing, etc.

Better to restrict the nuimbers to open wheel cars as it's far more clear cut.

Better to restrict the nuimbers to open wheel cars as it's far more clear cut.

WHAT!!!!, and close a perfectly good can of worms?

WHAT!!!!, and close a perfectly good can of worms?

Even if the can includes a couple of Gipsland earthworms ?

And let's not forget Alpine, very successful in so many categories & formulae both before and after the Renault takeover

Even if the can includes a couple of Gipsland earthworms ?

Required for catching these:- http://en.wikipedia....Murray_cod#Size

And I always associated LARGE with Texas (even after I found out that a 10-gallon hat only holds 2 gallons)

Doug Nye estimates that at least 30 Bobtail Coopers were produced - probably nearer 50
Chassis records show
1959 - 8 Monaco Mk 1s
1960 - 2 Monaco Mk 2s
1961 - 3 Monaco Mk 3s
1962 - 5 Monaco Mk4s
1963 - 6 Monaco Type 61M
1964 - 6 Monaco Type 61M

Which adds 60 to 80 to the Cooper total making it 730 to 750 plus the ones we don't know about. Let's call it 750+

Edited by D-Type, 21 December 2012 - 00:00.

Élan Motorsport Technologies provides a summary of their production on their website, here:
http://vandiemen.co....o...1&Itemid=54

Abruzzi
PANOZ LMP-1
INDY Cars – 12 cars built
SCCA Single seater and Sports Racer chassis contract - 135 cars built to date.
Star Mazda Single seater - 110 cars built to date
IMSA LITES Sports Racer - 45 cars built to date
Champ Car World Series - 35 cars built
Superleague Series - 21 cars built
F2000 - 10 cars built

Abruzzi was a road car.

LMP-1 was a racecar produced in two versions ("LMP-1 Roadster-S" and "LMP01 Evos") - ~8 cars built.

Summing up the numbers above - ~376 cars built to date

As I understand it, some of the cars within this tally were branded "Van Diemen" at time of production and others were branded "G-Force" - but Van Diemen and G-Force were distinctly different marques which fell into insolvency and were acquired by Élan. The numbers here reflect cars built in U.S.A. by Élan employees, versus cars built in U.K. by employees of the older marques. Right? I came across this information while trying to pin down a number for the original Van Diemen company, which produced several thousand Formula Fords back in the day.