Andrew, interesting post for me personally in 2 respects.

The reference to the Portobello Inn reminded me of when as a youngster in the late 60s, before being old enough to have a driving licence (or even at that time oddly any interest in the nectar that the establishment apparently distributed), I was lucky enough to stay there over a couple of bank holiday weekends and walk down to a couple of meetings starring the F-3 and BSCC guys. Unfortunately my slides from those days are currently in storage and I have no access to a scanner. I presume the Portobello is still in business?

And having many fond memories of much saloon car racing from the late 60s and later periods, especially at Brands, many names spring to mind but especially the 'X0034xF' series of Escorts, the phrase 'Run Baby Run' and for some reason the exotically named local Zekia (of Cypriot origin as I recall). I haven't seen him referenced in years and of course I was about to introduce his name to the topic when I saw you had got in first. Only on TNF, of course.

Golden days and thanks one and all for the wonderful photographic reminiscences.

Andrew, interesting post for me personally in 2 respects.

The reference to the Portobello Inn reminded me of when as a youngster in the late 60s, before being old enough to have a driving licence (or even at that time oddly any interest in the nectar that the establishment apparently distributed), I was lucky enough to stay there over a couple of bank holiday weekends and walk down to a couple of meetings starring the F-3 and BSCC guys. Unfortunately my slides from those days are currently in storage and I have no access to a scanner. I presume the Portobello is still in business?

And having many fond memories of much saloon car racing from the late 60s and later periods, especially at Brands, many names spring to mind but especially the 'X0034xF' series of Escorts, the phrase 'Run Baby Run' and for some reason the exotically named local Zekia (of Cypriot origin as I recall). I haven't seen him referenced in years and of course I was about to introduce his name to the topic when I saw you had got in first. Only on TNF, of course.

Golden days and thanks one and all for the wonderful photographic reminiscences.

Terry Sanger's Camaro at Crystal Palace

The 'Gardner' Escort in the pic XOO 341F, isn't. That's a Broadspeed car driven by Chris Craft, so i'm told. It's sister car was driven by John Fitzpatrick. Trofeu make a die cast of it. As far as i'm aware Alan Mann only had two Escorts, the famous one XOO349F and it's sister XOO344F. The Zekia mentioned, I hope that's right, I believe was a Cypriot from South London and was a regular on the saloon car circuit. He ran his cars under the name D Redjep's Garage. I saw him countless times at Brands back then. Great to read your memories of those great days. Pure nostalgia.

I notice no mention of Brian Robinson from Newcastle who used to race Lotus Cortina's way back in the early to mid 60's with Tony Dean.
He was very quick (still is today)
In the early 70's I worked for Brian & he decided to try Saloon racing again with a group 1 3.0 Litre Capri which I built from scratch for him, using the 1300 capri bodyshell as it was lighter than the 3.0 Litre We had it acid dipped to make it even lighter & welded in strenghtening plates where we thought it might need it, of course this made it under weight so Brian always used to drive to the track in a road going Capri & if we saw the scrutineers weighing the Bonnett's or Tailgates with some spring scales we used to swap over these off the road car all highly illegal of course but everybody else was doing it in those days, we got up to all sorts of tricks to bend the rules a little I have a lovely picture of the car at the Spar 24 hour race, but I'm sorry to say my computer skills are not that good to put it on here. Sadly at that race it got written off at about 12-30 that night by the co driver who got caught out by the rain that was on the other side of the circuit when we were in 6th place going very well,( a problem that has caught out many professional drivers in the past at Spa) We never rebuilt it & it got sold off in bits

Thanks Phil Bradford (jagracer)

It must be 1977 according to my information (which means I must have seen the car in action!), codrivers were Stuart Patterson and Holman Blackburn.

I first saw this racing against NGH and Jacky Ickx a longtime ago, I was amazed to see it at Crystal Palace, it looked fabulous !

Some snaps from 1976.

Unusual to see Nick Whiting in anything other than a Ford Escort

Is the Camaro the ex-Gardner/SCA car that Graham used in Superloons that year, Alan?

... giving comentators everwhere the line " first man to win TT on 2 & 4 wheels"

... giving comentators everwhere the line " first man to win TT on 2 & 4 wheels"

Whereas they should have said the third

Is the Camaro the ex-Gardner/SCA car that Graham used in Superloons that year, Alan?

Dont recall Stuart Graham ever having the Gardner SCA car. He did however build a a Coupe L' Avenir spec car (Group 1 1/2) for the 75 TT which he won single handed,

Interesting photos of the Camaro at Oulton. You are right it is 1976, and the car is the ex-Frank Gardner SCA Freight Camaro which we bought from Adrian Chambers who ran it for Frank. We did as you say run it in the Supersaloon series for a few events, but despite the 7 litre alloy motor etc. it was still too heavy to beat the much lighter and nimbler special Escorts etc. run by Nick Whiting and others. We subsequently sold the car to Rob Slotemaker in Holland who ran it for a couple of years, before he was killed. Unfortunately do not know what happened to the car - it would be highly valued now with its Gardner history etc.

During the same season we rebuilt and ran the '75 TT car to the new Group 2/5 spec in the ETC including Spa 24 hrs and Kyalami (finishing 3rd) with Reine Wisell, and also the TT, after which it was also sold to a guy in Scotland, and has also sadly disappeared, although there are always occasional rumours of a Brut 33 car being found.

Anyway a bit of history, and many thanks for photos

Kindest regards, Stuart.