Nice one Alan ! There was a time before the M20 that you fely isolated from the busy world, but within sight of the M20, this never happens now. We used to start rallies at Lenham and Harrietsham in the dead of night, now there is the Chunnel rail link and the resultant bridges and the M20.......such is progress

A worthy climb, indeed. That is one fine car, McLaren's last Can-Ammer of course and their best-looking IMHO.

I inadvertently videotaped it getting crashed at a vintage event at Road America in 2002, now that was sad! I understand the tub was sent back to Kiwiland to be rebuilt by some of the original guys.

Here is an intersting photo that I took at Silverstone I guess about 1962 or 3.

The Elite looks quite special with le Mans running lights and a smoochy nose treatment etc.

They did not do that sort of thing for fun or for effect back then, so I suspect it was a proper endurance racer.

All I can recall to help date it was that we drove there in my S1 Seven to see a (I think) F2 race with many famous drivers taking part.
Graham Hill was definitely there.

The main race was exceedingly boring so we spent a lot of time mooching around the paddock, where I saw this car and fell in love.

Nearly 50 years later and I am at last fortunate enough to own and race an Elite.

I wish I had paid more attention at the time !

The brick wall behind was the back of the old pits.

Anyone got any ideas?

Almost certainly the 1964 class winning car of Hunt and Wagstaff - the side repeaters, "Le Mans" rear wheel clearance mods, smaller number circle, window cut out all are an exact match - so maybe a little later than 62/63 unless a late season 63 test run out?

The same car, taken by Tim Blackburn at, I think, Silverstone. No details as to date, I'm afraid.

I'm strongly inclined to agree with Simon, although anything to do with the affairs of Team Elite is somewhat complex.

Ortenburger's Elite bible shows Wagtsaff/Fergusson's LM car in 63 with normal-sized intake, separate oil-cooler intake and vestigal metal bumper with indicators below the side-lights; however he shows the 64 car as we see it above, with the exception of the "small-mouth" moulding, i.e. it had normal intake, no bumpers and no indicators and also it looks like the hole was not in the window when the shot was taken (I don't know if the side windows were fixed, or removable, on Team Elite cars).

Presumably the small-mouth moulding was just used when required, depending on temperature/circuit/qualifying, etc? It was around in 62 on the Team Elite Hobbs/Gardner Mechamatic-box car, so had been available for a while; see Ortenburger photo-captions.

The width of the green stripes on these cars seems to have varied, as did the rough and ready treatment of the rear arches, ("pass the grinder, mate, I'll sort yer out").

Super photos, yet again.

Photo Opp near pit entry, Long Beach, 1985:




Perhaps you know some of these shooters?

Is That Danny Sullivan giving Al Jr a touch up . Emerson Fittipaldi in the blue overalls,The guy in white suit unknown.

Yes, and Raul Boesel between them.

Who the photographers are, not sure.

The sequence is not quite complete: Emmo only shows his face in a frame at the end of the roll, included as a single by the processor. I'll attempt to find a way to scan it.

Great Stuff, Frank!

As you know they say here Out West, I'll be sheep dipped... seeing only a piece of him in the earlier shot, I thought that was Raul Boesel between Sullivan and Unser, Jr.

WRONG, it's Bruno Giacomelli!

I had forgotten about Bruno "Jack O Malley".....The Irish Italian driver.

Riverside, April 1985 IMSA go-round.



Young man is seated below a refueling rig at the pit wall.

"It wouldn't dare explode". - General Curtis LeMay's aide.

Riverside:

Rick Knoop

Long Beach:











I don't know who are the out-of-focus guys are.

The second-from-bottom driver looks like Dennis Firestone to me.

[Edit: Been thinking of the bottom driver since my post, he is familiar looking. Best guess, digging deep, is Mike Nish]

Next to last snap is Dennis Firestone/

For some reason the out-of-focus guys reminded me of this thread:

Rugs

BMC J-type- I think.



Best not to be in a hurry.

At first I thought it was a Paralanian conversion, but the Glos reg suggests Cotswold Campers as the manufacturer. I bet every mile was a long mile.
Roger Lund

Smiley Riley's?

I believe so.

How's this for a bit of fun?
Setting is the one-off Liverpool Pageant of Power; I'm riding shotgun in the Bentley Motors-owned Birkin team blower, one of the Speed Eights, and Chris Williams in the Bentley-Napier.



Edit- a short time later; at this point we were slightly nervous because Chris was due to be "released" just after us!

Damn, that's too cool... and an F5000 car in boot to boot.

Gotta wonder its hill angle limits... 1 degree? 3? 5? (if downhill?)

Dang, you get all the fun.

The trailer would weight as much as the McLaren F5000. Only in England would see think like this.

Its John Pesketts rig taken at Oulton a couple of years ago and yes its the ex Simon Riley McLaren.

Now with "Allard" connections.


Allard Camper Van by Alansart, on Flickr

I thought it was a Brabham...

McLaren M10

....and the person who determined that the car should be painted thus was on.......?

Was it not to match the "Monsieur Houbignant" cologne packaging?

I think it was painted in that way so it could be scanned with a Smartphone.

I've checked - he did have a Formula One Brabham (in the same ghastly colour scheme)

It was - Houbigant, to be precise

Scanned slide revisited...taken on the Club straight at Silverstone. International Trophy I think.

David can we keep the "arty farty" stuff to the photographeres thread ????????????

Sorry Ted, but the original was very wishy washy...

And I had you as a Brut man, Alan.

Wondering what on earth Houbigant was I stumbled across this which is topical to the paddock thread.

Good heavens! Do you mean to tell me that TNF is not the only place to see photos of historic racing cars. Colour me staggered....

Or, as Aladdin said- oh no it wasn't.

I'll get me coat..........


Great link Arty, I had a feeling that Houbigant sponsored more than Simon's F5000 car, in fact I seem to remember being given a freebie bottle of the stuff at a race meeting by a promo-girl in hot-pants with very long legs.

If they had very long legs, then they wouldn't be hot pants would they?

Lifted from the "Longridge then and now" thread, Longton & Dist sprint 1975.



I will now chastise myself for posting non-paddock photos in a paddock thread.

Did you get any pics of the girl in the hot pants bearing eau d'cologne ?

That's just the sort of question I thought someone would ask!

Unfortunately not; my Pict-Ed in those days was only prepared to pay for two rolls per meeting and I was too poor to go much further, unfortunately.

Here is something else, from the happy-snappy digital world. Le Mans Classic 2008.



As it turns out these two are "old friends".

Two from Riverside (California), IMSA Camel GT weekend, April 1985:

Shellsport round at Mallory Park 13 March 1977

Chevron B35 driver Iain McLaren and the smiling Dane, Tom Belso

Aloysious Lawler's Lola T462 and Guy Edwards prepares to join the grid with his Titbits-MD4-Ultramar March 75A

Divina Galica doubled up with her Surtees TS19 in Group 8 and the Kelly Girl Lola in S2000 during 1977

Smiling John Mac in the background Alan.

...who won the main event at the first Knockhill meeting I ever went to, 13 July 1975, in the 'Chocolate Drop' Chevron B26, his main opposition being the late Martin Raymond in the Fisons Lola T380. I lived in Prestwick, on the west coast. I was 19, I didn't have a car, so I got the first train out of Prestwick on the Sunday morning to Glasgow, crossed from Central Station to Queen Street and caught the next train to Edinburgh, then the next train from Edinburgh Waverley to Dunfermline, then the bus from Dunfermline to a junction about two miles from Knockhill and ran the rest of the way. Got there as Iain McLaren was waving to the crowd on his slowing-down lap. Well, at least I tried...

Denny Hulme's McLaren M23 arrives at Silverstone for the 1974 International Trophy.







It was a bit more laid back in those days