12 replies to this topic

[Tweddell]

I do not know, if this subjekt was at this forum, as I am in here only for some weeks.

Last year I saw a very sad "recreation" of the Lola MK 6, which looks so unhistoric , that it is a shame to advertise it as a car with loads of history. The restoring company even showed the proudness of this "Lola"-work in several magazines. And the owner wasn´t ashamed to compete at LeMans historic events. Now I saw it for sale again.

The car front section lookes as a bad replique of the original( wrong shape of front air-inlet, original had no square air outlet), the roof has a helmet-bubble (never seen at this car, neither in the early 60ies), the windows were riveted in at all sides ( how ugly, very historic), and the crown of recreation are the motorcycle-mirrors.

I think this car is a best demonstrator to show how to "restore" in the wrong way.(What Eric wouls say?)
Of course, there was a chassis and some remains of the old MK 6, which Ford used as a pattern for their GT40 projekt, but now this strange product has lost everything, mainly it´s history.
I remember the Lindner E-Type, which was recreated by Lynx around only some pieces of aluminium, but this work saved the aura of this racer.

By the way, the only original MK 6 I know , is at the RossoBianco museum, it´s the old John Mecom MK6 .
There was a third MK 6, but where is this today! It should be saved and better not restored.........destroyed.

[dretceterini]

vary pretty car, especially without all the wheel bulge updates...

[Garagiste]

Although I can't claim to know the history in detail, IIRC this was advertised as the restoration of the Mk 6 prototype - I wonder if this accounts for your detail differences? Sherwood Restorations seem to have had a right old time finding a buyer though, it was advertised for months.
I saw her in action at the Goodwood revival, and it really is a pretty beast - love the Mk1 Cortina rear lights. I'm not sure about the enrty rules at the revival, but I doubt replicas are allowed, so I expect there's a fair bit of genuine article in there.

Did I dream it, or did I read somwhere that our esteemed Mr Nye was researching this car?

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Garagiste
- love the Mk1 Cortina rear lights.

Didn't this car have quite a shunt at Monaco last year?
Odd place for a Lola GT....

[Tweddell]

Look at the picture I attached at second position, this is the prototype, which also has been shown at London Racing Car Show earlier the year 1963. With the lots of photo-documentation , which exist of this car (even construction drawings from J.A. Allington), it should be possible for a "good "company to give a car that shape, it once had. On the other hand it would be a short trip to Rosso Bianco Museum to examine an original MK6.
If you only compare the both pictures, I attached, you see what they have done..at last the result is no MK 6, but an updated car , which resembles a MK 6, and that is a real pitty to have thrown away this unique chance to save this milestone of sportscar-evolution. (By the way, be glad not to compare both from the rear, you will be shocked.)

[David McKinney]

I'm not an expert on these cars, but there were three of them, possibly with slight differences
Do you know that one of them didn't look like the car in your first picture?

[Bumblyari]

I seem to remember that John Mecom fitted a Chevrolet engine to one and it ended up looking something like the one in the first picture.

[Ray Bell]

Mecom? I'm very hazy on the details, but the names Pabst and Ruby seem to connect somehow... and the thing sprouted some awful airscoops. Bigger than those shown above.

Of course, it may have been another driver altogether... I don't even have the magazines any more, they've been gone for twenty years.

Definitely, however, there was a car that got hacked about. It was my first thought when I saw the top pic last night. The car was a light colour, presumably white.

Where did it run? Sebring/Daytona or was it in the 'Fall series' and such places as Nassau?

[Bumblyari]

Yes you are correct Ray, this is Pabst at Brands 1964


http://www.wheelsarc...photo-008a.html


The only other picture I have is also black & white so no idea what colour it was.

[Doug Nye]

I think there's a bit of unfair criticism here aimed at Paul Haywood-Halfpenny who bought the remains - perfectly genuine I believe - of the 1963 Le Mans Lola GT at auction and had it restored for Historic racing. There were three of these cars built so far as I recall - and one went to John Mecom in Texas and was fitted with a Chevrolet V8 engine (to Ford's absolutely enraptured delight, as you can imagine!) and appeared in the prestigious (at the time) Nassau Speed Week running the eye-catching race number '00'. Augie Pabst drove, I believe, while A.J.Foyt drove the wondrously-bodied Hussein-Chevrolet for the same Mecom team. The other two cars were taken over by the Ford Advanced Vehicles Le Mans programme as test hacks. They ran the 4.2-litre Ford V8 engine and Colotti gearboxes. GSD in Modena who made the Colotti-Francis boxes was a partnership between ex-Maserati chassis and transmission designer Valerio Colotti and ex-Walker Racing/HWM/Moss master mechanic 'Alf Francis'. Alf was very friendly with Peter Westbury, the British hill-climb champion whose Felday Engineering company would build and run the Felday series of hill-climb and sports-racing cars - ultimately 4 wheel-drive and 7-litre engined.

Felday Engineering had become UK agents for Colotti-Francis gearboxes, and one day around 1966 I dropped in at Holmbury St Mary - Westbury's works in the wooded Surrey hills - to see him and lying outside, under a tree, covered in bird droppings and moss, lay the hulk of one of the Ford programme test-hack Lola GTs. Ford simply did not want these cars to be remembered, and it was lying there consigned to obscurity. I don;tknow which car this was - but it might well be the Haywood-Halfpenny car. We did work out the histories of these things, but I don't carry it in my head and can't confirm it right now. We had the car for auction at Goodwood and it failed to attract a bid exceeding the would-be vendor's reserve, so did not sell. It's quite a potent beast, however, and as a racer s very nicely built. A faithful reproduction of what it was in 1963? It is not.

By the way - after starring at the London Racing Car Show in January 1963, as I recall, the model's racing debut was made at the May Silverstone International meeting that year, driven by Richard Attwood. It was painted silver grey and it was luvverly. It then appeared in the Nurburgring 1,000kms in silver grey I think with a dark green central stripe (?). It then ran in dark almost khaki green at Le Mans where it eventually crashed in the Esses after gear selection troubles left the unfortunate driver - can't remember whether it was Dickie or David Hobbs - with a boxful of neutrals au moment critique. The Pabst car at the Guards Trophy 1964 was the Chevvy powered Mecom entry surely - metallic paleish mid-blue with white stripe and splendid Mecom Racing Team badges which had a chromium background, stars and stripes I think and a map of Texas. Discretion being their middle name.

DCN

[Bumblyari]

Although Ford bought two of the three Mk 6s apparently only one of them was ever used for component testing (at Monza), the other one was left un-touched.

So if one was mucked about with by Ford and one was mucked about with by John Mecom, could it be that the one in the Rosso Bianco collection is the unused test car & not Mecom's ?

(BTW, wasn't John Mecom Dan Dare's mate with the big green bald head ? - Which would also explain the bulge in the roof line).

I think I'm with Doug on the Haywood-Halfpenny car, it may not be quite as pretty as the original but it's infinitely better to see it out racing than none at all.

[Gary C]

this is one lovely looking car, methinks!

[Ray Bell]

Oh, you should have seen the original...

More than lovely. Dauntingly, exquisitely purposeful and daringly tiny.