13 replies to this topic

[Cappo]

Hope this is OK to link, and that it has not been posted before - it's a link to a website called 'My Dad's Photos'. The guy's dad was a gifted amateur UK photographer, named John Hendy, who had an interest in motorsport. Some fascinating pictures and hours of amusement, not only of motorsport. Having visited and worked in London during the sixty's and early seventy's I love the 'swinging' King's Road pictures.

http://john.shendy.co.uk/index.php

[Alan Cox]

Photos from, and links to, this site have featured on here before, Cappo, but well worth a reminder
e.g. http://forums.autosp...p;#entry5553133

[Cappo]

Photos from, and links to, this site have featured on here before, Cappo, but well worth a reminder
e.g. http://forums.autosp...p;#entry5553133

I sort of suspected it might have been, did a search for John Hendy, but nothing popped up! I had not seen it before, some great stuff. Lovely pictures in the 'blog' section

[Ray Bell]

Might it be 'John Shendy'?

That would appear to be the name in the first link...

[Gary C]

Nope, Cappo is correct.

[Gary C]

I do like the way that, in the 1965 British Grand Prix section, Jackie and Helen Stewart are labelled as 'spectators' !

[Charles Helps]

I found the John Hendy photo site again yesterday.  I came across two photos which I think are related but I can't recognise the car.  The photos were taken at the SUNBAC meeting at Silverstone on 6th September 1959 and a search for SUNBAC on the site produces 56 images of which the two are numbers 18 and 19. 

 

Alternatively the URLs are:

http://john.shendy.c.../BW_B011_17.jpg

and

 

http://john.shendy.c.../BW_B011_16.jpg

 

I have added the URLs in plain text in case hot-linking is not allowed.

 

Now the two pictures may not be related at all but the aluminium Lotus Eleven with its front open (racing number 11?) that I see in both pictures suggests that they are.

 

The mystery is the white car that appears to have the front of a Lotus Mk VIII but the louvred sides and back of a ...?

 

 

(The Seven Series One is probably John Cotterell's RDW 783, winner of the 750 MC's Chapman Trophy in 1960.  I don't have a programme for the meeting)

 

Any ideas?

[Peter Morley]

777FRE was Lotus VIII chassis no. 7 fitted with a Turner/Lea Francis engine for George Nixon.

It's hard to read the whole registration number but it would appear to be similar.

If it's that car the body has been extensively modified!

[Michael Ferner]

Wire wheels front, steel wheels back?

[bradbury west]

I knew I had a couple of SUNBAC programmes here. The programme lists car 11 as an Eleven Ford, 1172, for F W W Banks, and the next car , no 12, I know it's not much help, as the Toucan MG., in case they are parked in number order.  No Lotus 8s or 9s are listed although car 135 is shown as a 1960cc Lotus Connaught.  Lotuses are mainly 7s and Elevens, lots of 1172 powered.  Only one 6 listed, Charles, unless they are in the couple as Lotus Climax with FWAs, and that is car 15 , with an FWA for  J B Townend.

BTW the programme shows the race as  September 5, 1959, not the 6th

Roger Lund

Edited by bradbury west, 08 October 2014 - 16:10.

[bradbury west]

OT a bit; Charles, have you seen the shot of the BMW eng 6 at Gt Auclum under other UK meetings?

Roger Lund

 

Wonderful array of period shots on that whole archive if you take time to look through them, not always the usual people or cars, even at the major events.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Michael Ferner
Wire wheels front, steel wheels back?

There's a comment about this in The Design and Behavior of the Racing Car in the chapter about Vanwall as I recall...

Not steel wheels on the back, but similarly sturdy alloy wheels.

[Charles Helps]

Thanks very much, Roger.  To answer the OT bit first, yes, I have seen the shot of Bill Perkins at Great Auclum.  I used Lotus as the search term and the Lotus-BMW appeared in the 205 results (along with the first under-bonnet photo I have seen of the MG J4 engine in David Piper's Empire Special Lotus 6).  Thanks for the correction on the date of the meeting.

 

To answer Michael Ferner, an axle change often resulted in different types of wheels front and rear.  By 1959 the Lotus 6/BMW had wire wheels with a BMC axle at the rear while retaining the modified Ford Popular steel wheels at the front.

 

J B Townend with the Lotus Climax FWA is almost certainly John Townend in the ex-Fred Marriott Lotus Mk VI registered VPK 3.  Tragically, by the end of that month he was to die during practice in the car at Goodwood.

 

That's an interesting possibility, Peter, but it would be a lot of work to produce that body and make it fit the Lotus chassis and there would have to be a good reason for doing the work anyway.  I have emailed Simon Hendy to ask whether prints of the photos are available and that might help with the registration number.  Incidentally Anthony Pritchard in his article "Lotus Blossoms" in The Automobile a few years ago quotes Bill Vincent as saying that the George Nixon car was chassis number 6/2-6 which would make it the seventh Mark VIII since the prototype SAR 5 had the number Mk8/01

 

It is possible that it's just a support car as I can't see a racing number on it.  Intriguing though...

Edited by Charles Helps, 08 October 2014 - 19:04.

[Peter Morley]

The coincidence between the visible part of the registration number and a Lotus VIII has to be worth investigating.

It is possible that someone was friendly with the licencing people (as happened with KOY500, JOY500 etc.) or they could have 'borrowed' the registration (& nose!) from the VIII for another car, or it really was heavily modified - the bodywork is big and vulnerable, but even the pontoon section behind the front wheel is completely different.

 

I got the chassis number from Simon Braithwaite's site, but it struck me that it wasn't a 'proper' Lotus number - more a case of it was the 7th Lotus VIII e.g. serial number 7?

I think 777FRE is (nearly?) finished, maybe the owner (Dennis Williams?) has some pictures or knowledge of the car's intermediate history?