63 replies to this topic

[Mal9444]

I forgot to mention The Dundrod TT Races 1950-55, a slim booklet by John S Moore, sometime curator at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra and still to be found via amazon and other outlets. Good if brief information and good b/w pictures, plus list of entrants and finishers, though no lap times.

[bradbury west]

Malcolm, Doc. Please check the book thread. Veloce are currently offering a 40% discount on listed titles until mid/late December IIRC, so that should include Martin Wainwright's work

Roger Lund.

[Mal9444]

Doc: I have never tried emailing Google Map to anyone, but if the link below works as Google promise it will take you to a map of the Dundrod circuit. http://maps.google.c...3,0.223503&om=1

Start on the right hand side at Springfield Road (green). Move left across the page and take the right hand fork on to the yellow road. Follow that until you get to the first fork in that yellow road. That is the famous Dundrod hairpin. Take the left fork and you are now on the circuit. None of the names are marked on this Google map, but the first section is Flow Bog cross roads, then on through the sweeps (right and then left) of The Quarries. The left hander is Quarry corner itself – here is where Hawthorn spun and retired the D-type just two laps away from second place. The right-hander is Dawson’s bend, immediately before the pits straight with the grandstand opposite (still with me?). This area is known a Rushyhill. The straight after Rushyhill is known as the Flying Kilo (‘Flying Half-mile’) and is the fastest part of the circuit and takes you down to Leathemstown corner, which is the right-hander formed by the crossroads where the two yellow roads intersect.

Next should come Leathemstown Bridge, now by passed, and so we go straight up and over Tullyrusk and down the Deer’s Leap where poor Jim Myers and Bill Smith were killed in the very bad seven-car crash that spelt the end of the circuit as a four-wheel venue.

Cochranstown corner (standing on the brakes and coming down from 150mph+) is the right-hander formed where the smaller grey road cuts diagonally across the yellow. (This was to cut out driving through the village of Dundrod itself, where there would naturally be a hairpin where the two yellow roads cross in an X). Then and now the road sweeps through woodland, very solid trees close on either side where the circuit rejoins the main road at Quarterlands (the next crossroad). Now we stay on the yellow road again left through Ireland’s corner and begin the long climb up to the top of the circuit at Budore, which is the next sweeping right-hander. The minor crossroads (grey cutting across the yellow) is known as Jordan’s Cross and then it’s on to Wheeler’s, highest point and fastest corner of the circuit. Wheeler’s keeps us on Google’s yellow road and we descend fast through a couple of kinks (the road is not as straight as shown on the map) to the double left at Tornagrough (pronounced, in case there is anyone other than me and Doc left on this thread by now, as Toornagruff). Tornagrough is actually the first of the two left-hander corners – the second so far as I am aware has no name – and then its really hard on the brakes for the hairpin.

Round the hairpin in first gear and accelerate hard up a slight but definite gradient cross the Flow bog cross roads and so back to the start/ finish area at the pits.

Your D-type holds the lap record (4min 42sec) – but my 300slr won, at an average speed of 88.32mph

Obviously, zooming in or out on the map will let you see more detail, and/ or place the circuit in the context of the surrounding country side.

[doc knutsen]

Malcolm, very many thanks for the links and references. The video of a motorcycle doing a lap of Dundrod was truly staggering....how the Fifties stars got around there on narrow wooden tyres and primitive brakes defies belief!
I will be travelling to the UK in mid-January for the Autosport show at the NEC, will try to look for some books then. And, of course, when my replica C-type is operational, travelling back to Ireland and doing a lap of the Dundrod circuit will now be very much a must-do....looks like Mrs. K will have to enjoy the summer of 07 riding in the passenger seat of a basic, Fifties sports-racer clone, around the country roads of Ulster.
Oh, and yes, I am indeed a Queen's man, spending 1969 through 1972 there....wonderful times!

[HistoryBuff]

Dunno about paint but curious to know if it ever has been inprint how it was Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI was donated 0001 300SLR. I heard a rumor that Ford traded the secret of how to make a certain kind of glass (called "floating glass") for it but was surprised at that because I thought the museum was a stand-alone venture, not owned by FoMoCo.

 

Also I heard (and this is documented abundantly) that the son of famed artist Peter Helck traded three historic cars for it, including an American car called a Locomobile. Naturally since the Museum exists to promote American auto history, they thought it a better fit. I wonder what the car was valued at during that trade?

 

Looking forward to hearing confirmation...

[karlcars]

Just a quick note that the latest list from Daimler shows Number 1 no longer at Ford. I think Daimler has it back.

 

Yes, paint would have been necessary as the bodies were magnesium which looks awful in its natural state and would not take much of a polish.

 

About the 'antiquated' straight eight, Uhlenhaut said that they were planning a V-8 for the future.

[TimRTC]

For reference, this is then presumably 0003/55 which is at the Deutsches Museum, Munich, taken last year and a shot of the accompanying information panel. This is not my period of knowledge, interested to know if this is all correct:

 

 

[Mal9444]

I thought that 003 - which was usually Fangio's car - was now the car being shown around as '722'.

 

722 was Moss's number in the '55 Mille Miglia which he won, driving 300slr/004. Fangio drove 003 in the Mille Miglia, race number 658 (his starting time, as was the custon). However, I am sure I recall being told by Doug Nye (and others) via this forum that 722 (004) had been permanently retired to the museum. Later, there were pictures in the media of S Moss driving a 300slr in Mille Miglia dual-fairing configuration and with the number 722. I asked that gentleman which 300slr it was and he told me that it was, in fact, Fangio's car now 'masquerading' as 722 but that 'not a lot of people know that'.

 

The car in which Moss won the Targa Florio (race number 104) was, according to Moss in his various books, 004. He also used that car to win the RAC TT at Dundrod, racing as #10. This is the car that features in the pictures on the lefthand page of the opened loose-leaf binder in the lower photograph.

 

003, by the way, was the car in which Moss and Fangio DID NOT win Le Mans - as discussed at no little length earlier in this thread .

 

But whatever car it is - isn't it just beautiful?

Edited by Mal9444, 21 March 2014 - 15:52.

[RCH]

Not seen this thread before, perhaps I could make a comment on whether the 300SLR would have won in 1955 if it had not been withdrawn?

 

I seem to recall reading that with the accident exploding around him Hawthorn ended up in the wrong pit. In fact the Cunningham pit. "Lofty" England found his driver sitting in the car in a state of shock blaming himself for the whole thing. It took him considerable time to persuade Hawthorn to continue and bring the car back round to its proper pit so they could put Bueb in. Although exonerated Hawthorn believed himself responsible at that point. Bueb on the other hand had been standing waiting to take over and presumably witnessed the whole thing, not the ideal way to start your first race of that stature. Is it any wonder they lost out to the Merc? I note that there is reference to Hawthorn still suffering the effects of Le Mans at Dundrod. I think it was a miracle that they were able to continue at all.

[Mal9444]

 Bueb on the other hand had been standing waiting to take over and presumably witnessed the whole thing, not the ideal way to start your first race of that stature. .

 

 

From Christopher Hilton's book Le Mans '55, quoting Normas Dewis, who was together with Bueb on the pit wall waiting to take over their respective cars, Bueb from Hawthorn, Dewis from Beaumont. I abreviate.

 

"Bueb said 'Norman, I'm not getting in that car. I'm not going out there... look at that lot over there [meaning the carnage on the other side of the track] this is suicide.' "

 

Hawthorn brought the car back...

"... and Lofty said: 'come on Ivor, it's your turn' - because Lofty always spoke a bit sharply. So Ivor reluctantly jumped off the pit counter, got in the car and Lofty shouted to him 'there's no panic, just take your time, move off and get started'.

"Bueb would remember England saying 'get in and drive, forget what you have seen, drive slowly if you like, but drive - keep that car motoring.'

 

Remembering that this was Ivor the Driver's first major sports car endurance event, perhaps indeed insufficient credit has been given to his effort that weekend.

Edited by Mal9444, 22 March 2014 - 08:20.

[Doug Nye]

Returning to the original question here re 300SLR body finish in period - the cars were rather roughly, and certainly thinly, blown over with a rather gritty textured bright silver paint. This was absolutely not the modern museum silver-grey high-gloss paint finish required now that the sales people at D-B demand that their historic cars reflect an acceptable modern-day production car paint standard. Forget any notion of silver-grey, those arrows really were painted silver.

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 22 March 2014 - 14:13.

[Mal9444]

And staying with the original question: happily that is precisely the finish I managed to achieve with the two little models that were the kernel of the original enquiry. To such good effect that when I gave his version of the car to the winner of the '55 Dundrod TT he remarked that its 'workhorse' finish was exactly like the original in-period car. What he did not realise was that he was complimenting not my skill as a modeller but rather the (in this case fortuitous)  lack thereof.

 

http://img638.images...ossttslr001.jpg

Edited by Mal9444, 22 March 2014 - 08:19.

[HistoryBuff]

This is more about 300SLR history than about paint. Regarding 000 01/54, I am from Detroit and saw the car many times at the Henry Ford Museum. I heard a rumor once that Mercedes donated the car to the museum (rather than loaned it) in exchange for an industrial secret called "floating glass."
 Maybe at that time Ford Motor Co. had more power in the museum, maybe now they are more separated, and wouldn't think of such a thing but we are talking the fifties, not the year 2014. I tried to find it on the internet but no mention even what "floating glass" is, other than smalls sculptures, but now how if figures in with cars. At any rate, love to hear how it was Mercedes donated the car.I am sure they would like to have it back, and ironically, another barn finder did talk that same museum into trading a classic American car, a Locomobile for their Testa Rossa which has he argued, didn't really fit in with the Museum's theme of showcasing American history of the automobile, thus even the Mercedes doesn't fit that history if you wanted to re-use that argument

[kayemod]

This is more about 300SLR history than about paint. Regarding 000 01/54, I am from Detroit and saw the car many times at the Henry Ford Museum. I heard a rumor once that Mercedes donated the car to the museum (rather than loaned it) in exchange for an industrial secret called "floating glass."

 

The process is called "float glass", it was invented and made into a practical production process by English glass manufacturers Pilkington of St Helens in Lancashire. It involves forming glass onto molten metal, originally lead or tin, though probably something else these days, and I think that today almost all sheet glass is made this way. I saw the process on a school visit to Pilkington's some time in the early 1960s, and as far as I can remember, we were told back then that the process was new, only two or three years old, so the Ford/Mercedes story sounds somewhat unlikely to me, though of course some other manufacturing process could have been involved.

 

However, it's only in relatively recent years that important cars like the 300SLR have been achieving astronomical auction values, though has a 300SLR ever been sold by MB rather than lent or donated? Back in the late 50s, I wouldn't have thought that even something as rare as that would be valuable enough to be exchanged for knowledge of an important manufacturing process.