Keep off the Grass

Whoops!

Crunchy

This year's gravel trap mayhem courtesy of Phil and his sharp reflexes with a camera.

Reflections

Pink frock and fur stole reflected in the glory of an XK140.

Goodwood … what's not to love?

It's That Time of Year Again

Apologies to one and all who are heartily sick of racing car and fashion photos every September, but it's the one time each year I can step outside of reality and wallow in my fantasy world: the golden age of motor racing (and great frocks).

Back in the real world, the planet is going down the shitter (the same place my relationship just went), though bizarrely and wonderfully, a real Socialist gets elected as leader of a major party so I have someone I can vote for for the first time in decades. Enfranchised at last!

But stuff all that … Incredibly loud racing cars and girls in pretty frocks beat the real world hands down. If you are sick of racing cars and fashion pics, look away now (and for some time to come).

Bohemian Rhapsody

Weirdly beautiful and cool as fuck.

People, meet the glorious Tatra T87

Born in Czechoslovakia in 1939 with an arse like a space rocket and speed to match;

stolen by the Nazis as "THE car for the autobahn" and driven by Erwin Rommel among others;

the T87's amazingly low drag coefficient and awesome 3 litre transverse engine mounted over the back wheels inspired Doctor Ferdinand Porsche to copy its front end and engine arrangement for the Volkswagen and Porsche 911, an act that got him sued by Tatra for breach of copyright.

A baby like this will set you back around £140,000 (they only made around 3,000 of 'em) but amazingly there's an orange one that regularly races at Goodwood (see posts passim).

The Tatra T87: it's utterly bonkers but I love it.

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To (because they're a bunch of cheap shits with no more sense of style than a week-old dog turd) …

Continuing a theme I often get entangled in (and rightly so):

 Like the sad case of the classic Merc featured in the link above, Goodwood's annual Concours d'Elegance reminds me - rather forcefully - of the tragic loss of style, elegance and sheer, sumptuous beauty in 21st century "design".

This is a 5-series Beemer: the unutterably gorgeous BMW 507 from 1957.

 How fucking sexy is that? 

You know you want it, don't you? Yeah? Yeah?

Yes, you do. I can tell by all the drool on your chin.

Does it look like a 5-series Beemer to you?

Does it buggery.
No, instead it looks FANTASTIC!

What the hell happened to BMW?

Wake up, you serried tossers of the once-honourable Bavarian Motor Works!

You could do it once. You can do it again. How hard can it be?

I mean, this car is older than I am! 

I couldn't bring myself to photograph the modern version (you can just about make it out in the background).
The imbeciles have taken the magnificent grille of the 507 and turned it into a joke Hitler moustache.
Oh, for the love of all things decent …

Get a grip, you horrible Huns and sack your entire design staff.

And make sure you kick out the accountants, too.

Get some class, assholes.

The rest of us will just sit here and ache with longing for what might have been if you hadn't lost the plot.

Sir Jackie

It'll take me a while to go through the more than half a thousand photos I took at Goodwood at the weekend, but here to tide you over is one of my favourites so far: a nice portrait of Sir Jackie Stewart driving one of Jim Clark's beautiful old Lotus racers. Worth clicking on it to enlarge it. Sometimes I manage to get the panning just right and it makes me very grateful to those nice folk at Canon.

Car Porn Thursday - Trippy Trailer

Car Porn Thursday - Mascot

Rally drivers are not the most sophisticated of cultural æsthetes. When it comes to a lucky mascot, what do they choose?

Yup … Special Patrol Group: the homicidal hamster from The Young Ones. Ah, the eighties … what the hell was that all about?

Car Porn Thursday

It's that Mini again. Cute, yet somehow bonkers.

Car Porn Thursday - Rosso

Car Porn Thursday - Cooper S

Bollocks to the hideous monstrosity that BMW now sell as the "Mini" … THIS is the real thing. A proper Cooper S from 1965 still thrashing the shit out of modern travesties that shame its glorious name.

Car Porn Thursday - Fiat 41

Car Porn Thursday - Going Bonkers With 350 Supercharged Horses

No cameras are allowed on site at Lotus, but with Phil around there's always a way of sneaking something.
This is me on Tuesday morning, having just enjoyed a fabulous session (thanks, Phil) of screaming, bonkers, foot-to-the-floor mayhem driving the awesome new Lotus Exige S around the test track (actually, it was more like hanging on for dear life while whooping ecstatically).
The Exige S is a 350BHP supercharged racing monster that weighs less than I do and is more fun to drive round a racetrack than anything I have done in fifty-four years. Yes, ANYTHING.

First up, we got a safety and track talk from our racing driver and instructor, John (and coffee and bickies). Then, one at a time, we headed out on to the race track with John in the passenger seat (I got to go first, yay) and he taught us the lines, the apex of each corner, the braking points and where to floor the pedal and rip your face off with the acceleration.
"Brake, Brake, Brake! Down into second. Stay to the left … Now hard right. Over the kerb and FULL THROTTLE!"
Yee and a hefty dollop of Haw!

The car is simply beyond amazing. Come off the top hairpin in second and floor it through the esses and the thing just keeps on accelerating like a maniac until at last John tells you to change up to third at over seven thousand revs (and what feels like seven thousand miles per hour). Woohoo! The supercharger means the torque is there at all speeds, with no annoying lag like you get with a turbo. The upshot being that you floor the pedal and scream with joy as the thing instantly leaps into hyperspace … and keeps on accelerating at an unbelievable rate! It is a seriously nutjob experience.

I have no idea how fast I was going each lap at the end of the long straight because taking my eyes off the rapidly approaching braking point to look at the speedo would have been suicidal.
Suffice to say it was faster than I've ever been in a car, by a long, long way.
And then I did it again. And again.

So … that's the rest of my life ruined. I now know I've wasted fifty four years not racing cars and I now know I must spend the rest of my life doing it again and again and again.

Fucking awesome!

Car Porn Thursday - Shaguar

Car Porn Thursday - There is Only One Bond Car

Accept no substitute.

Car Porn Thursday - Ladies' Man

And yes, Speedway: behind our sexily posed hunk of manhood that's another one of Jim Clark's Lotus machines. Sweet.

Car Porn Thursday

It's spring, and an old man's thoughts turn to why the hell it doesn't stop snowing and let me go and watch car races, dammit.

Car Porn Thursday - 1937

Meet the 1937 Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 "Aerodinamica."

The car is even longer than its name, but you have to admit it's a beauty.

How cool, to have a central steering wheel!

Sweet ass, too …

Car Porn Thursday

Remember these?
Car showrooms in Westminster are usually stuffed with Aston Martins or Ferraris, but down Great Peter Street toward the river there's a little Honda dealership that last week was proudly displaying this cute classic Civic. So much nicer than the new ones.