One of the most useless things for a real racer is an old uncompetitive race car. It happened to them all. The GT cars had some potential to be an interesting street car if you like cantankerous, expensive to maintain, uncomfortable, noisy, doesn't like being stuck in traffic and a whole host of other trying things. We are fortunate that people likes of Ed Niles and Dick Merritt did have an interest back in those days to ensure that these unloved machines stayed in circulation until the times evolved to when they did became appreciated.
When these cars became uncompetitive they were considered "too fast" for the street. What they meant by that is that they had "on/off" clutches, were "over carbureted", and simply weren't pleasant to drive. You had to coax them to get running and in traffic they overheated. If you didn't "blow them out" often the plugs would foul and you'd be trying to figure out which one it was and changing it. Back in those days the gas had lead in it and plugs were constantly being changed. The cold plugs needed to keep these engine from knocking lead fouled in no time. Never mind that they had no heater or defrosters, were loud and stank, leaked water in the rain and were pretty miserable street cars, even in those days.. By that time the body work on most of these old race cars was "rough" to be polite, and nobody wanted them. There were no vintage events or track days so you couldn't drive them like they were intended. Back in 1966 GTO 3223 was for sale in West Palm Beach at the German Motors lot for its outstanding crew and storage bills from the race at Sebring earlier that year. German Motors supported a couple of Porsches and a BMW TI/SA at Daytona and Sebring and for a fee they would supply a crew for club racers that didn't have a big enough team to crew the endurance races. Early in the race the car ran into the sand bank at the hairpin and damaged the nose and the area of the chin. The car sat in body shop at German Motors on Bunker Road for a long time and then they repaired it and were selling it. Since they didn't run much of the race the car was considered "fresh". They were asking $4,000 and IIRC it was actually sold for $3500 to Grossman, who flew a minion down to WPB and threw his suitcase in the back and drove the car back to New York... In those days $3,500 would get you a brand new Healy 3000 so it wasn't being given away, but it wasn't expensive either. Hard to believe now a days, but there wasn't much use for old race cars in those days and they went for what is now peanuts.
Nope. The owners wanted the latest and faster race car. Racing drivers, or team owners, are not investors ... no racing driver waits 20 years for anything It is actually quite amazing that all the GTO's survived. If there had been a moderner use for their running gear I bet they wouldn't have, but Ferrari stopped racing GT cars and Daytonas and Boxers are massively different. Pete
True but time goes by and $40,000,000 ++ for "an old race car" changes things. Also comparing an Austin Healy 3000 with a 250 GTO Ferrari is not really revelent. tonga's crew
What I was trying to do with the Healy 3000 reference was give you an idea as to what the GTO sold for relative to the price of a sporting car that was something that most folks could afford if they wanted to. With the inflation since then it's hard to fathom how much the car sold for in relative terms. A new Mustang was about $2500, and new Pontiac GTO was about $3700 in those days, and a BMW 1600 was about $2300. There were some people around town that wanted to buy 3223, but part of the problem was that you needed cash to buy it, and while it was selling for the price of a decent new car, not a lot of folks had that kind of money laying around in those days. It would be like having $30 or $40k in today's money. Not a ton of money but more than most people can write a check for, and that is on reason it didn't sell locally right away. No bank was going to lend you $3500 to buy a 4 year old race car. If you took it out and blew it up they would end up owning it and while it was worth $4k as it sat, it would be worth nothing with a blown motor. Of course if anybody would have ever dreamed it would be worth millions in the future there would have been plenty of buyers, but old race cars just weren't worth much because there was no use for them at the time. By the early 70's things like Pebble Beach and Monterrey, and SVRA came along and then the prices started to climb like crazy and never looked back, but at the time whooda thunk it.
There were a few. Warren Fitzgerald,Richard Merritt,Jonathan Thompson,Hans Tanner, Marcel Massini, Ed Niles, Briggs Cunningham plus all those original members of the F C of A. and the select few who bought raced and restored and just drove Ferraris in the 1960s. For others not so fortunate there were three cars that stood out, the AC Bristol and the Morgan +4,and the MGTC. I actually owned a Morgan and a TC.The Morgan I took delivery of at the Malvern factory and the TC I drove for many miles without a clutch. Still the one name back then that stood out above everything was the Ferrari. To compare the Healy 3000 or the Mustang to any of these is beyond my comprehension. I rest my case. tonga's crew
George, I'm sorry if you don't get it. I wasn't trying to compare an used up racing car with any of those cars as to what it meant to an enthusiast, I was trying to give the folks here an idea of what the car sold for relative to things that cost the same. If a Toyota Camary was around at the time I could have used that. I'm just trying to say that the value of that GTO at time was something that was not unobtainable for someone if they really wanted it, but the problem was not many folks that could afford it saw it as something that they could do anything with other than make it a piece of garage art. There weren't many folks collecting cars like this at the time, they were just used up old cars. And yes there were some folks who were buying up these cars but they were few and far between. Fitzgerald had a storage shed in an industrial park in Lake Worth just down the way from a good friends independent BMW shop. He was always dragging in wayward Ferrari parts like engines and transmissions. Now this stuff is gold, but back then it wasn't worth much. The older Ferrari motors had a bad habit of dropping valves and it was common to replace them with Chevy or Ford motors, Once it was damaged it cost far more than it was worth to fix them. Bottom line is that these cars started to become "collectable" in the mid 70's and the picture changed totally. Jerry Sutterfield showed up with his restored barchetta in Gainesville Fla at the FCA meeting there in about 1975 (it's a long time ago not exactly sure of the year) and I was talking to Fitzgerald about the car and he said Jerry bought the car cheap. I asked him if it was hard to find the car and he said "no, it had been for sale for a while and "everybody knew it was available", but nobody wanted it"... You had to have been around at the time to understand it, but that is just the way it was. I recall looking at a competition Scaglietti bodied car down in Delray that had a Chevy motor and the broken Ferrari motor came with it in 1968 or 69 and they wanted $2000 for it. The body was stripped to bare metal and it was, being an old racing car really rough. That car sat there for months. I'd love to figure out the S/N of that car and see it again today. And yes there were plenty of us who would have wanted the car because it was a Ferrari and it was neat, but we didn't have $2000 to "throw down the toilet" at the time. Remember back then cars kept depreciating as they got older, and the prevailing wisdom was that it wasn't worth restoring since you'd spend $4000 to restore it and when you were done you'd have $6000 in a car that was worth $3000 even if it was nice. Five or six years later that all changed and these cars started to get snapped up, but that's another place and time.
which c I was around Thompson, Lime Rock and Bridgehampton in the late 1950s and 1960s. Read my answer to "Lowell"in post #9510 right below yours. All you say is perfectly true except these was another side to your story. There always is "another story". Just go back to the "bruhaha" over David Piper in F Chat just a few years ago. There is always another side to every story and I was part of that one. What you say is true. There is just another side to these stories which I like to refer to. These may be the exception to the rule of thumb of the day but still the protagonists of the day helped to create what F Chat, the vintage section, is today. Just read Denise McCluggagage's book "By Brooks too Broad For Leaping" or Jackson Brooks's book"Cars I Could"ve, Should've, Kept" Want more. Go back to the stuff from Hans Tanner. I think you would enjoy these. tonga's crew
Let's throw in the Alfa Romeo 2000 for good measure. I never owned the XK 120 but did own the Alfa 2000 and the very early E Type coupe. Like all cars of the period they were unique for their day but far from perfect. The Alfa had a split drive shaft held in place by a cutlass bearing in the middle.This would periodlly fall out creating a terrible noise. Never any real damage.Just jack the car up an go under with a lead hammer. and a wrench. Knock the bearing back in place and tighten the holding flange holding the bearing. Back in operation in less than 20 minutes. Now for the E type coupe. As the story goes I ordered one of the first thru Cunningham's shop on Long Island for pick up in the UK. It turned out I was not going to get across the pond that summer but a girl friend was going. I gave her the paper work. She went to the London dealership, signed for the car which she never saw. and over it came.I still don't know quite how I pulled this one off but in those days such things were possible. The engine in that car was, well, it had problems.The two SU carbs were not up to the job, the gearbox was heavy and slow, the independent real suspension, a first for Jaguar, was unpredictable despite comp. rear wheels and Dunlops, and the engine had a bad vibration over 4500 RPMs. I put in a few laps at Bridgehampton and came to the conclusion that neither the car or the driver were up to it. Of course what I really wanted was a Touring Ferrari barchetta but the $ss wern't there. The E Type was OK for the road but like most Jags going back to the XK120 needed a lot of help to be race ready.And so the "Lightweight". Any way, that's my story. Hope you enjoyed. tonga's crew
As I said above, 3223, the first GTO, was sold basically for its outstanding race support, nose repair and storage bills in 1966. The asking price was $4000 and the final selling price was below that and as I understood at the time, it went for about $3500. German Motors in WPB crewed for Perkins at Sebring and following the race the car was brought back to West Palm and it sat for months under the staircase in the body shop part of the building with its nose up on jack stands as they were looking to see if there was any chassis damage after it hit the sandbank at the hairpin (there was none, the damage was pretty much all cosmetic). German Motors was never an inexpensive place to keep a car or to have work done (an understatement if there ever was one) and the car was clocking up storage bills at a high rate just sitting there. and Perkins didn't have much money. My best friends father was a salesman at German Motors at the time and another good friend worked behind the parts counter and he is still around as are several other well know car folks who know the story well (if anyone wants to I can provide names of several others who will verify off line). We've all talked about the car in the ensuing years and this is what actually happened and how it was the opportunity of a lifetime. Because German Motors never really owned the car (they just did a mechanics lien on it and then sold it) this part of the history doesn't show up in Barchetta, but they do show the selling price as $3600 when Grossman bought the car, which is probably correct. So far as I know this is the lowest price a GTO ever changed hands for. EDIT... According to Barchetta 3223 changed hands for $2500 in 1969 at the South Baltimore City Auction.... A bargain at twice the price????
Hi, None. The later smog-versions (1968-1971) in North Amerca had two Zenith-Strombergs and the V12 has four of them. All E's made from 1961 to about July 1967 had triple-SU's. (HD8) Early XJ6 and all European spec XJ6's up to 1975 had two HS8 2" SU's like my XJ6C has, but again for North America they used different carbs. Race cars had either triple sidedraught Webers or FI, like already D-types in the 50's. For street driving and normal high speed driving the SU's are great, but apparently not for racing. Cheers, Pekka T. Fin.
Ho, Nope, I don't think anyone saw it like that outside the factory, except perhaps Tore Bjurström. I don't have that TdF brochure so I don't even know if there was a colour photo but I would think so. The first race for this car was Kristianstad Sweden (1st in GT class) and there are photos from there too and IIRC it was already painted blue, with a white or light yellow stripe across the center of the car (looking from the top). The history of that car is well known, perhaps someone, or the current owner can fill in? Cheers, Pekka T. Fin.
Hi, Here it is in a colour film from Sweden in 1957: https://vimeo.com/127336166 So it had already been painted two-tone blue, either at the factory or by someone for Bjurström, I do not know if the car was delivered for Scuderia Ascolin at Kristianstad, but that could have been so, to get it to race as soon as possible. Cheers, Pekka T. Fin.
You are correct.This was a long time ago. Jaguar going back to the SS90 and SS100 always tried to do more for less. I kept the E type for quite a long time. Again it was a long time ago. I don't have any of the paperwork. I wonder if the car is still around?It's unique features were the wider rear wheels and the roll bar behind the driver's seat. It was in fairly bad shape when I sold it. Regards tonga's crew
There seems to be selection of "race car drivers" today who have waited many more than 20 years. Just go to any of the many vintage car racing events. Particularly the events in the UK and on the Continent. With today's wheels, tires, fuels and modifications many of the cars are driven faster today than when they they were new. tonga's creew
I believe that several 1950 - 60's British purely race cars had SU carbs. I know of one sitting a couple miles from my house.
In most cases they have come back to these cars, maybe as guest drivers, after their competitive career finished. Pete
Hi, Yes, of course, like the double-SU's that I think were made for racing and the sandcast H8's etc. But I was referring to factory prepared race cars, like the D-types, E2A and LWE's that in most cases had Webers or mechanical fuel injection. Sorry for any confusion. Of course also e-types and XK's were raced with SU's and in some cases successfully, but at least for some tracks (the fast ones, like Le Mans, Nürburgring) the Webers were considered better. Cheers, Pekka T. Fin.
