GALPOT Weekly #19

Another riveting week at GALPOT featured a variety of vehicles including a '66 El Camino, a couple of formula one racers and a the Surprising Skoda.



The GALPOT week started with a look at this straight original '66 Chevrolet El Camino pick up billed as a pleasure to work with in contemporary Chevrolet sales literature.



The runaway export success that found a bit part in the Elvis Presley film Blue Hawaii MGA 1600 was Tuesdays GALPOT featured car.



Somewhat surprisingly contracted Ferrari driver Niki Lauda, who celebrated his Birthday on Wednesday, managed to also drive this Ford Capri RS3100 in 1974.



Wayne Graefen had been tracking this Terrahawk Special K Convertible for 25 years before he got the opportunity to acquire it and restore it a couple of years ago.



After winnig the World Championship in 1979 Jody Scheckter and Ferrari crashed to earth in 1980 with Scheckter scoring ust two points and Gilles Villeneuve seen above scoring just six points driving the Ferrari 312 T5.



A total of three cars were prepared to Formula One regulations fitted with the compact 3 litre / 183 cui Martin V8 like the one seen here, all three came to a fiery end, yesterday GALPOT featured a recreation of the Charles Lucas Lotus 35 Martin that Allan Rennie spent 5000 hours and a small fortune on rebuilding.



Today GALPOT features a couple of cheap and cheerful competition spec Skoda Esteele 130L's said by some to handle like Porsche's.

Thanks for joining me on this GALPOT Weekly #19 edition of 'Gettin' a li'l psycho on tyres' I hope you'll have fun following the links above and that you will join me again at 'GALPOT' during the week ahead. Don't forget to come back now !

GALPOT Weekly #18

Looking forward to going to Race Retro in a couple of weeks and restocking my library of photo's with new material despite the fact I have far from finished with all the photo's I took last year.



Last week started with a bit of Armless Fun in the form of a multiple Burn Out championship winning supercharged Ford P100 pick up.



For Valentines Day GALPOT towers went romantic with a look at this two seater MG 'TF' sports car.



My school friend Sven's Ford Capri 2.8i, which gave me my first hands on experience in motorsport as part of the pit crew, was the subject of Wednesdays blog.



The Chrysler 300 letter series represented some exclusive muscle, on Thursday I looked at this Elwood Engel designed Chrysler 300L.



Jody Scheckter won the 1979 World Drivers Championship in 1979 and Gilles Villeneuve came second securing the Constructors Championship in the Ferrari 312 T4's I looked at on Friday.



Photo Ed Arnaudin

Jim Clark qualified on poll for the ill feted 1964 Indianapolis 500 but suffered tyre failure after just 47 laps, Parnelli Jones, who still owns this quad cam Lotus Ford 34 which I looked at yesterday, bought it and came in second at the Indy 500 in 1965.



Today's blog is all about the game changing Honda NSX super car that raised the bar for future Ferrari and McLaren Super Cars in terms of handling, refinement, performance and price.

Coming up next week a '66 Chevrolet El Camino, and a Special K Convertible Terraplane with around 50,000 miles on the clock, don't miss all this and more at GALPOT !

Thanks for joining me on this GALPOT Weekly #17 edition of 'Gettin' a li'l psycho on tyres' I hope you'll have fun following the links above and that you will join me again at 'GALPOT' during the week ahead. Don't forget to come back now !

GALPOT Weekly #17

Welcome to GALPOT Weekly #17 a review of events on the 'Gettin' a li'l psycho on tyres' blog.



Photo Courtesy Wayne Graefen

The GALPOT week started a story about the restoration of an unusual half ton Terraplane Six Cab Pickup Express which dates back to 1934 that was found by Wayne Graefen in McMinnville Portland Oregon back in the mid 1980's.



On Tuesday I looked at the story behind the MG Bellevue Special a vehicle that was built by Wilkie Wilkinson for hire to drivers wishing to pit their skills against the fearsome Brooklands race track in the 1930's.



Ford's Escort Mk II a collaboration between Ford of Britain and Ford of Germany code named Brenda was the subject of Wednesday's blog.



For Americana Thursday I stuck with the Blue Oval and went behind the scenes to find out what lay behind the development 2013 Ford Fusion Sprint Cup car.



On Ferrari Friday I continued the potted history of the Flat 12 Ferrari Grand Prix cars with a look at the Ferrari 312 T3 which Gilles Villeneuve drove to his first Grand Prix victory in Canada in 1978.



Continuing my potted history of Lotus, on Saturday I looked at the Group 7 unlimited sports car class Lotus 30 which despite it's good looks is generally not recognised to have been one of Colin Chapmans best idea's although it did win a few races in the capable hands of Jim Clark among others.



The 325 hp TVR 400SE is the subject of today's GALPOT blog the last in the line of TVR Wedges based on a design by Oliver Winterbottom well known for two wedge shaped Lotus designs.

Thanks for joining me on this GALPOT Weekly #17 edition of 'Gettin' a li'l psycho on tyres' I hope you'll have fun following the links above and that you will join me again at 'GALPOT' during the week ahead. Don't forget to come back now !

GALPOT Weekly #16

Welcome to GALPOT Weekley #16, this week my competition season kicked off with a navigation exercise.



Bob Bull kindly took me along, in his 'daughters' supercharged Mini Cooper S, as a navigator for the Bristol Pegasus Motor Clubs January Navigation Exercise. See how I got on by following this link.



My potted history of MG Cars continued on Tuesday with a look at Andrew Moreland's supercharged MG PA.




Wednesdays blog featured a special Ford Mexico that turned out to be a multi purpose vehicle having been used as a racer, run around and wedding car by it's original owner John Webb.



The 501st GALPOT blog featured a Kurtis 500S a sports car frame with an Indy winning heritage.



Photo Courtesy Sven Platt.

Ron Howard is making a film called "Rush" at the moment about the extraordinary 1976 Grand Prix season one of the vehicles that should feature in the film should be the Ferrari 312 T2 as driven by Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni that I looked at on Ferrari Friday. I wonder if Ron's legendary attention to detail will pick up that Niki's new car for the 1976 British GP, seen above, appeared in practice with his name missing from the side of the cockpit ? Details that maketh the film for us anoraks :-)



Photo Ed Arnaudin courtesy Steve Arnaudin.

Yesterday I looked at the first monocoque chassis car to appear at the Indianapolis 500 since the Cornelean driven by Louis Chevrolet in 1915. The Lotus 29 chassis 29/3 driven by Jim Clark led 28 laps in the 1963 Indy 500 before getting beaten by Parnelli Jones and then the following year the car was rechristened the Pure Firebird Special and given to Bobby Marsham to drive, see photo above. Find out what happened next on this Lotus 29 link.



Derek Buckler like Colin Chapman started out building a successful competition special and then built a small company making copies of it on the back of his success. Derek allegedly gave his first model the Buckler Mk V name so that customers would not think this was his first design.

Coming up next week I'll be looking at a commercial Terraplane that I had no idea even existed until a couple of weeks ago, on Tuesday I'll be looking at an MG that was prepared in Wandsworth for hire to racing drivers at Brooklands and on Thursday I'll be taking a behind the scenes look at Fords 2013 Fusion NASCAR Sprint Cup challenger which already seems to have gone along way to achieving it's aim of re engaging the public.

Thanks for joining me on this GALPOT Weekly #16 edition of 'Gettin' a li'l psycho on tyres' I hope you'll have fun following the links above and that you will join me again at 'GALPOT' during the week ahead. Don't forget to come back now !