Black Cat - Jaguar XK120 #670138

I'd like to thank Geoffrey Horton for sending me these photographs of Phil Hill's Jaguar XK120 at the 2007 Danville Concours de Elegance.



This chassis #670138 is known to have been raced by Phil, who was guest of honour at Danville in 2007, in at least 3 races in 1950 in which he scored two second place finishes and a win in the 100 Mile race at Pebble Beach in November 1950.



Last week it came to light that I had overlooked something in my original blog on the XK120, namely that while the standard XK 120 took it's name from it's 120 mph capability, it has transpired that Norman Dewis was bolted into an XK120 with a streamlined roof and recorded a production car record speed of 172.412 mph on the 21st October 1953 driving along a stretch of Belgian Motorway known as the Jabbeke Straight, between Bruges and Ostend.

My thanks to Terry, Tim, Allan, and Tony at The Nostalgia Forum for the additional details and thanks again to Geoffrey for today's marvellous photographs.

Hope you have enjoyed today's Black Cat edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres' and that you will join me again tomorrow, Ferrari Friday, for a look at my favourite road going V8 Ferrari. Don't forget to come back now !

Maserati 250 F

I apologise to all my Rowdy friends who will have seen this car before on rowdy.com but I have expanded on that original post in this blog in honour of Canadian artist Paul Chenard who very kindly helped me out with another project I am working on. If you like drawings and paintings of old racing cars you'll love his gallery linked here.

The 250 F was first raced in 1954 by 1951 world drivers champion Juan Manuel Fangio who took a maiden outing win in Argentina and then won again, having missed the 1954 Indy 500, at the following race in Belgium.

Juan then went on to become Champion in 1954 driving for Mercedes Benz for the rest of the season. With Mercedes at the height of their power in 1955, Maserati were locked out of the top spot in Formula One but in 1956 the 250 F was again driven to two victories by Fangio's former Mercedes team mate Stirling Moss.

Having been crowned world champion from 1955 - 56 the now four time world champion Fangio returned to Maserati for 1957 and promptly won four of the eight championship races to set a four peat world championship record that stood until 2003.

In that 1957 season Fangio drove one of the races of all time during the German GP, having failed to out fox the Ferrari team after a disastrous pit stop, Juan Manuel set 7 consecutive lap records on the 14 mile Nurburgring Nordschleife making up over 48 seconds before taking the lead from the Mike Hawthorn's Ferrari with a lap to spare and record the 250 F's 8th and final Formula One Championship victory.

Fittingly JMF drove his last ever race in a 250F at the 1958 French GP coming 4th, winner Mike Hawthorn sportingly refraining from lapping him on the final lap.

The 250 F continued to appear ever more uncompetitively until 1960.



This 1957 250F is the last of the 26 built. Complete with a six cylinder 240 hp engine.
This car is differentiated from most by a short wheelbase Piccolo chassis.
The 250 F is recorded as being the most forgiving of the 2.5 litre (152.5 CUI) F1 cars by Willy Green who has driven every type of 2.5 litre F1 car competitively in historic races.

Hope you enjoyed today's post and will join me again tomorrow.