Austin Healey Sebring Sprite

The Austin Healey 'Sebring' Sprite name refers to any Austin Healey Sprite with front disc brakes and more recently to any Sprite with Coupé or Fastback bodywork.



Following a change in the sports car regulations in 1960 which allowed special bodies, rally and racing driver John Sprinzel commissioned Williams & Pritchard to build 6 aluminium bodied Sprites with coupé bodywork between Dec 1960 and May 1961.



This 1960 vehicle purchased new by Cyril Simson started life as a standard Austin Healey Sprite registered YLN13, Cyril changed the registration to S221 and raced it as part of Team 221 with two other sprites H221 and X221.



Paul Hawkins drove it to victory at Aintree and S221 was part of the Sprinzel Sprite Team that took team honours at the Nurburgring.



Originally powered by a 43 hp 948 cc / 57 cui motor this particular unit, prepared by Janspeed, was shown to be delivering over 85 hp at the recent Race Retro exhibition.



For 1961 the car was prepared by John Sprizel and it was one of the six Sprinzel cars sent to Williams & Pritchard to be fitted with a aluminium coupé body.



The car was then driven in practice by Stirling Moss for the Sebring 4 hours who promptly stripped the clutch and transferred to another team car after repairs were made Pat Moss & Paul Hawkins drove S221 in the four hour race. S221 was then prepared again overnight for Cyril and Paul Hawkins to drive in the Sebring 12 Hours where they came in 37th.



In August 1961 S221 was sold to Peter Clark and it was reregistered and rolled at the Karrussel on the Nurburgring. The car was repaired and an extended fast back body was fitted by Peel Coach works.

The longest term owner of this vehicle Colin Pearcy had Len Pritchard make a new alloy rear end and coupé top and most recent owner Chris Clegg reunited the car with its S221 registration and has driven it competitively for several years with Archers Motors taking care of the race preparation.

My thanks to Janspeed who facilitated the photo's of the engine and interior.

Hope you have enjoyed to days Sebring edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres' and that you'll join me again tomorrow. Don't forget to come back now !

Bavarian Coupé - BMW 3.0 CS Automatic

Soon after we got our first black and white TV in 1967 I remember seeing a Karmann built BMW 2000 CS on a report from a motor show, possibly Geneva, thinking that was one cool futuristic car, I must have been 8 at the time.



The next time I remember seeing a BMW Coupe was on the cover of one of the earliest copies of Motor Sport I bought in the summer of 1973, it was a white works CSL being yomped through the Eifel Forest on the Nurburgring by Hans Joachim Stuck Jr, the magazine must have been a sell out because the following year a near identical picture appeared on the cover Motor Sport from the 1974 6 hour race at the Nurburgring this time with Hans driving a black works CSL.



In 1968 the 2 litre Karmann built BMW Coupé's evolved into the BMW 2800 CS based on the E9 platform, unfortunately ditching the very cool faired in headlights lights for the familiar US spec twin round headlights.



BMW was thought stand for British Motor Works in the USA around the time this car was built, BMW engaged in a works backed US Motorsports programme using the 'Batmobile CSLs' to correct that perception, to Bavarian Motor Works, in 1975.



In 1971 the E9 platform was fitted with a 3 litre / 183 cui 6 cylinder motor which when equipped with twin carburettors produced 180 hp.



This vehicle, according to the registration plates, was first registered in London around 1973/4.



I never did get what performance cars and automatics were all about, which is probably why I never became a auto marketing executive, but 30 plus years on an 'automatic' badge shows us the relative aspirations of the original owner and utilitarianism of the time when the car was manufactured.



There is something about vehicles designed around a simple horizontal midriff I find extremely alluring.



IMHO one of the few cars that looks as good in standard street form as in fully equipped racing form.

Like to thank every one who pops into 'Getting a lil' psycho on tyres' at some point during the night this blog had it's 10,000th page hit not exactly close to the 10 billion hits achieved by Apple Store but if you'd asked me if this was possible a year ago I would have wondered what on earth you were talking about, thanks again.

Hope you have enjoyed today's Bayerische Motoren Werke edition of 'Gettin a lil psycho on tyres and that you'll join me again tomorrow for Ferrari Friday in the Bonham's auction house for a look at a vehicle once owned by a dreamer who imagined all the people living in the world as one. Don't forget to come back now !

The slowest car they have ever built - Audi R8

For the 8th day of Christmas and first day of the New Year I present this Audi R8.



According to the on line publicity it takes 70 skilled workers to fit over 5,000 unique parts to each vehicle and build 25 of these cars a day.



These vents direct air straight through the car.



The aluminium space frame which includes 99 meters of welds, 782 punch rivets, 308 self tapping screws, and 113 weld studs takes 45 minutes to manufacture.



The R8 rides on a magnetic damping system which provides the the driver with two modes of ride, comfort or sport.



This is the first Audi to compete with Porsche it is not quite as quick to accelerate but has been demonstrated to have slightly better handling than the 997.



Powered by a 420 hp all aluminium dry sump 32 valve V8 with Fuel Stratified Injection, FSI, the R8 is capable of a 12.8 sec 1/4 mile and a top speed in excess of 185 mph.



Audi use 210 exterior LED's in the R8, 186 of them as brake lights which run at 5,700 degrees centigrade, they are said to use 50% less energy than conventional bulbs.



Expect to see racing versions of the R8 in two wheel drive form make an impact in GT3 racing in the coming year particularly at the annual 24 hour Nurburgring race.

Hope you have enjoyed to today's LED edition of 'Getting a lil' psycho on tyres and that you will join me tomorrow living the life of Riley. Wishing you all a healthy and happy New Year, 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.