GALPOT Weekly #10

Welcome to the tenth edition of GALPOT Weekly, last week was spent reviewing what I can only describe as an unexpectedly interesting year.



On Monday I started with a review of some of the Museums I have visited this year, amongst many vehicles I have seen in the flesh for the first time was this 1976 Hill GH2 at the Donington Park Museum.



Throughout the year Geoffry Horton has kindly sent me photo's from the Concours d'Elegance events some of which I reviewed on Tuesday. Among the many completely unknown vehicle manufacturers to me until Geoffrey sent me photographs was this 1952 Maverick Sportster seen above at Palos Verdes Concours d'Elegance in September.



Of the events I reviewed on Wednesday my first visit to Brooklands and seeing some of the cars of the Brooklands era noodling around what remains of the banking was amongst the most memorable.



On Thursday I reviewed some of the motor sporting highlights of my year which included winning a trophy for driving up a muddy hill and seeing the Scuderia Vittoria Ferrari 458 being shared by Phil Dryburgh and John Gaw take an overall win at Castle Combe.



Friday I cast an all too brief swift glance over some of the Ferrari's that I have seen and featured this year including the 312 B3 Chassis #010 the very first Ferrari I ever saw taking part in a race.



For Christmas Eve yesterday I retold the amazing story of Mr Leonard Williams '32 Highboy Ford Boeing Roadster the first privately owned gas turbine powered car, which today resides with the Le May Museum.



For Christmas Day I have been looking at the Allard J2 on Lake Orion which belonged to Del Lee and today belongs to GALPOT Birthday Boy John Aibel.

The next 8 days will be taken up with the Automobiliart/GALPOT Seasonal Quiz details of which can be found below.

I hope you will join me daily for the Automobiliart/GALPOT Seasonal Quiz in the week ahead at GALPOT. Don't forget to come back now !

PS Don't forget ...

Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz



December 26th - January 2nd

Win a set of Paul Chenard Greetings Cards



Set 1 Sports & GT Cars



Set 2 Phil Hill World Drivers Championship 50th Anniversary Edition



Set 3 1934 Season



Set 4 Grand Prix Engines of the 1950's

or



Set 5 Mike Hawthorn's Race Cars

The Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz will comprise 8 categories.

Overall winner chooses one set of Paul Chenard Greetings Cards from the five sets shown above.

The cards measure 15.24cm x 11.43cm, come in packs of 12 with 3 copies of 4 designs in each set, plus A6 envelopes.

Which set will you choose ?

The free to enter Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz will run from December 26th - January 2nd Entries close January 8th 2012, Winner announced January 16th 2012.

Full details on December 26th at GALPOT.

Looking for Automotive Seasonal Gift Idea's? Visit Automobiliart Now !

So You Think You Know Your Sports Cars - Palos Verdes C d' E

Thanks to photo's sent by Geoffrey Horton, I am pleased to bring you another dose of California sunshine from the Palos Verdes Concours d' Elegance held last weekend.



About the most difficult vehicle to identify in this over view is the Mazda Como Sport unless like me you have wasted a little time playing Grand Turismo 4. Easiest vehicle to identify for regular GALPOT readers should be Geoffrey's Jaguar XK140 FHC, which was up against a Mercedes Gullwing this time out. Shocking to me was that Geoffrey sent me photo's of five vehicles who's manufacturers I had never heard of.



Oldest of the five was this 1940 Coachcraft 'Yanke Doodle' Roadster, a one off with a chassis frame built from Hudson Essex and Ford models by 17 year old Seward Allan with a body by Coachcraft of West Hollywood and modifications by Frank Kurtis.



My favourite of the five is this this 1952 Maverick Sportster, a 210 lbs boat tail fibre glass body built by Sterling Gladwin sitting on top of a Flathead Cadillac powered LaSalle chassis. This particular vehicle appears to be the prototype which is recognisable by the absence of any doors.



Next up we have a car of the type that starred in the reckless and thrilling film 'Johnny Dark' namely a Woodhill Wild Fire built by California Dodge dealer Robert 'Woody' Woodhill, who dreamed of owning a Jaguar XK120 and ended up building two fibre glass specials. With Willys running gear and tailor made Glasspar bodies, Woodhill was unsuccessful at selling his sportscar to Kaiser, owner of Willy's, and after modifying his car to run with Ford running gear he then built similar Buick and Cadillac examples. Again failing to gain manufacturer support Woodhill settled for building his sports cars with Ford running gear and selling then as kit cars that could be assembled in 14 hours, famously demonstrating a 4 hour build on TV.



The company that started the glass fibre revolution in US sports car production appears to be Glasspar a company specialising in building fibre glass fibre boats who built a, Bill Tritt designed, special, the Brooks Boxer, for USAF Major Ken Brooks. The mould for the Brooks Boxer was then used to produce the Glasspar G2 of the type seen here. A modified version of the G2 body was supplied to Robert Woodhill for his Wild Fire kits.



Finally the fibre glass body vehicle above is known as a 1960 Hirsch Roadster, sources on the internet suspect the date since the car is described as having Fiero steering, Datsun 280Z rear axle, and a 1966 289 Ford V8 connected to a similarly sourced 5 speed transmission. The owner believes the cars roots lie in a business that failed to get off the ground in Orange County. If you know anything about the Hirsch or indeed about any of the cars above please do not hesitate to either leave a message or get in touch be e-mail, my address is on the bottom of the page.

My thanks again to Geoffrey Horton for sharing his photographs from Palos Verdes.

Thanks for joining me on this glass fibre edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres', I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I'll be looking at a Rover. Don't forget to come back now !