First, allow me to wish all our readers a very Happy and Classic New Year! I have spent January 1st on each of the past five years attending the Brooklands Museum New Year’s Day Gathering and did so again last week. Brooklands is a venue that I visit and write about here in ViaRETRO’s virtual pages on a fairly regular basis – both for events organised by the museum itself, and classic car auctions run by Historics of Brooklands. Even on days when there is no special event taking place, the Museum has much to offer for the historic transport enthusiast, encompassing motor sport, aircraft and buses around the various garages and hangars scattered around the site, with the section of the original 1907 banked circuit also a major draw – the place has an atmosphere all its own, redolent of petrol, oil, grease, and the ghosts of mighty vintage racing cars and brave gentleman racers past.
However, the place really comes alive on event days as hundreds of classics of all shapes, sizes, and values make their way to their allotted parking spaces around the site – pre-WW2 cars mostly in the paddock area under the old control tower, others around the garages, still more around and underneath the wings of the old aircraft scattered around the site and on busy days, the historic banking – crumbling in some areas – that used to have those racers of days gone by thundering around it gets called upon for the much more mundane task of providing parking – and New Year’s Day is one of Brooklands’ busiest days.
After one of the wettest Decembers I can remember, New Year’s Day dawned dull but thankfully dry, giving me a pleasant and almost traffic free drive over to Weybridge. I arrived at the gates in die Zitrone just before 9.00 to join a queue of classics making their way onto the site, anticipating another fine day of classic car spotting. The gathering invariably attracts well over one thousand cars and apart from a few fairly small club sections, the generally random nature of the parking makes strolling around the site a genuine delight, as you don’t know what you’ll see next.
I was parked on part of the banked section between a vivid metallic green Vanden Plas Allegro (not the kind of dignified look BL had in mind for the VdP, I’m sure) and a black BMW M3. Cars were streaming onto the site – as they would for the next hour-plus – so I set off on my wanderings around this most historic of motor-sport venues.
With so many cars expected, it would be an impossible task to cover them all, so I won’t try, but will focus on a few highlights and let the photographs tell you the rest.
An early highlight was meeting occasional ViaRETRO contributor Zack Stiling. I don’t think Zack would mind me saying that despite his youth (I’m certainly old enough to be his father) he much prefers the past to the present, and he arrived at Brooklands in a 90-year-old (!) car to prove it – a black fabric-bodied Austin Seven. He’s a braver chap than I am…
As he was parked in the pre-war section, I spent some time there and as always, despite my lack of knowledge about this era of cars and motoring, I was still impressed at just how beautiful some of these old motors are. There were Bentleys and Rolls Royces, of course, various Austins besides the car Zack came in, and a lovely Delage, but I was particularly intrigued by the 1927 FIAT 509A and a fine pair of Lancia’s, one an imposing red 1929 Dilambda with three rows of seats, the other a 1936 Augusta in maroon and black, all of which were – surprisingly to me – right hand drive, even though they were manufactured after Italy switched from RHD to LHD after 1926 (something I didn’t even know had happened until further research prompted by Zack).
Besides a spectacular 1936 Rolls Royce Phantom III Coupé in red over black, a stunning red 1929 Vauxhall Hurlingham in red with black wheel arches and running boards and a single rear dickey-seat caught the eye, as did the information on the windscreen saying that the car had been saved from near death – being converted to a hot rod – by being bought in South Africa almost as scrap for the equivalent of £25 back in 1966 – and thank goodness for that, say I. This wonderful car has been painstakingly restored over the decades since and rightly attracted much admiration from visitors.
On the other side of the paddock, a black 1938 Citroen Light 15 Coupe with rear dickey or rumble seat and a fabulous 1948 Cisitalia 202MM with just 1089cc to call upon made a very fetching pair parked alongside each other – Traction Avant saloons are frequently seen at shows, but I’ve not seen this coupé version before, and the Cisitalia was just exquisite, not to say being Mille Miglia ready.
There’s usually a good turnout of Americana at Brooklands, and this was also true this year. Among the relatively common Mustangs, Corvettes and Chargers (including a very cool metallic ’72 orange 500 on the banking) some less common machinery such as a 1964 7.5-litre Buick Wildcat, a 7.0-litre ’68 Buick Electra 225, a red ’62 6.2-litre Chrysler 300, a white 1967 7.2-litre Chrysler Imperial and a gold ’65 Chevrolet Corvair all attracted my attention, as did a blue and white 1965 Pontiac Catalina and a metallic green 1950 Buick Eight with bigger teeth than a Great White. Their sheer size is imposing, giving many of these cars an intimidating and flamboyant presence, but they are not without style and in some cases, such as the Charger, subtle elegance.
Nipponese classics also featured strongly, including a couple of surprises, to me at least. Two generations of Toyota Celica, one a ST 2000 Liftback from 1977 and the other a metallic blue 1979 1600 Coupé, as well as a white 1976 Datsun 200L were notable, plus a dinky 1967 Honda S800 Coupé and a modified seventh generation Toyota Crown Royal Saloon SSR on Japanese (I think) plates. Maybe the rarest, not least because it was only produced for a single year – 1981 – was a superbly presented Toyota Celica Supra Mk 1 with 2.8-litre engine and limited-edition specification, in black and silver. At least, so I thought, until late in the morning I stumbled across an Isuzu Piazza Turbo from 1989 and one of a mere 16 remaining in the UK – when did you last see one?
One of the things that lends events at Brooklands their unique atmosphere is the combination of seemingly randomly-parked old aircraft surrounded by equally randomly parked classic cars, and scattered around the aircraft you could find, among many others, a lovely red 1959 Volvo PV544 B18, a deep green Jensen Interceptor from 1973 two cars along, and a gorgeous silver 1968 W108 Mercedes-Benz 280SE Coupé, as elegant a car as has been made, in my view.
Elsewhere a less exotic but nevertheless rare animal was a two-tone black and silver 1983 Renault 18, this one a special edition American, one of 5200 built and 1500 sold in the UK – I can’t remember the last time I saw what was once a relatively commonplace Renault, and it seems this is another of those cars that used to roam our streets in numbers but is simply not around anymore – just over 30 R18’s remain on the road in the UK.
Last year I was very taken by a pair of MGB Berlinettes – two of the 56 built by Belgian coachbuilder Jacques Coune in the mid-1960’s, with only a dozen remaining. It has to be said that they caused some division among both our team and readers! Only one was present this time, but I still think it looks great, and it remains the best-looking ‘B’ for me.
A very interesting and unusual spot was a prototype 1968 Costin Amigo, built by Frank Costin, the “cos” of Marcos, and on similar principles of a plywood chassis, fibreglass bodyshell and bought-in mechanicals, many of which – including the 2-litre engine – came from the Vauxhall Victor saloon, which is where any similarity between the two ends, although it was planned to have the cars sold through Vauxhall dealerships. A production car certainly impressed Motor Sport magazine in January 1972, but in the end only eight of these aerodynamic and rapid cars were sold, and I would hazard a guess that a price tag on the wrong side of £3,000 and slightly odd looks – a common trait among Costin’s cars – didn’t help.
Speaking of rarities, one of the leading contenders for the Rarest Car on the Day Trophy must have been the blue and white 1972 BMW 3.0Si Kombi. Sadly, there was no additional information displayed on the car – obviously it’s a conversion, but there were no details to say who did it or when. I don’t recall seeing it before – I’m sure I would if I had, so unusual is it – but some digging around the interweb has revealed that Baur built three of these Kombi’s to act as support vehicles for the factory’s race team. This one had a substantial roof rack, presumably to carry spare wheels among other replacement parts.
This is unlikely to be one of the dozen or so Langley Motors conversions – one of which has been for sale for some time with Classic Heroes for a mind-boggling £80k – it’s left hand drive for a start, the tailgate is very different, and it has no rear seats, all of which leads me to think it must be one of the three Baur Kombi’s. I’ve read that only one of the three remains – presumably this is that car; perhaps one of our knowledgeable readers can shed further light on this subject?
There was much else to delight all around the museum site including two very tidy Porsche 914’s, the metallic green one being a 1970 914-6 according to its badging and wearing the perfect number plate, 914 VWP. Close nearby stood a white ’63 Reliant Sabre Six alongside a well-patinated – well, OK, somewhat careworn – 1958 Borgward Isabella Coupé, an immaculately turned out maroon 1961 Ponton Mercedes Benz 180…oh, and a spectacular 1959 navy blue Aston Martin DB4…
I could go on, as there was sooo much more classic treasure to delight and enthrall, but will spare you all and let the photos – editing them down to this number was not easy! – tell the rest of the story of what was another excellent Brooklands day out!
