Friday 6th June 2014

80s tin tops at Mallory: Pic Of The Week

Mallory Park has been saved - here's a classic view of some 80s saloons racing there to celebrate!

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You can read all about the team bringing Mallory Park back from the brink in our interview with co-lease holder Eddie Roberts. And having enjoyed driving the circuit earlier in the week, met Eddie and generally been fired up for this most charming of tracks we thought it would make an obvious POTW candidate.

Now Mallory is known as a bike track and is tight enough to make the idea of muscling burly saloon cars around its twists and turns an intimidating idea. Not that this troubled old school tin-top racers like those pictured here in their Capris, RX-7s, SD1s and Dolomites. The image in question is from the 1980 British Saloon Car Championship and shows Gordon Spice leading the field in his Capri 3.0 S, the Capri of eventual winner Andy Rouse and Win Percy's Mazda in hot pursuit.

An evocative image of an evocative race track and fine way to celebrate its continued existence!

Traditional (4:3)
Computer widescreen (16:10)
TV widescreen (16:9)
Portrait (smartphone, etc)

Photo: LAT Photo

[marmite monster]

ohhh nooo i want a capri now ..dam you piston heads !!

[andy97]

There will be a car race meeting at Mallory Park on Sunday 20th July. The meeting is the only one of the summer and will feature 2 x races for the CSCC Special Saloons and Modsports cars. There were 27 cars on the grid at the recent Brands Hatch event and several people commentated that it was the most spectacular club racing they had seen in many years. A good grid is promised for Mallory.

In addition to the Special Saloons and Modsports races there will be single seater races for Monoposto; a special challenge race that Toyo Tyres are supporting for all the cars in the series they support; a race for "7 Type" cars and a couple of Open Sports Vs Saloon races (the first of which is a standard race, the second of which is a handicap race).

The meeting is being organised by the CSCC but the regular CSCC series are not taking part (apart from the Special Saloons/ Modsports). The races are open to all participants, I think, and you do not have to be a member of the CSCC. If you are interested in taking part please contact the CSCC Office for definitive details.

Spectators will, of course, be very welcome. And the more the merrier. It should be a great day. Please support Mallory Park by taking part or spectating at this meeting.

[LuS1fer]

It may have been 1980 but most of those cars are 70s models.

So much cooler than today's wholly unrelated and irrelevant machines (albeit improving the breed, depending on your viewpoint).

[soad]

marmite monster said:

ohhh nooo i want a capri now ..dam you piston heads !!

Off to browse the classifieds then.

[PATTERNPART]

Great to see the Pentax RX7. A noisy little beast by all accounts. Looking at period photos it all looked pretty low tech and unmodified. Compared to the current stuff anyway!

[365daytonafan]

PATTERNPART said:

Great to see the Pentax RX7. A noisy little beast by all accounts. Looking at period photos it all looked pretty low tech and unmodified. Compared to the current stuff anyway!

It certainly was noisy at the Goodwood 72MM

[AdeV]

Shame it wasn't from 1979, when Jeff Allam's Capri would also have been up there in the picture. A Capri that, many years later, I owned....

[Markgenesis]

marmite monster said:

ohhh nooo i want a capri now ..dam you piston heads !!

Should never have sold my old 3.0 S

[skoze]

Fantastic.

This video's good watching to go with it, some seriously revvy Essex V6 action.

http://youtu.be/cpZThuhr8tA

Time to go put some Esso stickers all over the Capri...

[s m]

Markgenesis said:

Should never have sold my old 3.0 S

Bit off topic but.......

My Dad's old Granada company car ( silver, 2.8i manual ) was ALO 54S

[MonkeySpanker]

LuS1fer said:

It may have been 1980 but most of those cars are 70s models.

So much cooler than today's wholly unrelated and irrelevant machines (albeit improving the breed, depending on your viewpoint).

Manufacturers didn't have short development times in those days, maybe at least 5-7 years before a 'new' model was introduced & not many changes in between. Still I think this was maybe a 'Golden Age' for saloon car racing before it became totally ruthlessly just about money.

[Housey]

I think I was about 100 yards from the photographer! Loved the Spicey, Rousey, Woodman, Greenslade, Percy, Allam era, great racing with cars that oversteered!

[Housey]

PATTERNPART said:

Great to see the Pentax RX7. A noisy little beast by all accounts. Looking at period photos it all looked pretty low tech and unmodified. Compared to the current stuff anyway!

It was loud and sounded ste, but went so well with Percy at the wheel.