Maddest race cars

[astonman]

BPA 889.The Worlds Fastest Pre-War Aston-Martin .1850cc , Supercharged,running methanol laced with nitro- methane.one and a half MPG,max fuel consumption greater than 2 gallons per minute at full load and 19 lbs boost.Fully Road legal,I even drove to and from the MOT some years ago.

[ChevronB19]

astonman said:

BPA 889.The Worlds Fastest Pre-War Aston-Martin .1850cc , Supercharged,running methanol laced with nitro- methane.one and a half MPG,max fuel consumption greater than 2 gallons per minute at full load and 19 lbs boost.Fully Road legal,I even drove to and from the MOT some years ago.

Lovely!

[astonman]

[astonman]

[lufbramatt]

Found it, Adams Escort Can-Am car

[nicanary]

Jim Meikle's F3 Cooper with SNECMA pulse jet engine.

[ChevronB19]

lufbramatt said:

Found it, Adams Escort Can-Am car

Shows how British I am (as well as my age) - when I saw the sponsorship logo I immediately thought it was sponsored by a ‘gentleman’s special interest magazine’.

[ChevronB19]

astonman said:

Got to be the biggest SU carb I’ve ever seen!

[moffspeed]

Talking of Chevrons this heavily modified B36 appeared at Le Mans in 1988.

I was lucky enough to have been there to watch Jaguar win but , on my opticians advice, I have been bathing my eyes on a daily basis since setting eyes on the Chevron ROC Talbot that year.

[ddom]

The most impressive for me has to be this. Not a road car but 268mph on the road in 1938, it's remarkable.

[GT6 Jonsey]

One of the maddest race cars in recent years has to be Nissans Delta Wing

[moffspeed]

Then we had John Dodd's "The Beast". Initially adorned with a Rolls Royce grille but this became, ahem, a subject for discussion.

The eccentric Mr Dodd made all sorts of wild claims for the performance of the car, ultimately it was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most powerful road car in the world. Widely known as he "Spitfire engined car" but the RR lump was in fact a Meteor (tank) engine rather than a Merlin.

[ddom]

GT6 Jonsey said:

One of the maddest race cars in recent years has to be Nissans Delta Wing

A very clever car. IIRC there was also an Ariel Atom with 3 wheels used by someone as a test rig for something. I can't find any information of it all but did read about it.

[lufbramatt]

The Nissan GTR-lm was pretty mad too. Front wheel drive to in theory take advantage of some loopholes in the rules about front aero and try to make a car that would work better on high speed low drag circuits like Le Mans. Was a bit rubbish though.

[ChevronB19]

moffspeed said:

Talking of Chevrons this heavily modified B36 appeared at Le Mans in 1988.

I was lucky enough to have been there to watch Jaguar win but , on my opticians advice, I have been bathing my eyes on a daily basis since setting eyes on the Chevron ROC Talbot that year.

The front arches look riveted on? Chevron made some of the most beautiful race cars ever (hence my username) but this looks awful!

[Greg the Fish]

I'm going to throw this one into the mix in terms of 'maddest ideas'. It certainly was at the time.

On seeing, it Enzo's words were 'The horses don't push the cart'. Soon changed his tune.

[BMW A6]

Drove this.

On Gran Turismo.

It were right naff.

[anonymous-user]

lufbramatt said:

The Nissan GTR-lm was pretty mad too. Front wheel drive to in theory take advantage of some loopholes in the rules about front aero and try to make a car that would work better on high speed low drag circuits like Le Mans. Was a bit rubbish though.

The transmition on the front of the engine was having a lot of problems if i remember correctly. It never really got a chance to iron out the issues before it was pulled.

[anonymous-user]

Pete Lyons has a great collection of images from the CanAm series at https://petelyons.photoshelter.com/gallery-collect...

One of the maddest is the Chaparral Sucker car that used a snowmobile engine on the back to drive the fans.




Photos copywrite Pete Lyons.

[PAUL500]

Escort Cosworth with an XJ220 lump fitted instead