Pic of the Week: Remembering Alan Mann
POTW takes a moment to celebrate the life of a motor sport legend
Mann started his team in the early 1960s, winning all sorts of championships in sports cars and touring cars throughout the decade, and the red-and-gold livery his cars wore became one of the most distinctive.
Although Mann campaigned many sports and GT cars, it's his Ford touring cars that he'll be best remembered for, particularly the Cortina and Escort - it was an Alan Mann Cortina that scooped the 1965 European Touring Car Championship, driven by Sir John Whitmore.
Plenty of other big names took the wheel of Alan Mann Racing cars, too, including Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, Carroll Shelby and Frank Gardner. It's Gardner that helps us celebrate Mann's life here, with a photo taken in 1968 at the Nurburgring. RIP Alan.
Pic courtesy of Ford Motor Company
Traditional (4:3)
Computer widescreen (16:10)
TV widescreen (16:9)
Portrait (smartphone, etc)
at an impressionable teenager, I saw a mk2 cortina race car, all Alan Mann'd up, on a race trailer in Epsom High Street early one morning in the late 80's (?)
The image burnt into my mind, it just looked glorious and beautifully prepared.
i've recollected that image so many times since, it's blurring a bit with rose tintedness
Classic Fords just make sense looking like that.
Saw one progressing around Cadwell Park once too...
The guy that now owns that car undertook a meticulous restoration of it a few years ago. On the face of it looks just like another escort but it isn't until you have a close look at the car that you realise it was a technical masterpiece of its time.
Sliding pillar struts with inboard coilovers on the front & morris minor torsion bars used to suspend the rear axle. I think the engine was shifted quite a bit to help with weight distribution too from what i remember.
The guy that now owns that car undertook a meticulous restoration of it a few years ago. On the face of it looks just like another escort but it isn't until you have a close look at the car that you realise it was a technical masterpiece of its time.
Sliding pillar struts with inboard coilovers on the front & morris minor torsion bars used to suspend the rear axle. I think the engine was shifted quite a bit to help with weight distribution too from what i remember.
RIP Alan
Looking forward to MRP's book, one I would have liked to have done.
The British saloon car racing of the late 60s early 70s was the best imo, I just loved the Bevan Imp, but the likes of Gardner, Brodie, Woodman, McGovern, Longman, Buncombe all 3 wheeling was just superb!
And of course, the giant Yank Tanks.
Today's racing seems like a playground ride in comparison.
Frank Gardner, a 3 time champ, won the championship in the Alan Mann Cortina and Anglia in 68.
Thinking about it, what's this about 'we're all living longer'? Frank died a couple years back at 78, now Alan at 75.
As for Frank in the Alan Mann Escort X00349F, a better pic is this one I used on a front cover nearly ten years ago.
Looking forward to MRP's book, one I would have liked to have done.
The British saloon car racing of the late 60s early 70s was the best imo, I just loved the Bevan Imp, but the likes of Gardner, Brodie, Woodman, McGovern, Longman, Buncombe all 3 wheeling was just superb!
And of course, the giant Yank Tanks.
Today's racing seems like a playground ride in comparison.
Frank Gardner, a 3 time champ, won the championship in the Alan Mann Cortina and Anglia in 68.
Thinking about it, what's this about 'we're all living longer'? Frank died a couple years back at 78, now Alan at 75.
As for Frank in the Alan Mann Escort X00349F, a better pic is this one I used on a front cover nearly ten years ago.
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