Race Retro
Mercedes 190E works rally car and ex-jim Clark Lotus 33 steal the show
Responding to the programme clash with the London happenings, Race Retro’s organisers unearthed a bevy of competition jewels for the 15th anniversary event at Stoneleigh.
MERCEDES-BENZ 190E 2.3-16
‘I bought this car from Mercedes specialist Geoff Williamson,’ says Steve Magson of his recently acquired Mercedes ex-works Group A rally car. ‘I’d gone to his workshop to look at a different car and found this one in bits. The rear left and front right quarters needed completely rebuilding after a crash.’
Few realise that Mercedes continued rallying the 190 Cosworth after it had been outclassed by the Audi quattro. This one is ex-dany Snobeck, the last of seven built for the 1987 season. It contested the Monte Carlo Rally and Tour de Corse.
‘We’re currently trying to find out which of Snobeck’s drivers was in it,’ says Magson. ‘Bernard Darniche had chassis 3143, and this is 3144. We believe Snobeck was going to drive it, but Mercedes withdrew its funding for the rally programme before he had the chance. It was sold to a privateer, who crashed it, and it went missing between 1990 and 2007.’
The team had just signed Ari Vatanen and Walter Röhrl for three years when Röhrl told Mercedes the 190E wouldn’t beat the quattro. He went to Audi but was still under contract with Mercedes, so they still paid him – he bought a house in Bavaria with the money!
‘I’m trying to persuade the MSA to let me run the ex-works car with carbonfibre throttle bodies,’ Magson adds. ‘We know Didier Auriol’s Tour de France car had them.’
LOTUS TYPE 33
The Lotus Type 33 in which Jim Clark secured the 1965 Formula One World Championship has been shown to the public for the first time in 40 years, after being found in boxes and reassembled by Classic Team Lotus.
This heralds the opening of the new Jim Clark Museum in Duns in the Scottish Borders in 2018. CTL managing director Clive Chapman says Clark used this car to win the 1965 Belgian, British and German Grands Prix, and broke the lap record at the Nürburgring at the race that sealed Clark’s second world title. ‘Our plan is to get it running again, but to demonstrate rather than race,’ says Chapman. ‘We want to restore it to 1965 British Grand Prix specification.’
In 1966, chassis 11’s Coventry Climax 1.5-litre engine was replaced with a 2.0-litre BRM unit, and its cockpit was altered to accommodate Graham Hill, who took it to second place at Monaco. Afterwards it was sold to Canadian privateer Paul Scott, who fitted it with an Oldsmobile V8 to race in the 1969 Seattle 200. It returned to the UK in 1978 and was dismantled by its owner, remaining in boxes until late 2016.
EIFELLAND TYPE 21
This bizarre 1972 F1 car graced Vintage Racecar’s stand on its UK debut. ‘Eifelland was a German caravan maker that had amassed a budget of DM6M to go into F1,’ says historian Mike Jiggle. ‘Swiss sculptor Luigi Colani designed this all-enveloping low-drag bodywork on a March 721 chassis.’
The car did well in a shakedown test, but when the team got to Kyalami for the opening race of the 1972 season it received the news that the caravan factory had burnt down. The business was sold and the car gifted to driver Rolf Stommelen – but he had no budget to race it.
‘Hexagon Racing acquired it, and John Watson was set to race at Phoenix,’ Jiggle says. ‘However, they missed the race as they were late arriving at the track!’ The Eifelland was restored to original specification last year after years spent stripped of its unusual original body.
BRABHAM VIVA ESTATE
‘I was only interested in the Brabham kit, but when I found it was an estate I just had to have it,’ says Guy Broad of Fender-broad, who was selling this unusual performance Vauxhall.
‘Vauxhall people have told me Brabham never did an estate, but there’s one on the front of the Brabham brochure! The tuning kit cost £37/10 [£37.50], or Vauxhall would supply the car for £861.
‘I’ve fitted 13-inch Minilites to gear it up because the tuned 1256cc engine is too quick for its standard four-speed gearbox,’ Broad adds.