Lwów GP inspires memories of a Lwów pilot

THE WONDERFULLY

evocative article in Octane 212 about the pre-war Grands Prix held at Lwów in Poland had me checking personal recollections of my father, who was born in Lwów in 1915 and would have been at the very impressionable age of 15-18 years when they took place in 1930-33.

Father was Witold (Lanny) Lanowski – my mother remarried in the 1950s, so I have a different surname – and was one of the Polish flying aces of World War Two. He fought in the Polish, French, British and US air forces, racking up around 420 combat hours, and went on to fly around 50 different types of aircraft, including post-war jets such as the Hunter and Venom. His favourite and most successful was the P-47 Thunderbolt, which he flew with the 56th Fighter Group of the USAAF. It had .5in cannons, compared to the .303s of the Spitfire, which made it a 65% bigger hitter!

A book on his wartime experiences called Out in Front was published in 2014, based on his written memoirs from around 50 years earlier, and this neatly brings us back to the subject matter: as a small boy, Witold’s interest was firmly fixed on GP racing, and he was at school in Lwów for the equivalent of secondary education, where his ambition was to become a famous racing driver.

In the book, he says: ‘These men were all heroes in my eyes, without exception. The more daring and death-defying they appeared, the greater the heroes they became for me.’ There is a definite irony there, given his wartime exploits and the extraordinary bravery that he and other fighter pilots showed.

The family was from a well-to-do professional background and racing drivers were among the guests entertained by them. Father was taken round the course by one of those guests on one of the ‘magnificent machines’. He further states: ‘I had taken to haunting the pits for days to watch the mechanics work on the cars. The maintenance to keep them in perfect condition was more a family affair. Besides the mechanics, there were the drivers plus their girlfriends or wives. Everyone gave a helping hand and it was the women’s job to apply the spit-and-polish and elbow grease until the cars were shining immaculately. It might also have been a music festival for the amount of singing and gaiety that surrounded these occasions while the polishing was done.’

Witold says that ‘the tramlines were sealed with tar for the GP’ (your article refers to gypsum) and that ‘for four or more days beforehand they made practice circuits very early in the morning between 5.00 and 6.30am. It was impossible to sleep during this period of noise and excitement. In any case, invariably everyone was out and about to watch the cars roar past through the town.’

The references to various well-known cars and drivers in the article stack up with my father’s recollections, which is pretty amazing considering he was writing those some 35 years later. He states: ‘There were Bugattis, Alfa Romeos, MercedesBenz and the many names of the world-famous drivers I have long since forgotten. But not, for instance, Hans Stuck and Rudolf Caracciola, who were the top racing drivers in the world.’

Witold signs off this part by saying that he ‘never lost the boyhood dream and desire to be a racing driver, so consequently it became an unfulfilled ambition that has remained with me’.

All I can say is that his enormous number of other achievements seem to have more than made up for that. I attach a photo [below] of my parents sitting on the wing of his Thunderbolt in 1944.

Alex Grenfell, Devon

Italian stallion

Robert Coucher speculates in Octane 210 whether there was ever a sticker for the Ford Model T van that read: ‘Don’t laugh at my van, your daughter’s in the back.’ According to that great documentarian of 1920s America, John Held Jr, the popular phrase painted on the side of a collegian’s

rattletrap was ‘I call this car the Mayflower, because many a little Puritan came across in it.’

The Mustang Zagato feature [above] in the same issue reminded me of a story that I’d almost forgotten. In 1966, while visiting Modena, Peter Coltrin took Bill Pryor and me to a little

carrozzeria that was a perfect example of what we’d been told they were like: down a sort of alley, sandbags of various sizes with various sizes of alloy sheet here and there, and a huge configured tree stump at the back. Sadly, the little sticker that the owner gave me has lost enough of its detail on the side of my WC cistern (I didn’t have a toolbox at the time) that I can’t now tell you the name of it.

The owner begged me to give him a Mustang and $5000, for which he’d convert it into one of several beautiful sketches he’d done, incorporating any changes I might suggest, a full leather interior and so on. He said

I might be his only hope to continue his business because his two sons were fast losing interest.

My thought at the time was ‘So what – all I’d have would be a custom-bodied Mustang’ and, being 30 years old and fully grown, I of course expected that the world would remain just as it was for a long, long time.

Toly Arutunoff, Oklahoma, USA

Tuning into Downton

I was interested to read your piece about Ian and Adele Hunt’s racing Mini Van in Octane 212, which also mentioned Downton

Tuning’s Jan Odor and Daniel Richmond racing an A35 van in the early ’60s.

My Austin Ulster, TK 3410, is pictured [at bottom] in the 1959 750MC Six Hour Relay at Silverstone, being pursued by an A35 van. I wondered if anyone recognises this van as that actual Downton Tuning A35?

Charles Leith, Hampshire

A great Grand Tourer

How delightful to see ‘my’ Iso Grifo in Octane 211! The picture [right] was taken on the very day I bought it in 1975, and I kept it for 33 years until late 2008, when Steve Piper took it over to convert it into the magnificent convertible it is today. Steve deserves every credit for having the guts, the vision and the vast funds it took to complete.

The Grifo was my everyday car for more than six years, come rain, snow or sunshine. It was totally reliable and never missed a beat – apart from when slush splashed up onto the spark plugs if it was snowing!

Its raison d’être can be summarised by John Bolster of Autocar, who in 1965 said: ‘It is a Grand Touring car par excellence.’ Part of its secret is the Carter four-barrel carburettor. It has fairly small primaries, which made it as docile as my dad’s Jaguar XJ6 around town but, if you opened up the throttle, the big mechanical secondaries transformed it into a muscle car. It could run down the motorway with 140mph-plus on the clock with absolute stability and my wife fast asleep next to me. (Those were the days!)

It was no racer. It had very high gearing, with 80mph available in second, and you could cook the brakes in one 100mph stop. And what made its steering so stable at high speed also made it unsuited to tight bends such as you’d find on a racetrack. But it is one of the most beautiful cars of all time, whether as convertible or coupé. John Impney, Worcestershire

Spam fritter, anyone?

Your ‘Icon’ feature on Spam in Octane 212 brought back vivid memories of 23 October 1976.

The occasion was Lord Montagu’s 50th birthday party and the theme of the party was World War Two. I was booked as the drummer to play in the Glenn Miller-inspired orchestra and all the guests were chauffeured in military vehicles to Beaulieu Abbey, which had been ‘dressed’ to period perfection. Guests drank Champagne from enamelled tin mugs and the accompanying canapés were Spam fritters atop thin, delicate toast rounds!

At midnight exactly, Dame Vera Lynn walked down the main staircase to dazzle the assembled audience with her most famous songs, and the party ended at dawn over a sumptuous breakfast.

What a privilege to have been witness to, and have participated in, such a landmark occasion. Peter Boita, London

Chips off the old block

I recently received my first subscription copy of Octane 210, and was delighted to read Derek Bell’s column.

In 1969 I lived in Wellington, New Zealand, about 94km south of Levin, where I went to see the Tasman series. Competitors included Chris Amon, Derek Bell, Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt and Piers Courage, and I recall with delight watching Graham McRae (a fellow Wellington Car Club member) in his little McRae Ford pass Graham Hill on the long left-hander off the main straight!

A few weeks ago I was able to relive some of that atmosphere and action at the Circuit of The Americas here in Texas, where Geoff Brabham and his son Matt [above] competed against each other for the first time in Brabham BT35s. Matt finished first and Geoff third, separated by another Brabham – of course!

Mike Penman, Texas, USA

Sting in the tail

Delwyn Mallett’s reference to a Tequila cocktail called the ‘B-52 with a Mexican tailgunner’ at the end of his ‘Icon’ page about the B-52 Stratofortress in Octane 211 reminds me of a timely warning from some American friends: ‘Remember… It’s one Tequila, two Tequila, three Tequila, floor!’ Ian Ward-Brown, Oxfordshire

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