There was a time when it really was a type of paint. At some vintage
hill-climb meetings today there is a man at the meeting who will paint the
number on your racing car. The 'paint' washes off, not least because there's
no guarantee you'll get to have the same number when you next compete with
the car.
There was also a time when in the UK there was no national speed limit on
the motorways. The story goes that AC ran a Cobra down the M1 Motorway at
a speed close to 200mph. The speed caused a sensation in the British
press, questions were asked in the Houses of Parliament and a 'trial' or
'temporary measure' of a 70mph speed limit was imposed on motorways (the limit
was
already 60mph elsewhere) and we've had a 70mph limit ever since.
It seems that times change and attitudes and habits change but the 70mph
speed limit is here to stay.
As far as racing D -types go I think at least one car was wrecked by a
mechanic driving it to a race. I think the crash was in France - I bet that
made Jaguar sit up and think about transporters. Then there was the time
with Alfred Owen who owned Rubery Owen and BRM racing burned out the clutch
by slipping it too much when driving the racing car to the circuit - this
may have been Spa.
Weslake-Monza 1330
In a message dated 24/05/2011 19:19:22 GMT Daylight Time, thcollin at mtu.edu
writes:
I was re-reading an old issue of British Car magazine (Page 11,
October 1995) and spotted this paragraph which pertains to driving to
the track with racing decals, etc.
"In his hilarious autobiography, "Touch Wood!," Duncan Hamilton, who
won Le Mans in 1953, recalls driving a D-type from Coventry to Surrey
after a heavy fall of snow; "Many sports-racing cars would be
undriveable under such conditions," he pointed out. "No one has ever
had to take a Jaguar to a race on a transporter." Lofty England - the
team manager who became Jaguar's chief executive "always said that if
you cannot drive a car on the road it will never be reliable in a
race." By Phil Llewellin.
So presumably in the old days the "war paint" was applied at the
track and then removed for the drive home - or the rules have changed
since 1953. It would be interesting to know why this was OK in the
old days and frowned upon today.
Tim Collins
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12702006 at N07/sets/
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