Tempting Selection in Castle Combe's Dream Garage
A feature of the Castle Combe Autumn Classic is the Dream Garage - a collection of historic race cars easily accessible in a marquee. Several of the cars will take to the track for demonstration runs, including the famous blue Lotus 18 that Stirling Moss used to win the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix for Rob Walker’s team.
For Saturday's race meeting (October the 1st) the selection also includes a range of classic Cooper Formula One cars, which should be an entertaining view of the rapid rate of development from the debut of the rear-engined cars, as well as a couple of the last front-engined cars, the well-built but late Scarabs and the Ferguson P99 and its innovative four wheel drive system (just count the driveshafts!). Appropriately some cars linked to Castle Combe will be in attendance, including the mighty McLaren- Chevrolet Formula 5000 car that Peter Gethin used toast an outright circuit lap record in the 1970s.
Cars expected in the Dream Garage:
- 1925 Grand Prix Bugatti Type 35, driven by Ferdinand de Vizcaya, the Spanish racer who also contested the Indy 500, to 5th place in the 1925 San Sebastian Grand Prix at Lasarte.
- 1953 Cooper-Alta, specially built for Stirling Moss, the Alta-engine replacing the tall Bristol egine of the previous year’s racer
- 1953 Formula 2 Turner, a unique car raced at Castle Combe by John Webb and Jack Fairman
- 1957 Cooper T43, T43s were raced by Jack Brabham to 6th place at Monaco in 1957 and Stirling Moss to win the 1958 Argentine GP and was Cooper’s first Grand Prix winning design
- Rob Walker Racing Team Formula 1 Cooper T51 raced in 1959 by Stirling Moss and Maurice Trintignant, Sir Jack Brbaham pushed a T51 over the line at Sebring to claim the 1959 Formula One World Championship
- Two 1960 Formula One Scarabs, the American front-engined designs overtaken by the rear-engine Formula One revolution before they properly raced
- Formula 1 Cooper T53 - Sir Jack Brabham took his second F1 championship in a T53, the Cooper factory building three ’lowline’ T53s for 1960 and more for customers in 1961
- Lotus 18 - this Coventry Climax-engined Lotus was driven by Stirling Moss to victory in the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix
- 1961 Ferguson P99, a one-ff four-wheel-drive Grand Prix car with innovative technology but another victor of the performance superiority of the rear-engined cars before it cold be fully developed, IT took its sole race win in the hands of Stirling Moss in the 1961 Oulton Park Gold Cup, a wet race.
- Ferrari 250GTO, the 1962 Ecurie Francorchamps car which took third place behind two other Ferraris at Le Mans that year
- 1964 BRM P261 Grand Prix car raced by Graham Hill and Richie Ginther
- 1965 Brabham BT11A-Climax, formerly raced in the Tasman series of races in Australia and New Zealand
- 1970 Formula 5000 McLaren-Chevrolet, ex-Peter Gethin Castle Combe race winner and lap record breaker.
- 1970 Lotus 59 Formula 3, ex-Team Lotus car also used in the film Rush, where it starred as James Hunt's F3 car at Crystal Palace
- 1971 Formula 5000 Harrier, originally constructed and driven by Castle Combe favourite Terry Sanger
