A gathering of rally racing legends By John Sprinzel From Fishy Beginnings… If you have ever purchased a pair of competition driving gloves, they probably came from John Hopwood’s glove business, and if you have ever eaten fish and chips in the Manchester area, it is pretty certain that Roy Fidler’s company supplied the fish….
1948-1998 —When we say we have experience, we mean it! Moss Motors Ltd. is known as the world’s largest and oldest supplier of parts for classic British sports cars, but it didn’t start out that way. As a matter of fact, it really didn’t start out as a parts business at all. If Alan Moss had bought a Ford…
Of all the specialist British car makers of the 1950s, the TVR Company of Blackpool, Lancashire, had the most intimate relationship with America. In fact, the company’s early survival was due primarily to one Ray Saidel, who was the proprietor of the Merrimack Street Garage in Manchester, New Hampshire. Ray’s father opened the garage in…
To historians of MG, the fact that Cecil Kimber first modified Morris Oxford saloon cars is well documented. These humble family saloons were slightly tuned by Kimber at the Morris Garages in Oxford, England, given flutter springs, fitted with clean smart bodies, and sold at a premium. As we all now know, he was very…
English people rarely consider the signs outside pubs, mainly due to their rush to get inside! Yet, collectively, they provide an illustrated history of Britain. Few pubs were named by accident, and many names are almost as old as the pleasures of drinking itself. Wine bars in ancient Rome hung bunches of grape leaves outside…
As I have been involved with the Sprite’s 40th and Moss’ 50th birthday celebrations, my mind has naturally been busy with memories of Motor Sport of the ’50s. Rallying, Tin-Top production car racing, and Formula One now has a much larger audience than it did in those days, and while the basics of each side of the…
Big, emotional, bear-hugging, steak-eating, STP pajama-wearing Andy Granatelli was the last guy you’d expect to see plotting over a breakfast table with the nutty Colin Chapman. Andy’s STP dollars had brought the two together, but on this October ’67 morning, only the brilliant Granatelli magnetism could have led Colin “I never eat breakfast; only black…
(This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Donald Mitchell Healey, and as such, we would like to present an interview with him which Paul Chudecki undertook in 1986, and which gives an insight into the man responsible for those magnificent machines. Paul traveled down to Perranporth, Cornwall, to interview Donald just…
When World War II ended, Dad was 45 years old. He couldn’t drive and decided our family needed a car. Somehow, someone persuaded him that a Jaguar was just the thing for him, and a wonderful black beastie appeared outside our garage-less suburban semi-detached home. To this 14-year-old, the Jaguar SS1 was just magnificent. I think…
(This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Donald Mitchell Healey, and as such, we would like to present an interview with him which Paul Chudecki undertook in 1986, and which gives an insight into the man responsible for those magnificent machines. Paul traveled down to Perranporth, Cornwall, to interview Donald just…
