As promised, I wanted to share a few of the amazing Mullin Museum cars, just for design and style inspiration. This French Blue beauty is one of the fabled [URL="http://www.supercars.... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
I visited the Mullin museum a couple of weeks ago and the museum is simply staggering - not only for the cars but also the art deco artifacts and furniture. The race car section upstairs was particularly well done with its recreation of the period pit area of Le Mans. A friend of mine in England owned one of these for many years - the former Zora Arkus Duntov car. There was a thread about money no object engines for a hot rod and I posted the DOHC six engine from a T26 as top of my list. Glorious!
Such a great fusion of function and beauty. I gotta say though, cheap bungee cords to hold down hood and scratch the paint ???
A fellow I knew had one of these. It came from Europe in the '50s and was raced in California for a few years. Passed through a few hands before my friend had it. It was very, very tired by that time. He traded it to Peter Giddings who restored it and has raced it in vintage events ever since. Wonderful car.
I saw one of these run at The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix about five years ago. Standing next to the car and taking in all of the beautiful feature makes you realize that there were far more fantastic F1 cars running than just the most prominent makes. If I can find the photos I'll post them here. Speaking of The PVGP; I'm headed there this weekend. Maybe it will be there again an I'll get some new digital shots.
Yep we did build some cars here in Europe! I am building a body for a Talbot 105 at the moment not quite as exotic as this but quite a car for 1933.
That car is awesome. In my years as a body & paint guy I had the great fortune to work on 2 of Peter Mullin's Delahayes. Thought I'd post some pics for all to enjoy. The light blue race car is the famed "Million Franc Delahaye". It has a full aluminum body that was hand built in the late 1930's, V 12 power and tons of rivets! The coupe is actually the same chassis and V 12 engine as the race car, but was re-bodied in steel after WW 2 by Henri Chapron. We rebuilt About 60% of the body as this car went thru a complete resto. We took both cars to Pebble Beach, which I highly recommend attending! Anyway, enough babbling... Enjoy the photos! P.S. Props to Mullin for entering the race car in Monterey Historics the day before the show at Pebble!
Beautiful cars there is one down here that attends the annual Speed on Tweed event and always love looking at the details.
Was that the same Talbot that Jerry Sherman had in Malvern, Pa. years ago, or a sister car? Jerry had his long before they were pricey works of art.
A few folks know of my love for these types of cars, one of them sent me this link.............more porn. http://www.fantasyjunction.com/cars/866-Talbot-Lago-Type%2026%20Course%20Formula%20One%20Racing%20Monoposto-4.5%20Litre%20DOHC%20Inline%206-Cylinder
Very Sweet ... wonder if they have a spare one of these engines laying around that I could use in the HA/GR ??!!??
Those Talbot-Lago motors are peculiar in that they are twin cam, but not twin overhead cams. To get a true hemi chamber, they put cams down on each side of the block, each with its own set of rocker shafts and rocker covers. The cams look funny since they each have only 6 lobes. That finned thing in the cowl is the oil cooler. Aside from Grand Prix wins, they also won Le Mans about 1950. They don't rev that high, about 4,200 in stock form. In the standard road car form it was the fastest available car in the world, until the XK-120 came along. There were about 12 GP cars and about 53 Gran Sport [GS] roadsters and coupes all with custom bodies. There were about 700 ordinary production cars built with four-seat bodies of various types, with a de-tuned motor - 2 carbs and 180 HP or so and a longer wheelbase. These sales are what supported the racing efforts. The transmission is the Wilson pre-selector [designed for double-decker buses] which is shifted by solenoids selected by that miniature shifter on the right of the steering column, and activated by stabbing the clutch pedal.
More on the Wilson Preselector gearbox invented for buses. Racers liked it because you could keep both hands on the wheel at critical moments, since you had already selected the next gear, and merely stabbed the clutch to shift into it. Entering and leaving a sharp turn were the natural places to lose control on the 5-inch tires of the period, especially with this powerful and torquey motor. I reckon a certain technique with the throttle pedal was required, but you got to keep both hands on the steering.
I don't think Louis Chiron thought much of the gearbox when it failed after 37 laps at the British GP of 1948.
The shift arrangement made it way too easy to move the lever the wrong way, as did Pierre Levegh in a Talbot-Lago at Le Mans in 1949, IIRC. He shifted down instead of up, locking the rear wheels and spinning off while in the lead with 20 minutes to go. He was trying to drive the whole 24 hours himself, and must have been addled on top of being dumb, foolish and crazy. This numbnutz was also at the wheel of the Mercedes when it went into the crowd at Le Mans in 1955.
Here's another I heard it's for sale for 1.35 million http://www.whatonemillionbuys.com/1948-talbot-lago-t26-course