Silverstone International Trophy Hosted by HSCC
Designed to be driven hard, focused on exhilaration and fuelling adrenaline, Grand Touring cars of the classic Pre-1966 period are unarguably the purest of all. Showcasing a wonderful era in which manufacturers large and small vied for the sporting motorist’s spend, inter-marque competition was rife and racing improved the breed, the GT & Sports Car Cup rides boldly into Silverstone’s HSCC International Trophy event on Sunday, May 23, with a capacity grid for the Grand Prix circuit enduro.
An extraordinary 63-strong entry, the finest in the 15-year history of Flavien and Vanessa Marcais’ invitation series, features 30 magnificent machines in its front-running GT4 class alone! Plus another 29 across its equally-combative smaller-capacity GT3 and GT2 divisions. Grabbing the headlines will be numerous warhorses which competed internationally in period. The ex-works AC Cobra CSX 2131, road-registered ’39 PH’ and Ecurie Chiltern Austin-Healey 3000 ‘DD 300’ both contested the Le Mans 24 Hours in their heyday, while the big Healey ‘SMO 746’ - a GTSCC winner at Thruxton last season - was originally a factory rally car. All, intriguingly, were driven by Silverstone favourite ‘Gentleman Jack’ Sears.
Scot Gregor Fisken, long-time purveyor of cars to the congnoscenti and Sam Hancock share 39 PH which finished a class-winning seventh at Le Mans in ’63, driven by Peter Bolton and Ninian Sanderson and managed by Stirling Moss, still recovering from his Goodwood accident the previous season. The 4.7-litre Ford-powered car, with its sleek hardtop, ran in AC owners the Hurlock family’s metallic green livery then, but the Anglo-American monster’s illustrious career continued when it subsequently wore John Willment’s famous red and white battledress. In the hands of Norfolk farmer Sears, 39 PH finished third in the GT event supporting the BRDC’s Daily Express International Trophy F1 race and won twice at Silverstone later in ’64.
Sears had previously raced the Healey which became DD 300. A factory entry in Florida’s Sebring 12 Hours and Le Mans in 1960, registered UJB 143, it was re-registered under David Dixon of Ecurie Chiltern’s personal number and returned to the French classic in ’61 and ’62. Once raced by Jim Clark, it later spent four decades with Bristolian marque specialist John Chatham, a welcome guest at Castle Combe’s 2020 GTSCC finale last October in the company of works Healey rally co-driver Pauline Gullick. Current Dutch custodians Christiaen van Lanschot and Karsten Le Blanc have saddled the old warhorse in recent years.
The other fabled Healey in the GT3 division, SMO 746, was raced extensively by John Gott, chief constable of Northamptonshire Police and friend of Silverstone. Its restoration from big-winged ‘Modsports’ guise of the early 1970s to period factory spec is among many triumphant projects undertaken by Denis Welch Racing, proud sponsor of our 2021 curtain-raiser. Driven by new owner Mark Holme for the first time, with the redoubtable Jeremy Welch middle-stinting, its Thruxton victory last June was one of the COVID-19 reshaped season’s biggest and most exciting stories.
Sixty years after the Jaguar E-type made its competition debut at Oulton Park, no fewer than 14 examples make it the GTSCC feature’s numerically dominant model. Local men Julian Thomas/Calum Lockie (in Racelogic boss Thomas’ low-drag coupe), brothers John and Gary Pearson and father-and-son Graeme and James Dodd start among the favourites, as do Scottish motor baron John Clark and Miles Griffiths and Mark Donnor/Andrew Smith in semi-lightweight versions. Patrick Blakeney-Edwards - fresh from his gallant Pre-War race performance at Monaco in his ex-works Frazer Nash) and Jason Minshaw also race GT4 spec Jags.
They face one of the three thunderous Lister-developed Sunbeam Tiger Le Mans coupes (with the Squire family up), no fewer than seven AC Cobra 289s (with Gary Pearson/Carlos Monteverde, James Cottingham/TBC and Chiles père-et-fils among their intrepid pilots), a squadron of four of Shelby Mustangs led by Manfredo Rossi di Montelera’s and the big-block Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray of Julian Bronson/Barry Cannell among the big bangers.
Nine sonorous Healey 3000s colour GT3. Apart from the two historic cars already outlined, five-time British Hillclimb champion David Grace’s and that of evergreen Bristolians Chris Clarkson/David Smithies are among the welcome returnees. Stout opposition comes in the form of early Jaguar E-types, two Triumph TR4s, the similarly-engined Morgan Plus 4 SLR of John Emberson/Peter Horsman and a rare Reliant Sabre Six with 2.5-litre Ford straight-six power.
The GT2 pack is bound to see another MGB versus TVR Grantura tussle, all with BMC B-series engines. Six representatives of Abingdon include four family entries, like one of three teams hoisting the high-flying Blackpool minnow’s flag. Two Porsche 911s join the fun, alongside the 2-litre engined Morgan SLR (ex-Gordon Spice) of Simon Orebi Gann and invariably well-driven Austin-Healey 100M of Sarah Bennett-Baggs and her husband Mike Thorne. The feisty GT1 Lotus Elites of former Olympic shooter John Davison and Marc Gordon/Nick Finburgh will get among the bigger cars.
Sports racers are also eligible, indeed the two-litre Lotus 15 of Roger Wills/David Clark (the ex-Bruce McLaren/Syd Jensen 1958 Goodwood Tourist Trophy car) could threaten the frontrunning GT contenders. Smaller Lotus 11s include Sir Andrew McAlpine/Seb Perez and Sandy Watson’s which will be a giant-slayer in Martin O’Connell’s hands (if, as reserve, they get a run). They face the superb Lola Mk1 of Tim Reid/Alex Montgomery, a design cornerstone on which Eric Broadley founded his great marque in the late 1950s.
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