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January 08, 2008

To Get To Tool About Town...

In a 50 year old hand built race car

Call me old-fashioned, but I like a car to have a few niceties about it. I don't expect sat-nav or even electric windows, but seat belts and some sort of heating system I consider the bare minimum requirements – neither of which were found in the 1956 Lotus Eleven Sport I was recently invited to drive.

To be fair, I knew it wouldn't come "suited-and-booted" with a leather and walnut interior. It is, after all, the actual car which was assembled and raced by one the greatest motoring legends of his era: Graham Hill...

...The "Yellow Peril", XJH 902, is steeped in so much history it is impossible to ignore the importance of the role it played in post-war British motor sport. Hill built the car when he was working as a mechanic at Lotus Engineering in Hornsey, London, and raced it in the 1,200cc class of the Autosport Production Car Championship. To save money, the relatively impoverished future world champion would drive it to race meetings, compete in it, and then drive it home.

How cool is that?

Tim will be awfully jealous.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at January 8, 2008 07:36 AM