*** Historic Silverstone - Part 6 *****

[Colin]

LOTUS

Lotus also had a large display area. The new Evora was there, with a car that was half clay model and half the finished item, but it was locked up in a unit which made photography impossible. There was a feature on Lotus Engineering, and we had a long chat to one of the employees there who works as an engineer trying to translate the ideas that the CATIA users have created into something which can be built. He told us that although many of Lotus' projects are confidential, they had indeed done all the base engineering for the Vanquish platform.  He also said that this show car was fully production ready, and should have gone into production 3 years ago. He did not say by whom, though.





Along with a Proton Gen2, Lotus Design had this, a sort of concept for a snowmobile



A display of some of the racing cars from Lotus' illustrious past included this:







The first generation Elite



The Elan



Elan +2



Lotus Cortina - first generation



and second generation



The Europa:



The Elite



The Excel







A whole load of Esprits, of course





Front wheel drive Elan

   



The much vilified current Lotus Europa







Several of the latest Elise and Exige models were on display, too







The 340R



ASTON MARTIN

A Club display had some rather wonderful cars in it:

DB4:



DB5:





As one of the races on Sunday was just for Astons, it was reasonable to expect a good turnout of the classics from both the 30s and the 50s, and sure enough, an entire area of the paddock was held as a display section.

The DB2s:



DBR1



DB3S





There were a large number of the Ulster model lined up to compete, too






MISC

Humber from the 1930s



First generation Ford Zephyr



Second generation Ford Consul





In the background, a VW 1600TL, Type3





Three wheeled Morgan:



Three wheeled Morgan van:



Pontiac Firebird TransAm



Austin A50 Cambridge





Austin Westminster A110:



Vanden Plas Princess R - a Rolls-Royce engined version of the Westminster/ Wolseley 6/110





Wolseley 4/44



Austin Maxi 2 - rather a tatty example when viewed close up!



A couple of the Frazer Nash cars from the 1950s:



A Jensen 541:



Jowett Jupiter:



Vauxhall-Lotus Carlton

 

Corvettes:





Mazda MX5s were there in number



Rolls Royce



Rolls Royce Silver Shadow Coupe (prior to the car being called a Corniche)



Cadillac Eldorado Convertible - just massive!



HRG



Bristol 401:



Gordon Keeble - another rarity





A very original looking Sierra XR4i





Ford GT40 - this is Chris Notley's car, recreated over a period of many years from spare parts that were found. I heard it before I saw it as he drove in on Saturday. Makes my S6 sound very quiet!