Valve Bounce

Sports Cars in Hi-Fi

Sounds from yesteryear. Here are a selection of recordings from an old Riverside Recordings LP called "Sports Cars in Hi-Fi". It's not the sort of thing that is going to get into the top 20 but it is an interesting listen non-the-less to a few strange people... I'm not sure when it was released but it must have been in the late fifties or early sixties with recordings of many of the top race cars of the era.

Here they all are "at rest"..."at speed" will have to wait for another day.

Click on the image to get a closer look at the sleeve notes.

 

 

 

Two Cylinders

D-B- a wonderful little french car that consistently mopped up in their class (.840 liters).

Three Cylinders

DKW- an amazing little two stroke engine that seems to wind very high indeed (.9 liters).

Four Cylinders

A good selection here from MG-TF to Maserati Grand Prix car.

Ferrari "Testa-Rossa" - (2 liters)

Lancia Special- A nice Lancia Aprilla, worked into a competition roadster (V4 1.35 liters)

Austin Healey Special - (2.6 liters)

Porsche 550- Spyder (4 cylinder Boxer, 1.5 liters)

PBX Special- featuring a Crosley engine (.749 liters)

Lotus Mark 11 - Climax engine (1.1 liters)

Porsche 1600 - A bit rough sounding! (4 cylinder boxer, 1.6 liters)

MG TF - (1.25 liters)

Maserati Grand Prix- A true thoroughbred. Piercing exhaust and whining valves (2 superchargers 1.5 liters)

Six Cylinders

Jaguar, Fraser-Nash and Mercedes-Benz.

Jaguar D Type - (3.5 liters)

Fraser Nash- One of the most famous af all engines running unchanged from the 1930s to 1970s (2 liters).

Jaguar XK 140 - with an MC head claimed to be the noisiest 140 in the Northeastern United States.

Mercedes 300 SL - Fuel injected (6 cylinders inclined, 3 liters)

V8

Big lumps here from two 5.4 liter cars.

Cadillac-Allard - The most successful competition car in America in it's day (5.4 liter).

Kurtis - Great exhaust note (5.4 liters)

V12

Ferrari 166 Inter - one of the early Ferrari engines. Businesslike and just about unbeatable (2 liters).

Mercedes at Oulton Park 1958 - Three Pointed Star

A great selection here from an old Sound Stories LP that I’ve just transposed to MP3. It tells the story of Mercedes-Benz at Oulton Park in 1958. This was a Richard Seaman Memorial meeting and featured the 1937 W125 and 1938/9 W154 Mercedes-Benz (the LP sleeve calls it a W163 but I belive this was the engine not the car) both driven at ‘characteristic’ speeds. Their appearance together served to honour the memory of Richard Seaman who drove both cars while he was a member of the Mercedes racing team. He won the German Grand Prix in 1938 at Nurburgring in the W154. An English driver in a German car winning in Germany in 1938 a few red faces on that day no doubt. Richard Seaman died at Spa driving in the Belgian GP in 1939. Chris Nixon’s biography is well worth a look.

This recording also features interviews by Laurence Pomeroy with the two young drivers - Peter Collins and Tony Brooks.

The Real Italian Job: James Martin's Mille Miglia 2008 (BBC2)

This program was given a prime time spot on BBC2 this Sunday and I was quite looking forward to it. It turned out to be a really good lesson in how not to enter your first old car event.

James Martin is a celebrity chef in the UK; he’s obviously a bit of a petrol head and owns a few old cars. The program starts with him reading about the Mille Miglia and the associated acts of daring-do, especially Sterling Moss’ victory in the 1955 event. He then sees the modern event but he hasn’t got a suitable car and has never driven in an old car event before.

The insistence that the event is a race is pretty much standard for this type of program. However, and I know it’s not very TV friendly but the Mille Miglia that’s run nowadays is certainly not a race of any kind. The race was stopped in 1957 when a car slapped into the crowd at 160mph killing eleven spectators its driver and co-driver.  The modern event is a parade for a few highly privileged and largely wealthy old car nuts; the ones that can get their hands on a suitable car and the entry fee. For them it’s a few days of historic car regularity trials with good hotels and few good dinners thrown in. Let’s just compare… 

	1955	2008
Time to complete	10hrs	72hrs
Average Speed	97.9 mph	14mph
Lunch Breaks	0	3
Dinners	0	3
Nights Sleep	0	2
Entries	660	250
Closed Roads	Yes	No

First stop for James Martin was to get some advice from Nick Mason and Sterling Moss who were on hand to give words of wisdom. They were ignored; but very wise words they were too – ‘buy something reliable’ and ‘get a driver/navigator intercom system installed’.

 

James decided that rather than take his girlfriend he needed to employ a navigator/mechanic (although I’m not sure why he needed a mechanic since there was a mechanic following in a van anyway). He was introduced to Sarah Bennett-Baggs who drives a 1978 Porsche 911 SC in the Porsche Club Championship.  She knew nothing about navigating, or reliability rallies, or ancient Italian cars so how this was going to help him was a bit of a mystery (did she have some sponsorship deal? Nothing was mentioned).

 

The programme also featured James’ outrageous comments about female drivers. They really wouldn’t have been out of place on in a 1960s Carry On Film, plus there was a scene where he compared pretty cars and pretty women that was just like a script for the Fast Show’s Swiss Tony.

He took advice from a dealer to spend £600k on a 1948 Maserati A6GCS (way over budget) then invest in a £250k rebuild. All with the aim of selling it for £1m after the event. The car was finished, even further over budget, and the entry accepted. Now for the caper...

 

The whole event was a bit of a disaster. The Masers engine started to misfire after a couple of hundred miles and a burnt valve was diagnosed as the problem. No spares were available in time so they had to retire. For the record, a Maserati A6GCS finished 4 overall in 1955 in 11:15:32 a very respectable time. According to road race bible ‘Time and Two Seats’ 18 A6GCS' started and 8 finished which is not a bad ratio. But who in their right mind doesn’t carry a few spare valves and a head gasket set on a rally like this?? Especially if the engine is still being run in… and where was the on event camaraderie? Don’t tell me you can’t get Maserati valves in Italy, they can’t have been more than 100 miles from Modena, or that someone else on the event didn’t have a similar engine.

 

My top tips, for what they are worth; 

• For goodness sake relax and let your girlfriend navigate
• Enter a few other events to understand how they work 
• Get some local contacts and a team together 
• Shakedown your car properly
• Buy some wet weather gear!
• And Practice, Practice, Practice

I’ve got a sneaking admiration for the determination it took to get the money and the car together, but overall it was a missed opportunity to get under the skin of such a huge event. No doubt he’ll have another go and will make a better job of it next time. But until then I’ll put all my moans down to petty jealousy - obviously.

 

The programme is available on iPlayer for a few days and on BBC2 again on 4th Jan at 19:00.

Here's what an on-song A6GCS should sound like at rest.

From my newly accquired 'Sports Cars in Hi-Fi' LP!

17th Monaco Grand Prix 1959

The Monaco Grand Prix is almost upon us again and these recording remind you what it was like 'back in the day'.

This is another in the series of Sound Stories and features Nevil Lloyd interviewing: Juan Manual Fangio, Sterling Moss, Tony Brooks, Jack Brabham, Phil Hill, Harry Schell and John Cooper.

What a line up.

A truly great list of drivers. Moss, Behra and Brabham on the front row.

Download - 1959 Monaco Grand Prix - The Build Up.mp3

Download - 1959 Monaco Grand Prix - The Race.mp3

24 Hour - Le Mans - 1964

To quote from the sleeve notes...

"Engine noise mingles with raucous music from loudspeakers interspersed with staccato announcements about progress of the race"

Commentary from Sterling Moss and Robin Richards

Result that year:

1. Jean Guichet/Nino Vaccarella

2. Graham Hill/Jo Bonnier

3. John Surtees/Lorenzo Bandini

What great drivers.

Download Sound Stories 1964 24 Hours Le Mans.mp3

Grand Prix d'Europe - Brands Hatch - 1964

I have a number of sound recording LPs from the 50s and 60s that I have been turning into MP3s. These are mainly from the Sound Stories series published in the UK around that time.

The first one I'm putting up here is a recording of Sterling Moss and Robin Richards commentating on the British and European Grand Prix 11th July 1964. These recording really are of their time and are wonderfully evocative. Great car recordings and BBC pronunciation...

The starting grid features Dan Gurney, Graham Hill and Jim Clark.

1964 Grand Prix d'Europe Brands Hatch.mp3