T70 Aston Martin at the Simeone Museum

I have a friend who is associated with the Simeone Museum in Philadelphia. I was visiting up there last week and got a tour of the museum, which is a great experience that I would highly recommend to anyone with an interest in cars, especially sports racing cars.

Their annual "Best of Britain" show runs from March 23 to April 14 and this year the featured mark is Aston Martin. One of the cars scheduled to be there is a Lola T70 Aston Martin, purported to be the Surtees/Hobbs LeMans '67 car.

The information submitted to the museum gave the serial number as 73/1214. As I understand it, the serial number for the Surtees/Hobbs car was 73/121, so I am not sure how the extra "4" fits in, maybe it's a typo, but it appears that this could actually be that car. The last thing I read about 73/121 was that it still had a Chevy engine, but that was many years ago, does anyone know if it has been refitted with an Aston engine?

Also, as I understand it, the only time that 73/121 raced as an Aston engined car it had the special aluminum rear bodywork that was quite different from the standard T70 coupe rear end. Anyway, if anyone will be in or near the Philadelphia area during the next few weeks, it might be worth a look.

Steve Sobieralski

Not sure where the 4 came from but it does not belong in the vin stream for any reason I am aware of... and as for the aluminum tail I think it was a modified Ferrari tail that Big John had aquired from his pals on the red team, originally for SL73/101, the first Aston T70 coupe, actually the first T70 coupe. There are pictures though showing three different tails only one of which became the standard coupe tail. Interesting car and would love to see it even if it has a Chevy and a standard tail now.