Hi Dan,
I like where you live, New Slough, same as (old) Slough where the original GT40s and Lolas were built.
Huge learning curve ahead, You bet, never ends, how about the RF saga for me!
Old Enzo, who ran his famous car company until he was 90 also always said that you never stop learning.
I met Dennis Olthoff’s father, Bob, for the first time in England in 1964 even though I had often previously seen him racing. At the time he was driving for the Willment team. He was a tough, hard arsed character and there’s a dedicated chapter on him in my forthcoming book on the history of the Kyalami circuit, near Johannesburg. Sadly Bob recently died of lung cancer in North Carolina and his ashes were scattered at Cape Town’s Killarney circuit where he scored many
victories.
I posted this quite a while ago and will repeat as I’m sure new members wouldn’t have dug back in the archives.
I was at the Nurburgring at the end of May 1963 for the 1000 km race and Bob drove the GT40 forerunner, the Lola MK6, with our mutual friend and fellow countryman, Tony Maggs, who was a Cooper F1 works driver at the time.
Even though the Lola was probably the most beautiful racing sports car at the time, the aerodynamics were a disaster. Along the undulating main straight just before the start/finish line the Lola’s rear end would lift right off the deck at 140 mph and waved from side to side, clouting the neat row of hedges on either side, leaving a shower of leaves all over the place. They told me at different times that they would blip the throttle in half full flight and watch the rev counter needle flicking up.
When Bob was at the wheel the distributor drive broke and the Lola coasted to a halt. He wanted to cut across the forest to get to the pits in a hurry but a cop told him it was verboten and told him to run around the outside of the track. Not a problem. Bob planted a bunch of fives on the cop’s chin which sent him sprawling to mother earth. As he ran toward the fence the half stunned cop drew his fire arm and took aim whereupon some spectators shielded Bob and told him to run like hell!
Two weeks later I was at Le Mans and was standing at White House corner at 1 am with my American Porsche colleague, Randy Edwards, from Orange City, Florida, when a lone car came past, the field having thinned out, and rolled. We heard the thumps and bumps and saw the headlight arcing through the sky. It was none other than Bob in his Austin-Healey as I discovered later in the morning. It was very misty and a mist bank that wasn’t there a lap earlier was there next time round which obscured Bob’s view.
Whilst being carted off to the ambulance Bob’s engraved watch was stolen and told me long afterwards that whenever he went to France he would grab every Frenchman he met by the arm to see if he could get his watch back!
In 1965 former Shelby Daytona Coupe driver, Allen Grant, bought the same Lola MK6 from Eric Broadley, without engine and gearbox. Allen is a property developer and lives in Vancouver, Washington. The Lola is until today in exactly the same state but I believe Allen now intends restoring the car to its former glory. I was introduced to Allen by none other than Rob Beddington.
Allen has been out to stay twice and during his first visit I took him to meet Tony Maggs, who was living at a small coastal resort. We had lunch at a restaurant right on the beach on a beautiful sunny day. It was one of the most amazing and memorable days of my life, for there I was in the company of the guy who drove the Lola 41 years earlier and the new owner.
After lunch we went to Tony’s house and he asked Allen to autograph a book on the history of Lola. Allen wrote, ‘Thank you for not crashing my car.’ Tony replied, ‘You are bloody lucky!’
When Tony returned to South Africa after racing in Europe he was asked to go for a joy ride with his girl friend in a Piper Aztec. The pilot took off and started showing off and the plane hit the deck. It burst into flames and Tony knowing that there was a gas cylinder on board dived in to the pull out the pilot, the other passenger and his girl friend. In so doing he received severe Niki Lauda type burns to his face. He told Allen and me that he survived on the race tracks of Europe to be barbequed in an aircraft crash.
You see there I go rambling on again, but you’ll gather from this how small our world is!
In the pic, the book in front of Allen is Bob Friedman's COBRA: THE SHELBY AMERICAN ORIGINAL ARCHIVES 1962 -1965. Any Cobra fans our there who don't have a copy, go buy immediately!!!
Best regards,
André 40
