Dan Gurney raced a Plymouth Superbird for Richard Petty Enterprises in the January 18, 1970 Riverside NASCAR round – the Motor Trend 500 – popping the thing on pole but having mechanical gremlins during the race, finishing sixth. Petty was fifth, AJ Foyt won in a Ford Torino Cobra.
The season came good for Petty and Plymouth for this wildest of all homologation specials: King Richard was enticed back into the Mopar fold from Ford, winning 18 NASCAR races and the title.
This article tells the story of the 1935 Superbirds built in late 1969 well:https://www.autoevolution.com/news/first-owner-got-no-markup-plymouth-superbird-picked-it-up-after-6-months-it-s-an-amazing-survivor-277783.html
AAR prepared and raced three (some sources have the build number as four) Plymouth Barracudas in the Trans Am that year too: Dan and Swede Savage drove the cars in the 1970 Trans-Am, widely considered as the high-water mark of American pony car racing.
It featured an all-out, factory-backed engineering war between Ford, AMC, Chevrolet, and Chrysler. While Ford and AMC battled for ultimate honours Chrysler entered the fray late with a dual-pronged Mopar assault: the Dodge Challenger T/A and the AAR Plymouth Barracuda,
Chrysler commissioned Dan Gurney late in the piece 1969. AAR built three racers cars from ‘body-in-white’ shells, including acid-dipping the panels to thin the steel and fitting various titanium components carried over from Gurney’s F1 and Indy programs.
SCCA rules limited engine capacity to 305 cubic inches, AAR destroked Plymouth’s 340 V8 to 303.8 cubic inches, yielding over 450bhp.
Driven by Swede Savage and Gurney (sometimes) the cars were quick in qualifying but were unreliable given late season engine development and underfunding.
Savage bagged three poles (Bryar, Bridgehampton, and Donnybrooke) with the season’s peak at Road America, where Savage was a great second behind Mark Donohue’s AMC Javelin.
Early in the season, Chrysler’s cost cutting downsized AAR’s two-car effort to a single entry for Savage. Gurney retired from driving after the Riverside finale on October 4, 1970. Much more from Revs here:https://automedia.revsinstitute.org/glorious-cudas-and-challengers
Crazy shot of Joe Leonard’s Lotus 56 Pratt & Whitney gas turbine – complete with heat haze – ‘Turning into Lincoln Boulevard, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, towards Phil Hill’s ‘shop in 1968. The Paxton/STP workshop was located on the Olympic Boulevard a couple of blocks away,’ wrote Lotus ex-employee/historian Richard Parramint.
Jim Hall, Miss Florida, and Hap Sharp celebrate their Sebring 12-Hour victory on March 27, 1965. Second was the Ken Miles/Bruce McLaren Shelby Ford GT40, ahead of David Piper/Tony Maggs in Piper’s Ferrari 250LM.
See my feature on the race and Chaparral 2A Chev here:https://primotipo.com/2020/01/25/chaparral-2a-chev/
The Lotus 49 Ford Cosworth DFV blew the socks off the motor racing industry when it landed at Zandvoort in 1967; here with BRM employees present, Messrs Rudd, Stewart and Spence. The other fella is Keith Duckworth.
‘It’s no big deal Tony, despite all Colin’s froth and bubble, it’s pretty much the Lotus 43 with a decent engine!’See here:https://primotipo.com/2015/02/17/jim-clark-taking-a-deep-breath-lotus-43-brm/
This family affair privateer entry of Enus Wilson in the 1962 Sebring 12-Hours is a bit about what the 2.9-litre, four cylinder, DOHC, two-valve, Weber fed 250bhp Maserati Birdcage was about, a customer racing car.
He shared his T61 Maser with his brother in law, Ernie Grimm, sadly the pair didn’t finish in #2471, a major engine failure caused a DNF and fire. Shortly after this incident an aluminium GM-BOP 3.5-litre V8 was cranked into the engine bay of the ex-Roger Penske car.
More about Enus here:https://forums.autosport.com/topic/103561-enus-sonny-wilson/ and here:https://www.schaudtfuneralservice.com/obituaries/sonny-wilson-jr
Porsche 962C Doppelkupplungsgetriebe, or PDK, for short! Would’t German spelling competitions be a challenge!?
In 1987 Hans Stuck contested and won the ADAC Supercup sprint series in this PDK equipped lightweight 962C, chassis 962-009/962-137, the technology having made its race debut in a 962 raced by Stuck and Derek Bell to an historic win in the 1986 Monza 360km.
Nice Hemmings piece on the evolution of the PDK from its 1960s beginnings here:https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/the-shifting-history-of-porsches-pdk-transmission/ And great Porsche article about the restoration of this car:https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2021/history/porsche-hans-joachim-stuck-962c-racing-car-reunion-35-years-26012.html
Peter Gethin at Brands Hatch over the July 20, 1974 British Grand Prix weekend with his Graham Hill Racing Lola T370 Ford DFV.
Q21 and DNF in this one-off appearance, see here for Lola Heritage on this design:https://www.lolaheritage.co.uk/type_numbers/t370/t370.html Team chief Graham Hill was 13th in Lola #26, albeit six laps adrift of race winner, Jody Scheckter’s Tyrrell 007 Ford, from Emerson Fittipaldi’s McLaren M23 Ford and Jacky Ickx’ Lotus 72E Ford
While the Lola Heritage piece relates that the T370 owed much to the uber-successful T332 F5000 design, it’s equally clear that the 1975 T400 F5000 machine bore more than a passing familiarity with the T370.
Jay Chamberlain in the Lotus Engineering Lotus Mk15 Climax 1.5 leads a gaggle of cars in the early laps of the 1958 Le Mans 24-Hours, DNF accident during the ninth hour after completing 39 laps.
The #9 Lister-Jaguar driven by Freddy Rouselle was out in the fourth hour with plunging oil pressure. Alessandro De Tomaso finished 11th in the #42 OSCA Sport 750 TN he shared with Colin Davis, while the #37 Alfa Romeo Giulietta SV Zagato, driven at this point by Marcel Lauga, was out in the eighth hour after an accident. Up front was the Olivier Gendecbien/Phil Hill Ferrari 250TR 1958.
Lotus 15 Climax rear suspension detail, and car in full, in these cutaway drawings commissioned of Tony Lofthouse by Motor in 1958. Feature on the Lotus 15 here:https://primotipo.com/2017/11/09/dereks-deccas-and-lotus-15s/
A couple of not-the-usual-suspects shots of F2 McLaren M4A Ford FVAs at Thruxton in 1968: Graham Lawrence above, and Guy Ligier below.
Ligier was eighth in his Ecurie Intersport machine, while the Kiwi was 13th in his Chequered Flag/McLaren Racing entry.
Their best results in the three Euro F2 rounds they contested that year – Hockenheim, Thruxton and Jarama – were in the first heat at Thruxton where Guy was fifth and Graeme seventh.
Credits…
MotorSport, Road & Track, Theo Page, Porsche AG, Lola Heritage, Maurice Louche, Motor-Tony Lofthouse, James Allington, Richard Parramint Collection, Vintage Everyday
Tailpiece…
What a shot!
Citroen DS Goddess and a Concorde prototype at Le Bourget Airport, Paris in 1969 just after Concorde 001 F-WTSS made the stunning aircraft’s maiden flight from Toulouse on March 12, 1969.
More on the shoot here:https://www.vintag.es/2025/12/concorde-citroen-ds.html
Finito…
