New at Old Irish Racing

Terese - About the only thing in common with this entry and the last one is that they are both in shades of blue.  Oh, and that their body work was made in England.  It shows how eclectic my collection is.    Another Bugatti Type 57 to round out the row in my case for these wonderful motorcars.

1935 Bugatti Type 57 TT - Matrix




Most Bugatti T57s were bodied with Jean Bugatti designs either at the factory, or at select coachbuilders such as Graber, Van Vooren and Gangloff. This car (Ch. #57316) was bodied by Bertelli, but despite the Italian name, it was bodied in Feltham, England. The cars original owner was Col. G.M. Giles, who was founder of the British Bugatti Owners Club. The body for the car was designed by the Colonels brother, Eric an interior designer. Nicknamed Terese, the car was built on a TT chassis with a highly tuned 3.3L engine. A Bugatti T57 owned by Lord Howe with the modified chassis and engines did well in the 1935 Ulster Tourist Trophy race and hence the TT moniker was given to cars with similar modified engines and chassis.





Col. Giles went to France to collect the chassis and then proceeded to drive it back to England. The bare chassis powered by the 148 HP engine must have made quite an exciting trip! It was then given its lovely four-seater body by Bertelli. The deep-tapered rear end has room for two spare wheels and the rear also has hydraulic jacks to facilitate wheel changing. Col. Giles was most impressed with his new grand touring car, one of twelve Bugattis he owned at the time. He said of the car, “truly the most superb car anybody could wish for – fast, silent, terrific acceleration, and yet so docile that thick traffic can be negotiated on top speed if desired.” He sold the car in 1939 to be replaced by another with bodywork designed by his brother. This time a super-charged Type 57SC. The Colonel knew how to travel well!

Lovely Bugatti. I've not heard of the Colonel before, but he sounds like an interesting chap with the financial means to match his good taste.

The Bugatti is very elegant, as is to be expected.  Wasn't Bertelli more closely associated with Aston Martin?

Very nice but very much too fancy for me.

Young Peter Perfect - Being a fan of Peter Gregg, Brumos racing, the Can-Am series, and the Porsche 917 in its many iterations, picking this new release up was a must have for me. One can look at 1971 as the high-water mark of the Can-Am and many view the 917/10 as being the ultimate reason for death to the series. One can only speculate had Bruce McLaren lived, would they have found an answer to the Porsche? This model and the story behind it is interesting to me, because it shows Peter Gregg before his dominance in IMSA and Trans-Am racing, in a car with power he was never quite able to come to grips with. It also shows the distance between the factory backed team of Roger Penske and the Porsche privateers like Gregg. Here to one can speculate had Porsche been a bit more equitable with their support, would we have seen a one team dominance in 1972 & 1973 that led to a one team show in 1974 and the series consigned to the history books?

Porsche 917/10 - Watkins Glen, 1972 - Spark




When one hears of the 1972 Can-Am series and the Porsche 917/10 mentioned, one instinctively thinks of the red and black striped, turbo-charged white cars of the factory backed team owned by Roger Penske. The cars which dominated the Can-Am in 1972 & 1973, producing Championships for George Follmer and Mark Donohue each of those years. However, Porsche also sold 917/10s to privateer customers in either normally aspirated, or turbo-charged versions. Peter Gregg was one of those customers and purchased a 917/10 (Ch. #917.10-007) from the Porsche factory. His car was a normally aspirated 4.5L Flat-12 engined car which produced 500 HP, clad in light blue early 1972 bodywork. Gregg finished 9th in the Can-Am Championship in 1972, despite not finishing three races.





Sponsored by Greggs Brumos Porsche dealership and bearing his familiar number 59, Gregg first entered the car at Road Atlanta and finished 5th. At the next race at Watkins Glen, the car had received a 4.5L turbo charged engine like the Penske cars, but only managed to finish 11th due to engine problems. Gregg had also been struggling with the 1100 HP now being generated by the 917/10. Again, engine gremlins forced him to retire, but he was back in the unblown car for Road America and finished 3rd. Accidents in practice at Donnybrook and Laguna Seca caused the car to be rebodied and at the season finale at Riverside, it had the latest bodywork like the Penske cars and for the first time, the famous Brumos colors appeared. Gregg called the car a “monster” and sold the car to Hurley Haywood, who campaigned it with some success in the 1973 Can-Am in Brumos colors. This model is in its Watkins Glen livery.

I am happy that Spark chose to model a 917 with early spyder bodywork rather than the usual 917/10K with their chiseled noses and big wings.  While this car would eventually receive that bodywork when it became available to privateers like Brumos, its early life needed to be documented in model form.  I wish they would have done the normally aspirated version from Mosport at the beginning of the season.  The car had a much more interesting blue and white livery.  Perhaps if Spark easily sell the 500 copies of this National Series model, they will.  

While I do very much like the more common red, blue and white Brumos colours, this one does look good in baby blue.

That looks great in that colour