GRR

Three potential Goodwood racers you could buy

07th January 2019
Bob Murray

Three perennial crowd-pleasers from historic racing at Goodwood  are coming up for sale. If you have ever seen yourself behind the wheel of a Capri at Members’ Meeting, a works Formula 1 Emeryson in the Glover Trophy at Revival, or fighting to control the V8 grunt of Europe’s one and only Studebaker Lark Daytona 500 in the St Mary’s Trophy – here’s your chance…

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The Ford Capri, £70-80,000

The Gerry Marshall Trophy race at Members’ Meeting (this year April 6th-7th 2019) wouldn’t be what it is without the hard-charging Ford Capris. That Capri shape and some of motorsport’s most iconic liveries make the fast Fords a familiar sight. And the car in the Silverstone Auctions sale at the Autosport Show on 12 January certainly looks familiar… but is in fact a newcomer.

It’s a new-build Fabergé-liveried machine that replicates the ultimate 1980 Capri British Touring Car specification, complete with 3.0-litre Group 1 engine producing 300-plus bhp, Quaife straight-cut gears and a period-correct T45 roll cage. As they were in period, the car is based on a 1.6 base Capri; a lot of the original technical drawings were used in the build and all the details, including even the paint codes, are said to be 100 per cent accurate.

The car only received its FIA papers in 2017  but already has had wins and podiums in historic racing at Brands Hatch, Thruxton, Croft and Silverstone. And Goodwood Members’ Meeting next? We certainly hope so. It will be good to see such an iconic livery, so well known from the Fabergé Chev Camaro, on a Ford Capri for a change!

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The Emeryson-Climax, £180-225,000

If you have ever watched the Glover Trophy at Goodwood – either in the 1960s or in the present day – you will have seen the 1961 Emeryson Climax Formula 1, eye-searingly bright with its sunshine yellow paint job. It competed in period at Goodwood and, after taking part in the very first Goodwood Revival in 1998, has been a regular presence at Revival since, as well as taking part in seven of the first eight Grand Prix de Monaco Historique.

The 1,500cc F1 car represents living, breathing Grand Prix history, being the sole Emeryson survivor and the actual car that took to the grid of the British Grand Prix at Aintree in 1962. Driven by Jack Fairman as part of a hugely distinguished field, it came home 11th.

Today, after a £90,000 rebuild, the car is said to be ready to take to the track again with it needing nothing more than a committed pilot to drive it. A place on the grid of next September’s Glover Trophy at Goodwood could await…

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The Studebaker, £100-130,000

This yankee V8 beast, the only Lark Daytona 500 competing in European historic racing, is another popular Goodwood regular: you may remember it most recently from the 2018 St Mary’s Trophy where in the celebrity race it qualified third and, after an epic battle, finished second. In fact over the past decade the 1965 Lark Daytona 500 has competed five times at both the Members’ Meeting and the Goodwood Revival. The small-block (4.5-litre) Chev V8, pumping out 430bhp at 7,000rpm, is reckoned to be able to propel the surprisingly compact and good looking saloon around the Sussex circuit in 1 min 30.3 seconds.

In period the Studebaker Lark Daytona had a successful if short-lived career in saloon racing, scoring its most notable result with a podium finish at Bathurst in Australia. The Lark Daytona 500 was a limited-edition model produced as a pace car for the Daytona 500.

The car in the auction was built by Fortec Motorsport and has been cared for recently by Richard Moore Racing, and overall is said to be highly developed and extremely competitive. Although never homologated in Europe in period, today it runs to Australian CAMS spec and would be eligible for the 2019 Masters series, as well as the 2019 HRDC Historic Touring Cars and HSCC Touring Cars. Silverstone Auctions says the car’s rarity will ensure invitations to all the world’s greatest saloon car races. We certainly look forward to seeing it take on the Mustangs, Falcons and Galaxies again.

See GRR’s story and pictures of the Lark Daytona in the Pierpoint Cup at the 75th Members’ Meeting here.

Silverstone Auctions’ Autosport International Show Sale takes place on Saturday 12 January 2019 at the NEC, Birmingham.

  • Autosport International

  • Silverstone Auctions

  • Studebaker

  • Ford

  • Capri

  • Emeryson

  • F1

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