Quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy Jackson
Kojima,
No need to apologize, it wasn't a criticism! We've ended up asking a lot of questions in this thread, so it's understandable. Michael did a summary on page 3 of this:
"So we have the following:
HU01 - Ecurie Bonnier (c. Jan 72)
HU02 - Ecurie Bonnier (c. Jan 72)
HU03 - Noritake Takahara (Mar 72)
HU04 - Carlos Gaspar (c. Jun 72)
HU01 goes to Rouveyran at end of 72 then ? (Willy Widar?) (Swedish guy Alain mentioned)
HU02 was written off Le Mans 72
HU03 stays in Japan and is still there
HU04 goes back to Ecurie Bonnier (hence ex-BIP references in race reports) then to Lord, then Zaborowski, Malcolm Johnstone, Brian & David Auger (hence reference to HU04), then Geoffrey Marsh/Marsh Plant and then ? (Rosso Bianco?)"
As far as I know, Rosso Bianco website doesn't detail the exhibits, and I've not seen any information about this car. There is a photo here:
http://www.shmoo.com/~bmc/photos/Car...m/dscf0070.jpg
, and it doesn't look in very good condition. However, it does have the additonal rear wing that the Marsh car had in 1983 (Not much to go on, I know!), and is painted light blue, and red down the centre. The board next to it says Lola T280 1972 2993cc V8... In smaller print it says "Only x of this racing car for Group 5 have been built". Unfortunately from the photo, I can't make out the number. The "x" could be a 5 or 9 (Which would include T282-4-6 variants, but we know HU10 exists), but the number looks different to the 5 in the "Group 5" lettering. If you can decipher from the photo, it may help...
Since we aren't 100% on chassis numbering, what can you tell us about 04 in Italy?
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Jeremy
Thanks for the photo of the car in Rosso Bianco. I'd never seen one and was beginning to wonder if a photo of the car actually existed. I was getting to the point where I was going to suggest organising a TNF/Ten-Tenths trip to the museum to get my own photo!!!
I agree with you about the rear wing being an indicator that it is the Marsh Plant car but in fact I'd say there were a lot of other similarities with that car:
1) The front splitter added to the nose (only car I've seen this feature on)
2) The additional centre rear view mirror
3) The enlarged air ducts on the side of the car
4) The absence of the filled-in bodywork at the rear of the car
5) The removed centre section of the cockpit between driver and passenger seat (done at the Interserie Silverstone 74, according to Jeremy Lord)
I know that none of these on their own would be very conclusive, but put together, with the rear wing, I think it is 'highly probable' that the car in Rosso Bianco is the ex-Marsh Plant one. Now we believe this to be 04, don't we? But it would be interesting to here what Kojima has to say about Italy...also given the fact that we believe it has some Italian history via Jolly Club.
The car that has been really bothering me is the Ulf Broman one - it just doesn't seem to fit in. It doesn't have the filled in rear bodywork (although I suppose whoever rebuilt it could have put a new rear body section on the car - maybe from a 2-litre?) You will notice that his car also has the centre section of the cockpit cut away but it appears to have been done even more further forward than the Lord/Marsh Plant car! I don't suppose you have any idea when that photo might have been taken, even roughly, as that might help?
However, I think I have just discovered one thing which identifies the Broman car as 01 - the roll-over bar/hoop. If you look at the photo of the Rouveyran car from Le Mans 73, you will see that the diagonal hoop that goes from bottom left to top right, starting from behind the driver's neck, is welded to the other diagonal tube running from top left to bottom right, rather than being joined to the main hoop as it is on all the other cars. You can see this again on the photo of Casoni's car in the Rothmans 50,000. On the Lord car the diagonal tube running from behind the driver meets the main hoop and is not welded to the other diagonal tube at all, while with the Takahara car it always had the original design of roll hoop, again with the diagonal tube being welded to the top tube.
I can't claim this is all my own work, as Alain Hache was hinting that there were subtle differences in the roll-over bar/hoop a long time ago earlier in this thread, I just didn't look hard enough then!
Anyway, I'm going to be bold and I've moved the Broman car from my 'Unknown' folder in my Lola T280 photos directory into HU01!!! Any thoughts?
Cheers
Michael