Motorsport has always been about man and machine, but in historic racing it is the cars and the stories behind them that are the real stars. The UK classic and historic racing scene is
thriving, and the appetite for both vintage legends right up to modern classics has resulted in a rich pool of memorable machinery now racing around the UK.

There is no official definition of a historic car and although Motorsport UK outlines ‘Defined Periods’ for vehicles, these are more related to safety regulations, and it is down to Clubs and Championships to define the era which they want to take racing. The general cut-off has long been acknowledged as 1981, but as time moves on, the FIA now defines the minimum age limit up to the end of 1990.

Either way, the very essence of this form of motorsport is eloquently defined and distilled in the Motorsport UK rulebook, where Historic competition is simply defined as being “a discipline apart” in which “one of the essential ingredients is a devotion to the cars and to their history, enabling the active celebration of the history of the motor car.”

And what history there is. There is a wealth of different Clubs running historic categories in the UK including – but not limited to – the 750 Motor Club, the Historic Racing Drivers
Club (HRDC), the Historic Sportscar Club (HSCC), the Classic Sports Car Club (CSCC), Motor Racing Legends (MRL) and Masters Racing. Each has an impressive roll call of classic
racing machinery.

Lotus Europa

Driver: Malcolm Johnson
Club: Classic Sports Car Club

The first race meeting I ever went to was the 1968 BOAC 500km race on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit, and the first car I saw when I drove in was John Miles’ Lotus Europa Type 47 in Gold Leaf colours. I got my first racing license in 1973 and have raced many things over the years, but I was attracted to the Swinging 60 series and this car fitted in nicely.

Lotus built the original Europa with a Renault engine, then the Type 47 with the twin-cam engine, which were raced in Group 4 and were fairly competitive, but then Chevron came along with the B8, and they were just so much quicker, so they had a limited racing history in the late 1960s and they were also very successful in production sports car racing of the 70s.

This one is an original Lotus, built at Hethel in 1972, and it was an immaculate road car with no racing history when I bought it. The guy who sold me it was not keen on me turning it into a racing car – but it’s still got the original walnut dash! It now also has a full roll cage, harness and all the rest of the safety gear, bigger brakes, stiffer suspension and so on.

The rules require it to have its original silhouette and it also has its original 1700cc Lotus Twin-Cam engine and Renault gearbox, it is just considerably more powerful now. It took around five years to get it to its current state, and it has done about 70 races in the UK and at Spa, with three outright wins and lots of class wins and podiums.

Lenham Sprite GT

Restorer: Richard Colburn,
Westbourne Motorsport
Driver: James and Ben Colburn
Club: Historic Racing Drivers Club

Image Courtesy of Jeff Bloxham

This car started life as a pre-1960s Austin Healey Sprite and was converted by Lenham. In the 1960s, people would take a road car to a coachbuilder, and they would convert it to make it look completely different. There were lots of companies making bodies for Austin Healey Sprites and all were slightly different, but Lenham was one of the larger producers.

These cars were all one-offs, not standard road cars, so there was no set specification for this particular vehicle because they would’ve had different engine sizes and bodywork and so on. This one has a 1,380 engine and it is a GT, so it benefits from a wider rear track, which makes it handle exceptionally well.

We acquired the car in a dreadful state with a lot of work to do. The floors were in good condition, but it had an MGB engine, which is much bigger than the original, and a lot of hammering had been done to fit that in! We had to re-install the chassis legs, and the roof also needed changing because it had a Targa top cut out, maybe used for Road Rallying.

We found a company with the original moulds, so they made the bodywork for us as a one-piece fiberglass front with fiberglass top, and sides bonded onto the original chassis. We painted it in an original Sprite colour. After a two-year rebuild, it won its first event, the Weslake Cup for Midgets and Sprites variants at Goodwood Members Meeting in 2017.

Austin Healey 3000 ‘DD300’

Driver: Karsten LeBlanc / Christiaen van Lanschot
Club: Motor Racing Legends / GT & Sports Car Club

Image courtesy of JEP

The most successful Big Healey of all time, this car was originally a works entry for the Sebring 12-Hours and Le Mans 24-Hours in 1960, piloted by Peter Riley and Jack Sears. After being sold to privateer David Dixon’s Ecurie Chiltern outfit, it returned to Le Mans in 1961 and 1962 and was highly competitive, although it failed to finish both times.

Two years later, disaster struck when Julian Hasler lost control of the car and rolled it in the 1964 Autosport Three Hours. It was rebuilt by John Chatham, who raced it in club events from Modsports to Sprints, and finally Historic events, for four decades, sharing with guest drivers including Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, Gerry Marshall and Barrie ‘Whizzo’ Williams.

In 2005, when Chatham was no longer himself able to race competitively, we bought DD 300 and commissioned a sympathetic restoration to return it to its 1961 Le Mans specification. It is now raced in the UK and overseas in all the major historic races, including Le Mans, Goodwood and Spa.

It is now one of the most raced Historic cars in existence, visiting three continents over the past six decades. Every time we race, we have a smile on our faces. It is an amazing car. It’s hugely eligible, competitive and unique. This is the only Healey 3000 that raced at Le Mans that races today, and it is a privilege to race such an amazing piece of British history

Lotus XV

Driver: Roger Wills
Club: Various

Image Courtesy of Jeff Bloxham

This car was originally bought from Lotus by John Coombs Racing Organisation with a letter from Colin Chapman saying it would only be sold on provision Coombs did not beat
Lotus works cars! Bruce McLaren and Syd Jensen drove it at Goodwood in the 1958 Tourist Trophy, but it was mostly raced by Roy Salvadori, who won its final race at Oulton Park in 1958.

It was sold to an owner in Australia, where it had a long and successful 50-year history and I found it there in 2015. It was pea-green at this point and had the wrong engine in, but I knew its history and, having owned the ex-Graham Hill Lotus XV, this was almost the holy grail as it was raced by my hero Bruce McLaren.

I contacted then-owner Barry Bates to say I might be interested in buying it and he told me it was really an old piece of junk. He said his gardener had helped him prepare and race it and he was going to give it to him in his will – but when I said what it might be worth and what I would pay for it, he took a deep intake of breath and said: ‘Well, bugger the gardener then!’

I flew the car to the UK and prepared it for the Goodwood Revival and I was approached by a guy with a very strong Aussie accent. ‘Are you Roger Wills?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I said, to which he replied: “well, I am the gardener!” He had a scrap book full of stories about 40 years of the car and Barry in Australia – and that is exactly what historic racing is all about!

Morgan SLR

Owner: Simon Orebi Gann
Club: GT & Sports Car Club

Image Courtesy of JEP

This car, designed and built by Sprintzel Lawrence Racing (SLR) in 1961, is one of only three ever built – and uniquely it was the first and last to be completed, because its original
owner, Gordon Spice, wrote it off almost immediately, so it was rebuilt after the other two had been completed.

The design was based on the Morgan +4, and the cars were raced competitively thanks to the lightweight one-piece aluminium body and its effective shape. This particular one was raced by several of its owners, eventually in the mid ‘70s by Sir Aubrey Brocklebank, who painted it fire engine red after a fuel leak caught fire at Silverstone in 1975.

It then spent 29 years racing in the US after being exported by Bill Fink in 1976. I have owned and raced Morgans since 1995 and in the late 2000s, my wife Kare and I bought this car back to the UK and had it restored and prepared by Brett of Brands Hatch Morgans in time for the Morgan Centenary in 2009.

It was entered into the Le Mans Classic 24 last year and, 60 years after being originally built to race there and denied entry in 1963, it won the class! That makes it the only one of the three cars to have raced at Le Mans and the Revival. It also won the GT & Sports Car Cup series in 2020/21.

MG Y-type

Restorer: Richard Colburn, Westbourne Motorsport
Driver: Richard Colburn
Club: Historic Racing Drivers Club

Image Courtesy of Jeff Bloxham

We found this car at the back of a barn in Chichester. The Y-Type was made from 1947-53 and it was quite advanced for its time. It was one of the first with rack-and-pinion steering – most cars of the 1940s and ‘50s had a steering box; it had four hydraulic jacks so it could be lifted on its own; and it had ‘suicide’ front doors that open backwards.

There were two versions of it, and at the time it was a reasonably popular sporty saloon. They were raced, almost as a standard car, and in the period pictures of them racing at Silverstone you can see the headlamps have cones at the back that were sometimes turned backwards to make them more aerodynamic.

It was incredibly rusty when we got it and was not originally a racing car, so we converted it into one. It was a bit of a challenge. Its chassis is separate to the body of the car, so you can take the whole body off. Most cars of that era were like that, with a big strong physical metal chassis and a body just attached on top.

This particular car came with a wooden floor, and we had to make an aluminium one for racing, so it wouldn’t catch fire. It would have been originally fitted with a 1,250cc engine, but we put in an MGBstyle engine and gearbox, which makes it more reliable and a bit quicker! It was a phenomenal amount of work, but it is fun now to have it out on track.

Reynard SF79

Owner: Adrian Reynard
Driver: Samuel Harrison
Club: Historic Sports Car Club

Image Courtesy of Ben Lawrence

The Formula Ford 2000 series was created as an accessible, cheap-to-run category which was faster than the 1600cc Formula Fords, and offered an extra stepping stone before Formula Three. The engine used in the cars was a 2-litre Ford Pinto engine from a Transit van.

The SF79 was designed for this formula by Adrian Reynard in 1979 and he went on to win the European Championship with one. This particular chassis is one of two that were run in Canadian Club livery, and it is still owned by Adrian. It sat in his shed for quite a few years before we got it back on track last year.

My dad has raced historic cars in the past and saw it as a more attainable way for me to go racing. He also understood it more, and we could run it ourselves without the need for computers and so on. When we heard a rumour that Adrian might have a car available for someone to have a go in, we approached him, and he let us use it. We tidied it up a bit and I raced the last round of the HSCC Championship as a taster. The series involves FF2000 cars up to 1981 and there is not much between the cars. That event went really well – I came first and second – so we continued this year and I have won six of the eight races we have done so far.

Mini Cooper S

Driver: Tina Cooper
Club: Classic Sports Car Club

Image Courtesy of JEP

A lot of the old Mk1 Minis of this age – 1964/65 – have perished, but because this one spent its life in South Africa, in a warmer and drier climate, it has survived really well. It was originally imported and built by Ian Curley, who has raced minis for many years, and he won the Masters European Championship with it.

I got bought it from Ian in spring 2019 – just in time for lockdown! – and although as far as I know it is not an original Cooper S – I’m sure a lot of them aren’t – it does have full FIA homologation papers, so for all intents and purposes, it’s a re-shelled Cooper S from that era.

Since I got the car, I’ve been racing for many years, and as I get older and I am getting a bit choosy, so I tend to cherry-pick where I race. I have done a one-off Masters race, the Silverstone Classic a few years ago, taken it to Spa with the CSCC and last year I did a few of the CSCC Classic K races with Amy Watts, winning our class. I’ve also been invited to compete at Goodwood twice, once in the Members Meeting and once at the Revival in the Mini Cooper 60th anniversary race.

Like a lot of classic cars, these cars tend to be pricey to buy because they are well prepared and more-or less collector’s items. Somebody did say to me that there are now more
Mk1 Cooper S Minis racing than were ever built – whether that is true or not, I don’t know, but there certainly seems to be a lot coming out of the woodwork.

McLaren MP4/1B

Driver: Mark Higson
Club: Masters Racing

Image Courtesy of JEP

The MP4/1 was a car that changed Formula One forever. Conceived by John Barnard, it featured a narrow front end to maximise sidepod downforce and was the first to feature a
carbon fibre composite monocoque. It was so successful in its debut year that the evolution MP4/1B enticed Niki Lauda to come back from retirement in 1982.

Lauda used this very chassis to win the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, giving McLaren its first win under Ron Dennis, who had merged his Project 4 outfit with McLaren, hence
creating the name MP4. This car was raced eight times by Lauda in 1982 before Briton John Watson took the wheel in 1983, winning the USA Grand Prix West.

It was retired after its final race at Imola in May 1983 and was sold by McLaren to the Sultan of Brunei in 1998. Since then, it has been through several owners, including Ron Dennis
himself, and was driven to two FIA Historic Formula One Championship titles by former owner Bobby Verdon Roe. I bought the car in 2021.

Our stories converge in a small way, because I was running the carbon assembly line at British Aerospace in 1980/81 when John was talking to the design team about a chassis – but
he got more enthusiasm from Hercules and went there! The car is wonderful. It is very challenging to drive, and it attracts huge enthusiasm wherever we go. It really is a dream.