Matthew Henderson

In the ‘50s you had 3 types of front-engined-rear-drive sports cars: the low powered sports cars (e.g. Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint), the high-power GTs (e.g. Ferrari 250 SWB) and the in-betweener, as far as I know there’s only one in-betweener: the Lancia Flaminia Zagato.

Horizon 2 is a magnificent game… in fact, my favourite racing game, but surely, there’s a logical reason why, right? Here are a few that I can think of.

What is it that makes the 1960 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta SWB with chassis number 2335GT so special? simple; it’s the only RHD aluminium body Lusso trim 250 SWB ever, and to finish it off, it has a wooden dash… another great feature; before the car got its red stripes, it was owned by the mastermind behind the Ferrari SP12 EC; Eric Clapton himself.

Bought 10 September 1956 by a Turin based lease company (where from it was leased by Jacques Peron from Nice), this 250 TdF is likely the first car you’ll see when you Google “250 TdF”, which has 2 reasons, 1: it was reviewed by Chris Harris, and 2: It was sold for nearly £4.9M at RM Sotheby’s London auction, but besides that, this car was rather succesful in and around its time.

Imagine walking around the 1935 New York Auto Show and suddenly seeing a car that appears to have no headlights, door hinges, or properly functioning grille, that was Cord’s goal, to make a car that looked as sleek as possible, which is why it was fitted with what they called “hidden headlights”. Not only did it make the car look sleeker, it also allowed for a more aerodynamic car, as back in the ‘30s, cars had headlights that weren’t mounted inside the body, that have no lenses, and are quite large, considerably larger than today’s standard, as that became regulation halfway the ‘60s.

2 months ago, (17 September), the British racing legend sir Stirling Moss turned 88, and to celebrate: here’s his story, from 1948, to 1962. Born in London to Alfred Moss and Aileen Crauford Moss, who were both amateur racers. his father, Alfred, was a dentist. He was brought up at the “Long White Cloud” house on the east bank of the Thames.

I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of either BMW or McLaren, but to know that the infamous McLaren F1 used the engine from this bimmer is quite a thing. Next to that, it’s a bit more compact than the F1.

DISCLAIMER: sorry for the late upload, apparently it takes 2 and a half hours to scan 1.5M files on my computer for virusses. Why such an old picture? Is it destroyed like tomorrow’s post? Actually, no, it still drives, it just doesn’t have a chop-top anymore. This is (or was) David Piper’s 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO Chassis 4491GT, which (at the end of 1963) he decided to make a bit lower, by chopping off a bit of the roof, to be honest, it is a very good looking Ferrari, and also: this is a car that was spotted on Google Street View a while back:

The Swedish GTO. Y’know, the only reason this car is becoming increasingly famous is because of a German’s collection of Lego Ferrari’s he made for Ferrari Day Billund. Which made Lego build there own version for newborns and a full size one.

There are only 3 right-hand driven 250 GT/B SWB/C’s in the world, and the man you see in the picture standing next to chassis nr.2735GT is not the owner, never has been, instead it’s the driver. Now? no… in 1961. The original owner of the man is Rob Walker, who supplied this driver (Sir Stirling Moss) with cars regularly, including the Cooper-Climax in which he had his career ending crash. So who is (today) the owner? Clive Beecham.

A little while back I came across a couple of patriots who thought Lexus and Infiniti are American, but they’re not, and here’s why: Luxury Divisions Lexus is a luxury division for Toyota, Infiniti for Nissan, so why was Infiniti not for sale in Japan until the Q50 came around? Because when Nissan made/sold the R35, they confirmed they were killing off the Skyline, that means not the R series would be continued only as to known in the further future as the GT-R and the cheaper coupes and saloons as Infiniti’s,