Doug Nye: £20m of Bonhams FOS sale beauties at Goodwood

Fresh from rejoining after a scheduled pit stop Jimmy tried to hold the car in on the tight line at Madgwick Corner because race leader John Surtees’s flat-out Ferrari 250 GTO was rushing up behind to lap him. But Jimmy promptly lost control of the big, powerful Aston over the long-time notorious hump in the middle of the corner, and he spun… straight into the plum-liveried Ferrari’s path. The pair of them thudded into the safety bank, most decided out of the race – and were later joined there (also as previously related here) by Robin Benson in Chris Kerrison’s Ferrari 250 GT Short-Wheelbase Berlinetta – adding further harm to previous injury.

This past Monday and Tuesday we spent time at the Motor Circuit filming Jimmy’s Aston Martin ‘2 VEV’ amongst other cars in preparation for the Bonham’s Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard auction sale at which they are to be offered – the Aston Martin Zagato direct from no fewer than 47 years in one loving family ownership… 

Experienced – and slim – driver James Wood played the Jim Clark role in his pale-blue two-piece Dunlop racing overalls and Scots-blue sprayed vintage crash helmet, while yours truly spent most of the time driving my beloved Land Rover Discovery as the camera car. Don’t kid yourself that is easy. One has to keep the platform as smooth and stable as possible so that the photographers in the back are not jolted and jangled and rolled around. We strapped them in with baggage ratchets – and then it’s a question of following their instructions and their preferences, while avoiding collision with the car being filmed.

A pre-run briefing can only go so far. “I’ll keep to a wide line if you run up inside us, hold station about a car’s length away on our rear three-quarter – OK?” – or from videographer No 1 “I want you to rush up behind and then pass us on the inside at La Vente, between the two apexes – OK?”. Poor James looked as puzzled as I felt. “Err – La Vente?” he queried. “Yeah, yeah, that’s right isn’t it, the double turn out on the back of the track?”. 

“Ooooh – LAvant you mean. LAvant Corner. Yeah, we can do that…”. Poor chap, Lavant had become La Vente, but only because he’s an American visitor from Philadelphia – so we cut him some slack… after laughing, a bit…

It’s amazing how time-consuming it can become when one is trying to cover all the options, cater for all video and photographic requirements and keep the proceedings secure and safe. John Simister from ‘Octane’ magazine arrived with photographer to drive and shoot ‘2 VEV’ for their publication. Our great friend and colleague Mick Walsh from ‘Classic & Sportscar’ magazine arrived with photographer to drive and shoot the ex-Richard Shuttleworth 1935 Donington Grand Prix-winning Alfa Romeo Tipo B Monoposto which is also being offered at the Bonham’s Sale.

I did some laps for photography in John Surtees’s beloved personal 1957 BMW 507 V8 – taking special care to keep well clear of ‘2 VEV’ within a cable-length or more each side of the Madgwick ridge.

What a lovely, softly-mannered burbling beauty that very rare car is today – I can picture precisely why John enjoyed it so much on his high-speed commutes from home in Kent over the Alps and on to MV-Agusta and later Ferrari in Italy. Count Domenico Agusta, head of the MV motor-cycle company, had been so thrilled by John’s pioneering success in winning the marque’s first 500cc World Championship title in 1956 that he had told the young English superstar he wanted to buy him a present, in recognition.

When John replied that he really fancied one of the new BMW 507s the Count enquired “How much?” – and then blanched at the answer. Whereupon they agreed to go halves on it – and this iceberg blue-grey beauty was ordered. After a few laps, I returned it carefully to the Goodwood paddock – with reinforced respect.

Then a deafening supercharged straight-8 bark rippled back from the pits building – that was Mick blaring past in the Alfa Monoposto. Back in 1932 when engineering director Vittorio Jano of Alfa Romeo introduced the centre-seat single-seater design, the ‘Monoposto’ really introduced the classical form of the modern centre-drive, open-wheeler racing car to Grand Prix racing.

Until that time either two-seat cars with driver and riding mechanic or – from 1925 – two-seat width cars with the offset-seated driver alone – had been the GP norm. At Indianapolis, of course, centre-drive open wheelers had been standard since as early as 1923 – and indeed first winner of the Indy ‘500’ – Ray Harroun – had modified his Marmon Meteor into such a configuration – doing away with a riding mechanic and, instead, fitting a rear-view mirror as long ago as 1911. Various other Brooklands and minor-Formula single-seaters – monoposto in Italian, monoplace in French or einsitzer in German – emerged over the years, but it wasn’t until 1932 when Jano’s first batch of six Tipo B Monoposto Alfas replaced he original Tipo A 12-cylinder Monoposto design of 1931 that the truly slimline definitive Grand Prix racing car configuration became etched into sporting history. In 1933 Maserati followed suit with their 8CM design – and the classical form of what became the modern Formula 1 car was finally cast in stone.

So, over the past few days at the Goodwood Motor Circuit some pretty historic motor cars have been strutting their stuff for the cameras – and discreetly so, in private session – just three cars with a notional collective value knocking on £20-million if not even more. Which is a particular truth that we should resolve at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, come July…

Images courtesy of The GP Library