MY FEEDLY

A Supercharged Brough Superior SS100 Special By Ewan Cameron

The remarkable supercharged Brough Superior SS100 Special you see here was painstakingly built by world-renowned Brough expert Ewan Cameron as an homage to Noel Pope’s Brooklands solo lap record-holding SS100.

The Legendary Brooklands Circuit

Wearing little more for protection other than a leather helmet, Noel Pope set the fastest ever recorded motorcycle speed around the storied Brooklands circuit at 124.51 mph just before the outbreak of WWII in 1939.

The record stands to this day as the Brooklands circuit was never reopened after WWII, having been used as the site of the Vickers aircraft factory during the war years, and in the years after well into the late 1980s.

Some sections of the Brooklands bankings do still remain, they’ve become a Mecca of sorts for vintage racing enthusiasts from around the world and a popular place to park your car or motorcycles for photographs.

The Brough Superior SS100 – Fastest Bike In The World

Noel Pope’s Brough Superior SS100 was the fastest example of the SS100 in the world when it was built, the SS100 being the fastest production motorcycle in the world at the time. The “100” in the name stands for “100 mph” as each motorcycle was tested and certified by the factory of being capable of this speed before being delivered to its new owner.

In the pre-WWII years very few production cars or motorcycles were capable of reaching 100 mph, so the SS100 helped Brough Superior establish themselves as the most desirable motorcycle company in the world.

Above Image: Note the chain-driven centric supercharger mounted ahead of the crankcase.

Brough Superior was founded by George Brough in Nottingham, England, in 1919. Frustratingly for his father who had started Brough Motorcycles back in 1908, George Brough named his company Brough Superior. He believed he could build superior motorcycles to those being offered by his father, and as it turns out, George was right.

Between 1919 and 1940 Brough Superior built a slew of different motorcycle models, the most desirable being the Brough Superior SS100 which earned the company the unofficial title of the “Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles” by H. D. Teague of The Motor Cycle.

The most famous Brough Superior owner must surely be T. E. Lawrence, better known as “Lawrence of Arabia,” who bought eight of them and died in an accident on number seven while waiting for number eight to be completed.

Thanks in no small part to the mighty JAP V-twin used on the original run of SS100s these motorcycles were not only the fastest in the world but also the most expensive, selling for the equivalent price of a nice new house in Britain.

As a result of the performance of the SS100 it was the bike chosen by Noel Pope as the starting point for his Brooklands speed record breaker. He added a chain-driven centric supercharger to the front of the engine and made a series of other modifications, resulting in a motorcycle that was capable of much higher speeds than its tires or brakes were designed for.

Above Image: The bike is fitted with a pair of eye-catching “Brooklands Can” silencers.

The Supercharged Brough Superior SS100 Special Shown Here

The motorcycle you see here is a modern day homage to this legendary Brooklands racer, it was carefully built by marque expert Ewan Cameron from a wide range of Brough Superior parts to be a close approximation of the original – it all works as it should and reassuringly Cameron explains that it’s already been ridden to the pub.

The project to build this bike started all the way back in 1987 when Cameron was just 17 years old, he caught the Brough bug from his father who was an SS100 owner, taking Ewan on rides early in his childhood and setting him on a path that would define the rest of his life.

Over the decades a huge collection of parts were amassed to build this bike including a rare Sturmey Archer 3 speed super heavyweight racing gearbox, Brooklands Can silencers, Castle forks, a 1,000cc JAP 8/80 v-twin racing engine, a pre-war Centric 260 vane-type supercharger, a Brough Superior SS80 fuel tank, and a frame and other parts from a “barn find” SS100.

The listing notes that this Brough and its new owner will be invited to this year’s inaugural Kilometre Lance Speedrace (in September), which is an event additional to the famous Bernina Gran Turismo in St Moritz, Switzerland.

If you’d like to read more about this unusual Brough Superior SS100 or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on Bonhams. It has a guide price of £120,000 – £170,000 and it’s due to roll across the auction block on the 4th of July.

Images courtesy of Bonhams

The post A Supercharged Brough Superior SS100 Special By Ewan Cameron appeared first on Silodrome.

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Ever Seen One Before? A Rare Ogle SX1000 Competition Coupe

This is a rare Ogle SX1000 competition coupe, just 69 examples of the SX1000 are believed to have been built before the company founder David Ogle was tragically killed in an accident with a truck, while driving an Ogle Lightweight to the Brands Hatch racing circuit in England.

The Unusual Ogle SX1000

The Ogle SX1000 was developed as a new sports car that shared a platform with the then-new Mini back in 1961. The Mini had been unveiled in 1959 and it had quickly proven to be wildly successful, it pioneered the transversely mounted engine/transmission up front powering the front wheels – a layout used today by a vast array of cars.

When David Ogle saw the new Mini for the first time he realized it had great sporting potential, he also noted that he could use the steel floorpan and running gear as the platform for a new car of his own design.

Ogle had studied industrial design at the Central School of Art and Design in London after WWII, after graduating he designed radios for Murphy Radio, and Bush Radio. His best-known design from this period is the Bush TR82 transistor radio, he would later design the first generation Reliant Scimitar which uses a fiberglass body just like the SX1000.

During the Second World War David Ogle had joined the Fleet Air Arm. He would fly the Supermarine Seafire in operations in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and in the south of France at various times during the war. He rose to the rank of Lt Commander and was awarded both the DSC and the MBE.

Above Image: The Ogle SX1000 has a fiberglass body mounted to a Mini floorpan, and it makes use of the original Mini engine/transmission, brakes, and suspension.

When he first developed the Ogle SX1000 prototype, BMC (the British Motor Corporation) who were building the Mini refused point blank to provide parts. David got around this by offering to convert a buyer’s own Mini for £550.

BMC did eventually relent on the strict condition that the word “Mini” wasn’t used in any advertising, brochures, or promotional material. These cars that were built by Ogle from scratch sold for £1,190, which works out to approximately £26,000 in 2021 money – roughly double the cost of a new Mini Cooper S at the time.

It’s rumored that Ogle Design lost money on each Ogle SX1000 that was sold, depending on who you talk to either 66 or 69 were built between 1962 and 1964 when the company was shuttered two years after David Olge’s untimely death.

With its fiberglass body, race-proven Mini underpinnings, and excellent aerodynamics the Ogle SX1000 has proven to be a fierce competitor in the world of classic motor racing. The model’s rarity and relative obscurity ensures that it always draws a crowd in the paddock on race day, with very few people able to identify what it is on sight.

It’s not known exactly how many examples of the Ogle SX1000 remain in the world today, they come up for sale infrequently, typically with prices in the £30,000+ range making them reasonably affordable for what they are.

Above Image: This SX1000 is fitted with a 120 bhp 1,293cc BMC A-Series engine rebuilt to FIA specification running on 105 octane fuel.

The 1962 Ogle SX1000 Shown Here

The car you see here is a 1962 Ogle SX1000 that was originally owned by David Ogle himself. This Ogle is chassis number 004, making it a very early production model.

After David Ogle’s death in 1962 the ownership of this car passed to his wife who opted to keep in in storage rather that sell it on. Ultimately chassis 004 would remain in storage for 30 years before being acquired by an enthusiast who painstakingly restored the car to concours condition, first showing it to the public on the Cartier Style et Luxe lawn at the 2009 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

It was later decided to convert the car into a tribute to the SX1000 raced in the 1960s by John Handley, the man who would win the 1968 European Touring Car Championship driving a works Mini Cooper S.

The Ogle is now fitted with a 1,293cc BMC A-Series engine rebuilt to FIA specification running on 105 octane fuel, it produces a maximum of 120 bhp resulting in a very quick car due to its low curb weight.

If you’d like to read more about this unusual British race car you can click here to visit the listing on Bonhams. It’s due to cross the auction block on the 9th of July at the Goodwood Festival of Speed with a price guide of £30,000 to £40,000.

Images courtesy of Bonhams

The post Ever Seen One Before? A Rare Ogle SX1000 Competition Coupe appeared first on Silodrome.

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There’s An Alfa Romeo V10 “V1035” Formula 1 Engine For Sale

It’s not every day you get the chance to buy yourself a functional Formula 1 engine, and the chance to buy an Alfa Romeo V10 V1035 capable of 620 bhp comes along even less often.

This engine was originally designed in the mid-1980s by Pino D’Agostino to power the Ligier F1 cars, however disagreements between Ligier and Alfa Romeo stopped the joint project in its tracks.

This left the engine with no where to go but rather than being relegated to the scrap heap of history the engine had a second life of sorts as the power unit used in the unusual Alfa Romeo 164 Pro-Car.

The Alfa Romeo 164 Pro-Car is a silhouette race car based on the looks of the regular production 164 saloon car, however under the lightweight outer shell was a space frame chassis accommodating a mid-mounted Formula 1 engine.

There had been plans afoot to create a new Pro-Car racing series with manufacturers building sillouette racers with Formula 1 engines based on their more staid production cars, however in the end Alfa Romeo was the only one to sign up.

The Pro-Car racing series was planned to be a global event that travelled the world as a support race for Formula 1. Looking back on it now it seems a shame it never happened, by the looks of the performance of the Alfa Romeo 164 Pro-Car in the video below the racing would have been incredible.

Above Image: This short video clip shows the completely insane Alfa Romeo 164 Pro-Car. Outwardly it looks like a normal 164 but under the hood lies a V10 F1 engine capable of sending the car to over 200 mph.

The Alfa Romeo V1035 V10 has a swept capacity of 3.5 liters, double overhead cams per bank, four valves per cylinder, and it was rated at 620 bhp at 13,300 rpm with 250 lb ft of torque at 9,500 rpm. We’ll never know how the V1035 would have performed in the post-turbo Formula 1 era, although on paper at least it looked like a very close match for the other engines of the time.

It’s hard to know what a person would do with an engine like this after buying it, though there is no shortage of options – from buying a period Ligier F1 car and building the Ligier/Alfa Romeo car that could have been, to building as mid-engined Giulia Sprint GT Veloce just because you can.

The engine you see here is currently being auctioned by Collecting Cars, they explain in the listing that this engine has has been kept in storage with Alfa Romeo until very recently. Technicians have performed a recent inspection, concluding that this V1035 has had very little use, as it retains the original cross-hatching in the cylinders. It has also passed a leak-down test, and appears to be in excellent order.

If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing. At the time of writing the bidding is sitting at £500 with five bids cast and six days left on the auction.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

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For Sale: A Wiesmann Roadster MF3 – A BMW M3 In Disguise

This is the Wiesmann Roadster MF3 and if you’ve never seen one before don’t worry, you’re not alone. The small number of cars built each year by Wiesmann are typically snapped up by buyers in Europe and they’ve never officially exported them to North America or most other world markets outside the EU.

The Wiesmann MF3

If you’ve ever wondered to yourself what would have happened if BMW built an M3 with a retro sports car body the answer is basically this – the Wiesmann MF3. Wiesmann enjoys an unusually close relationship with BMW, particularly with BMW’s M division.

This relationship is so close that a number of senior BMW executives drive Wiesmann MF3s themselves, and Wiesmann is the only company in the world that BMW supplies with BMW M engines and transmissions.

Wiesmann GmbH first started building cars in 1988 in Dülmen, Germany by two brothers – Martin Wiesmann, an engineer, and Friedhelm Wiesmann, a businessman.

The company quickly established a name themselves with their uniquely styled roadsters with perhaps a dash of C-Type Jaguar about them. The company’s cars are characterised by their grilles and their offset, double stacked headlights.

The first production model from Wiesmann was the MF30 which was powered by the inline six cylinder M54B30 BMW engine. The MF30 was replaced by the MF3 which was powered by the BMW S54 inline six cylinder from the E46 BMW M3.

Above Video: Jeremy Clarkson was a big fan of the Wiesmann Roadster MF3 when he reviewed it for this Top Gear segment many years ago.

The S54 has a capacity of 3246cc and a power output of 338 hp at 7,900 rpm, with 269 lb ft of torque at 4,900 rpm. The MF3 tips the scales at 1,180 kgs (2,601 lbs), which is 390 kgs (860 lbs) less than the E46 M3, the original source of its engine.

Much like the MF30 that came before it, the MF3 has a tubular steel chassis with aluminum plates, the body is lightweight fibreglass, and it has independent suspension all around with McPherson struts and an anti-roll bar up front, and multi-link rear suspension with an anti-roll bar in the rear.

As you may expect, the performance of the MF3 is remarkable, with a 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) time of just 4.9 seconds, and a top speed of 255 km/h (158 mph). Reviewers have all been effusive about the scalpel sharp handling of the car, and all the cars developed by Wiesmann.

In recent years Wiesmann fell on hard times, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2014 however they were saved by British investor Roheen Berry who is currently working with the company on an all-new electric Wiesmann sports car codenamed “Project Gecko.”

The 2006 Wiesmann Roadster MF3 Shown Here

The MF3 you see here is a 2006 model with 19,534 kms on the clock, EIsblau Metallic paint work, Glattleder Blueberry upholstery, and it’s been in the same ownership for almost 11 years.

The car is currently for sale with Collecting Cars, it’s fitted with the less common SMG automated manual transmission with paddle shifters, and the bidding is currently at €30,000 with six days remaining.

If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.