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An Engineering Tour De Force: The Lancia Aurelia B20 GT

The Lancia Aurelia B20 GT is a car perhaps best known for its good looks. Truth be told it should also be known for both its trailblazing engineering and its remarkable motorsport successes in endurance racing, international rally, and cross country races like the Targa Florio and the Mille Miglia.

The elegant and unmistakably Italian styling of the Aurelia B20 cloaks an advanced unit construction body, a rear-mounted transaxle for better weight distribution, independent front and rear suspension, the first V6 ever used in a production car, and the first set of radial tires ever used on a production car.

Fast Facts – The Lancia Aurelia B20

The Aurelia B20 was introduced in 1951 as the sporting coupe version of the Aurelia B10, which was the four door sedan in the model family. A B22 sedan would come later as would the B24 spider (convertible).
All versions of the Aurelia were powered by a V6, the first ever used in a production car, with swept capacity ranging from 1.8 liters up to 2.5 liters in later cars.
A rear-mounted transaxle was used on the Aurelia that incorporated the clutch, transmission, differential, and inboard drum brakes.
The Aurelia was rapidly developed during its 1950 to 1958 production run, six series would be retroactively identified each with improvements and advancements over previous models.

The Lancia Aurelia

The Lancia Aurelia first appeared as the B10 model in 1950, a conservative looking four-door sedan that was notable for its 60º V6 engine under the hood and its excellent handling thanks to its independent suspension and and balanced weight distribution.

It was clear that a more sporting version of the car was needed, so it’s no surprise that the B20 coupe was already in development, being unveiled for the first time at the 1951 Turin Motor Show with a price tag of 2,600,000 Lira, a considerable sum by the standards of the day.

The beautiful styling of the Aurelia B20 cloaks some sophisticated engineering by the standards of the 1950s.

Between 1950 and 1958 Lancia would release the B10 sedan, the B20 coupe, the B22 sedan, and the B24 spider. Of these the most popular today are the B20 and the B24, though the entire model family has enjoyed a steady rise in popularity as they’re discovered by more and more collectors.

The Aurelia B20 – Competition

By the standards of the era the Aurelia was remarkably advanced, perhaps unsurprising given that the chief engineer at Lancia at the time was none other than Vittorio Jano – the man who had built the Grand Prix-winning Alfa Romeo P2 and P3 cars before moving to Lancia, then later on to Ferrari where he designed both V12 and V6 engines that were used extensively in both road and race cars.

The engineering that went into the road-going Aurelia wasn’t wasted, modified versions of the car were used extensively in competition throughout the 1950s with a great deal of success.

The Aurelia B20 would take a class win in the 1951 24 Hours of Le Mans as well as a hard fought second at the Mille Miglia in the same year. The car would later take the first three places in the 1952 Targa Florio, it would win the Lièges-Rome-Lièges in 1953, and it would take a 1-2-3 victory in the Coppa della Toscana.

Perhaps the most notable win for the Lancia would be its outright victory at the 1954 Monte Carlo Rally with Louis Chiron (driver) and Ciro Basadonna (navigator).

It would be Lancia’a first win at the event, in a way it was a foretelling of their later successes in rally with cars like the Lancia Fulvia Rallye 1.6 HF, the Lancia Stratos HF, the Lancia Rally 037, the Lancia Delta S4, and the Lancia Delta Integrale 16V.

The Aurelia was fitted with the first V6 ever used in a production car.

Lancia Aurelia B20 GT – Engineering

By the standards of the early 1950s, the Aurelia B20 was an engineering tour de force. It was designed with unitary construction, a rear transaxle, and a multi-link rear suspension.

This transaxle would incorporate the clutch, transmission, and differential, and the two rear drum brakes would be mounted in-board to the side of the housing to reduce unsprung weight. Coil springs were used on the rear of early cars with traditional sliding-pillar suspension up front.

Later examples of the Aurelia from the third series onwards would receive the more powerful 2.5 liter (2,451cc) version of the 60º V6 and from the fourth series on the cars would receive a de Dion tube rear suspension.

The very first Aurelia B10s from 1950 where making just 56 hp with their 1.8 liter V6s, by time the sixth series was released in 1957 the engines had increased in size to 2.5 liters and were capable of a far healthier 112 hp with notably increased torque, exactly twice the power of the first cars.

The Aurelia model family would prove very successful for Lancia, over 18,000 of them were made and they set the company on a trajectory that would see them enjoy significant successes in the decades to come.

The 1957 Lancia Aurelia B20 GT Shown Here

The car you see here is from the sixth and final series of production, as a result it’s fitted with the uprated 2.5 liter V6, the de Dion tube rear suspension, additional sound deadening, and opening front quarter windows.

This B20 has a fascinating history, it was imported by the UK distributor, Lancia England Ltd, and used as a demonstrator and press car. Interestingly a road test of this very car was featured in the 8th of November 1957 issue of Autocar:

“In appearance it is classically stylish without need of ornament, and the general standard of finish, of both bodywork and mechanical components, is almost beyond criticism; without doubt it is one of the most desirable sporting cars of the decade.” – Autocar

The car was later fully restored in Italy in 1992 before returning to the United Kingdom in 2008 when it received a recommissioning by marque specialist Omicron Engineering. The car is now being offered for direct sale by RM Sotheby’s for £190,000 and it’s currently based in Chedburgh, Suffolk.

If you’d like to read more about this car or enquire about buying it you can click here to visit the listing.

The post An Engineering Tour De Force: The Lancia Aurelia B20 GT appeared first on Silodrome.

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The Mini Moke: Probably The Most Fun Car (Pound-For-Pound) Ever Put Into Production

It’s hard to argue that the Mini Moke isn’t one of the most fun cars ever put into production. The truth is, the original military intentions for the Mini Moke were destined for failure before the blueprints were ever finalized, but the vehicle was wholeheartedly embraced by civilians – and it still is today over 57 years after it was first introduced.

The Moke may be the lightest car ever driven by Bond in the famous 007 film franchise, James Bond (Roger Moore) drove a white Mini Moke in the 1973 film Live and Let Die on the fictional island of San Monique. Many Mokes would be used as rental cars on many tropical islands, and some still are.

Fast Facts – The Mini Moke

The Mini Moke is directly based in the classic Mini, using the same engine, transmission, and suspension.
“Moke” was an old British slang term for a mule, and it was deemed the perfect name for the vehicle given its design.
The Moke uses a steel platform chassis with steel box sections on each side to help with rigidity. The left side box contains the fuel tank (on most Mokes), and the right side box contains the battery and a lockable storage compartment.
Amazingly the Moke would remain in production from 1964 until 1993, and it was recently brought back with some design updates and an electric version.

The Mini Moke – A Wildly Successful Failure

When Sir Alec Issigonis and John Sheppard originally developed the Mini Moke it was to fulfill unfinished business for Issigonis, who had designed a parachute-deployable, amphibious military vehicle called the Nuffield Guppy in the 1940s. WWII had ended before the unusual vehicle could see service.

The Mini Moke handles much like a road-legal go kart, giving them a no-frills driving experience that can be hard to beat.

The desire to create an ultra lightweight version of the Mini for use as a parachute-deployable vehicle makes sense until you remember that the Mini has very low ground clearance – only approximately 6 1/2 inches (16.2 cm) with no load.

Issigonis and Sheppard did their best despite this limitation, even going so far as to show four soldiers getting out of the car and physically carrying it over obstacles, but the British Armed Forces never placed any significant orders.

That said, there were a few mysterious Mini Mokes used by British forces during the Falklands War, but further information on them is hard to come by.

Mini Moke – Specifications

The simple design of the Mini Moke made it relatively simple to mass-produce. Just as with the Mini, the engine and gearbox are a single unit mounted transversely (sideways) that drive the front wheels. The chassis is essentially just a flat steel floor with box sections on the left and right, the left side contains the fuel tank and the right side contains the battery and a lockable storage box.

In order to keep weight down the interior of the Moke was kept as spartan as possible, though simple fabric tops with clear plastic side windows were available to help keep the sun of rain off depending on your local weather.

Mokes proved popular as holiday rental cars and saw use as far afield as Mauritius, St Barth, St Tropez, Barbados, Macau, and on Australia’s Magnetic Island where you can still hire a Moke to this day.

A number of different engine versions were offered in the Moke over its production run, starting with the 848cc unit also used in the Mini and moving up to the 998cc, 1098cc, and 1275cc engines – all with 4-speed manual transmissions.

The open air driving experience of the Moke has long made them popular in sunny holiday destinations.

The car was originally produced in Britain from 1964 until 1968 however sales were slow, possibly due to the fact that the regular Mini was a far better option given the local weather conditions. Production was set up in Australia where it flourished from 1966 until 1981, local versions were produced with more powerful engines, more comfortable seats, and larger 13″ wheels giving better ground clearance – the original wheels had been just 10 inches.

Production shifted to Portugal in the early 1980s where many thousands were made, the rights to the Moke and the equipment to build it was then sold to Italian motorcycle company Cagiva who moved production to Italy. Sadly full-scale production would never restart.

More recently there have been a number of firms vying to bring the Moke back into production, Moke International is the official owner of the rights to the Moke, and they’re selling an updated version that you can order now.

The 1968 Mini Moke Shown Here

The Moke you see here is a rare original British example from 1968, finished in its factory-applied Spruce Green paintwork and a set of 10 inch “reverse-rim” Mini Cooper steel wheels.

As an unrestored car this Moke does show some signs of age, as one would expect, however the overall level of preservation is remarkable given its age of 53 years.

As you would expect this car is powered by the 848cc A-series inline-four cylinder engine producing 45 bhp, feeding power to the front wheels via a 4-speed transmission.

If you’d like to read more about this car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on Collecting Cars. It’s currently being auctioned live and it’s based in Surrey, in the United Kingdom.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

The post The Mini Moke: Probably The Most Fun Car (Pound-For-Pound) Ever Put Into Production appeared first on Silodrome.

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There’s A $200,000 Mohs Safarikar For Sale On eBay

Just three examples of the Mohs Safarikar were ever made and only two have survived to the current day, the vehicles were designed to be a combination between a four-wheel drive and a Rolls-Royce for wealthy people to use when big game hunting in Africa.

When new the Safarikar cost between $19,600 and $25,600 USD, a vast sum in 1972 dollars. Due to the high cost, unusual looks, and exceedingly small potential market the car wasn’t a success, and it would be the last car offered by Mohs.

Fast Facts – The Mohs Safarikar

The Mohs Safarikar is based on an International Harvester Travelall 4×4 chassis with a bespoke “dual cowl phaeton” body designed for hunting off-road in Africa.
The body of the Safarikar is made from aluminum and it has an outer covering of soft polyurethane foam covered with black Naugahyde – a waterproof synthetic leather.
Power is provided by the Travelall’s 392 cubic inch (6.4 liter) V8 and it’s sent back through a 3-speed automatic transmission.
Seating is divided into two sections, with the safari guides up front and the shooters in the rear. The rear seats can also fold down and become a bed if needed.

The Amazing (and Eccentric) Bruce Mohs

It’s impossible to tell the story of the Mohs Safarikar without first talking a little about the company’s wildly eccentric founder Bruce Mohs.

Not only did Bruce Mohs become an automobile manufacturer, but over the course of his life he was also a specialist mechanical prop maker for Hollywood, working with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock.

The Safarikar is a decidedly unusual looking vehicle, designed to combine the luxury of a Rolls-Royce with the go-anywhere ability of a four-wheel drive.

He would also become a restaurateur and a hotel operator, he was the inventor of the instant milkshake, he was a big-game hunter and photographer who travelled to 110 countries, he did infrared photography for NASA’s earth satellite program to help calculate satellite trajectories, he was a museum curator, and he was the inventor of the Reflecto-strip, a reflective material used on highways and guardrails around the world.

That’s not all he did in his life, but it’s enough to give you a general idea of what kind of person he was.

“Concentric people go around in circles; they never fly off in a tangent and get anything done. Many concentric people are simply going and doing their 8-to-5 jobs and coming home and sitting in front of the TV tube and opening a can of beer and going to bed and doing the same thing the next day. I think everybody should have some little eccentricity.” – Bruce Baldwin Mohs

The first car developed by Bruce Mohs was, believe it or not, even more outlandish than the Safarikar. It was called the Ostentatienne Opera Sedan and it was essentially an uber-luxurious way of driving to the opera.

The only way to enter the passenger compartment was through a single rear door that opened upwards, this was to allow ladies in ballgowns to get in and out of the car elegantly in front of the waiting media. The sides of the car were steel reinforced to keep the occupants safe in an accident, and the air-conditioned interior was awash with rich carpeting and plush upholstery.

Only one example of the Ostentatienne Opera Sedan was ever made, however this left Bruce Mohs entirely unperturbed, and he immediately set to work on his next creation – the Safarikar.

The Mohs Safarikar

As a big game hunter, Mohs was doubtless familiar with the off-road vehicles typically used in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s – usually Land Rovers with very rudimentary interiors that had lived rough lives.

This led him to his eureka moment, he would build a luxurious vehicle like a Rolls-Royce with an off-road four-wheel drive chassis and a body that could be used as a shooting platform – with rifles being rested directly on soft, foam-covered body panels to help hunters aim.

The seats were apparently designed by Steve McQueen for Baja desert racing.

The Ostentatienne Opera Sedan had been based on an International Harvester chassis and drivetrain, and Bruce would choose the same automaker as the supplier of the chassis and drivetrain for the Safarikar – each would begin with a rolling International Harvester Travelall platform.

Power would be provided by the IH 392 cubic inch (6.4 liter) V8 mated to the company’s 3-speed automatic transmission. Upon this platform a new aluminum body would be built incorporating two distinct seating areas, Bruce liked to call it a “dual cowl phaeton” after the elegant pre-WWII cars with the same layout, but truth be told he was stretching the term so thin it became translucent.

There idea was that the driver and guides would sit up front, and the hunters would sit in the back with their rifles, binoculars, and probably brandy. If needed the rear seat could fold down into a bed to keep everyone comfortable overnight.

Perhaps the most interesting bit of trivia about the Safarikar is the source of the three bucket seats in the front – they were apparently designed by Steve McQueen and his team for desert racing in Southern California and sold under the Solar Automotive brand – Solar Productions was the name of his film production company.

The aluminum body was covered with soft polyurethane foam, which was upholstered with black Naugahyde, a type of waterproof synthetic leather that had proven highly-resistant to the elements. It’s believed that that purpose of this was to give shooters a stable platform to rest their rifles on, without risking damage to the car or the firearms (as mentioned above).

After its introduction to a bewildered general public in 1972 the Safarikar went on to sell a grand total of three units. Just two have survived to the modern day including the car you see here, which believe it or not has just popped up on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $197,000 USD. Interestingly this is considerably less than the $350,000 it was listed for on another platform last year.

If you’d like to read more about the Afrikar or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing, at the time of writing there are approximately 25 days left to get your offer in.

Images courtesy of Hyman Ltd

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from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/mohs-safarikar/
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An Interview With Giugiaro – The Design That Works: The BMW M1

The Design That Works is a series of interviews with a man widely regarded as the greatest car designer of all time – Giorgetto Giugiaro.

Each episode runs approximately 10 minutes or so in length, with Giugiaro himself going over many of his most famous automobiles and explaining their designs in detail.

It’s a remarkable insight that we don’t often get from the secretive world of car designers, and it provides invaluable insight into some of the most notable cars of the 20th century.

In this episode Giugiaro is discussing the design of the BMW M1, one of the most interesting BMWs of the age and the first production BMW with a rear-mid-engine design. The car had classic Giugiaro lines somewhat reminiscent of his other mid-engined designs from the era like the DeLorean DMC-12, Lotus Esprit, Maserati Merak, and the AMC AMX/3.

Giorgetto Giugiaro is arguably the greatest car designer of the 20th century, this short film shows him explaining the various design elements of the BMW M1.

The M1 project was fraught with difficulties from the get-go, Lamborghini was initially contracted to construct the car due to their familiarity with mid-engined cars with spaceframe chassis.

Sadly the Italian company was going through a period of financial difficulty, and BMW ended up contracting the manufacturing of the fiberglass bodies to Italina Resina in Modena and the construction of the tubular steel spaceframe chassis to Marchesi, also in Modena.

Once the bodies and chassis arrived at Giugiaro’s Italdesign manufacturing facility in Turin the cars were partially constructed including the interiors, before being sent to Germany to be finished by BMW.

Remarkably, 453 cars were constructed this way over the 1978 to 1981 production run and today they’re among the most collectible BMWs ever made.

If you’d like to read more about the BMW M1 you can click here to see the official BMW page on the car.

Images courtesy of Italdesign and BMW

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(via Car Porn: 2019 Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake...

(via Car Porn: 2019 Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake - Airows)

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(via Car Porn: 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster - Airows)

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Rediscovered In A Barn: The Long Lost Reliant Bond Equipe Prototype

The car you see here covered in dust and lichen is the only example of the Reliant Bond Equipe that was ever made. It’s a prototype car that was developed to replace the Bond Equipe of 1968, though sadly it never made it to production as the factory was shut down.

The Reliant Bond Equipe had been intended as a sibling to the Reliant Scimitar, with closely related styling at a smaller scale with a more affordable price tag. It’s a shame the car never made it to production as it likely would have proven popular during the financially austere years of early 1970s Britain.

Fast Facts – The Reliant Bond Equipe

Ken Wood and his team developed the Reliant Bond Equipe in 1969 after the Reliant takeover of Bond Cars, it was intended to fit in below the Scimitar in the Reliant model family.
The car design was completed, the moulds for production were all made, and a single prototype was completed.
The Reliant Bond Equipe used a Triumph chassis and running gear just like its predecessors, however the project was cancelled before an engine was fitted.
The car was last purchased 40 years ago in 1981 and stored away carefully in an English barn where it was recently rediscovered after his passing.

Bond Cars And The Equipe

The Bond Equipe was launched in 1963 as a 2+2 sports car based on the chassis and running gear of the Triumph Herald, with the engine sourced from the more sporting Triumph Spitfire.

This is the Reliant Scimitar GTE, you can see the visual similarity between the design of this car and the Reliant Bond Equipe Prototype, particularly around the front end.

The Equipe had been developed to serve a market segment that would later become well defined and hotly contested – the segment for fast cars with four seats and trunk space for mothers and fathers who wanted a sports car but needed space for the kids.

Bond Cars had been founded back in 1922 in Preston, Lancashire under the name Sharp’s Commercials by Paul Sharp. In 1949 Sharp’s Commercials Ltd began the production of a new three-wheeled car designed by Lawrence (Lawrie) Bond, named the Bond Minicar.

The post-WWII economy in Britain was a time of severe austerity and as such, small and inexpensive cars like the Bond Equipe proved vastly more successful than they may have been otherwise, with almost 25,000 of them sold between 1949 and 1966.

The Bond Minicar was originally powered by a single-cylinder two-stroke Villiers engine of either 122cc or 197cc, and it had a single wheel at the front with two wheels at the back.

So popular was the Bond Minicar that Sharp’s Commercials Ltd changed their name to Bond Cars in 1963, and in that same year the company would release their first four-wheel car – the Bond Equipe.

Due to the smaller size of Bond Cars they opted to use the chassis and running gear of the popular Triumph Herald as the basis of their new car, with the engine supplied by the Triumph Spitfire sports car.

An early ad used by Sharps Commercials Ltd to advertise the popular three-wheeled Bond Minicar – almost 25,000 of them would sell.

In order to keep cost and complexity low the Equipe also used the Herald’s bulkhead, windscreen and doors. The rest of the body was made from fiberglass. still a relatively new material at the time that allowed smaller automakers to build car bodies without needing expensive steel stamping equipment.

The Bond Equipe was sold over five major model variations between 1963 and 1970 with a total of 4,389 produced. The first model was the Bond Equipe GT 2+2, which was followed by the Bond Equipe GT 4S, Bond Equipe GT 4S 1300, Bond Equipe 2-Litre Mark I Saloon, and finally by the Bond Equipe 2-Litre Mark II Saloon and Convertible.

The Reliant Takeover

Reliant took over Bond Cars in February of 1969 and immediately set about rationalizing the production line. They ultimately decided to discontinue the Bond Equipe even after designing a new version that would fit in with the Reliant product line and creating fiberglass moulds for it.

The Bond 875 three-wheeler would also get the chop, but interestingly they decided to keep the highly unusual wedge-shaped Bond Bug in production. Interestingly a Bond Bug chassis and running gear would later form the basis of the Star Wars Landspeeder.

A page from an early Bond Equipe brochure, click it to see the full size image.

In 1974 the Bond Bug was discontinued and the Bond name would leave production. There have been a number of attempts to bring it back over the years however none have proven successful.

The Reliant Bond Equipe Project

The Reliant Bond Equipe prototype is evidence that Reliant had serious intentions of keeping the Bond Equipe in production. The project to build a new Equipe used the fundamental basic format as the original car with updated Reliant Scimitar-influenced design cues.

Although no one will ever know for sure, it’s likely that the Reliant Bond Equipe would have been reasonably popular in Britain in the 1970s, possibly even more so than the Scimitar itself.

Ultimately one car would be made and fitted to a Triumph chassis and running gear. It never received an engine, transmission, glass, or an interior. The early history of the prototype is largely lost to history however we do know that it was bought by a private owner in 1981 and stored away carefully in a barn.

This private owner passed away recently and the car was rediscovered, it’s now being offered for public sale for the first time in over 40 years with an estimated value of between £2,000 – £3,000 ($2,770 – $4,160 USD).

Hopefully the car will sell to someone with the intention and ability to finish the job of building it and show the completed Reliant Bond Equipe to the world for the first time.

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