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Lola T70 MkI Spyder – Owned by Carroll Shelby and Dan Gurney

This Lola T70 MkI Spyder has remarkable double-barreled former ownership, having been previously owned by both Carroll Shelby and Dan Gurney, two larger-than-life legends of American racing.

Lola is a former British carmaker that deserves to be far more famous than it is, it was Lola founder Eric Broadley who was largely responsible for developing the Ford GT40 that would so famously go on to repeatedly trounce Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Fast Facts – The Lola T70 MkI Spyder

The Lola T70 was first introduced in 1965 after company founder Eric Broadley had left the Ford GT40 program in England.
The T70 became a dominant force in mid-1960s Can Am and sports car racing, claiming a slew of wins including a one/two finish at the 1969 24 Hours of Daytona.
An advanced aluminum monocoque chassis was developed for the T70, a fiberglass body was then fitted and almost all T70s were powered by American V8s.
Due to the fact that over 100 examples of the Lola T70 were built in period, and the fact that there are companies now building exact replicas, the model is a popular choice for vintage motorsport competition.

Lola Cars – From Club Racers To World Champions

Eric Broadley built his first car, the Broadley Special, back in 1956. It was a simple affair built to race in the Ford Ten Special class, it was powered by the Ford Model C 1,172cc side valve engine that had been developed before World War II.

The T70 is one of the most elegant Can Am cars of its age, surviving examples can still be seen being raced in events like the Goodwood Revival.

Within two years Broadley had developed the Lola Mk1 which was proving to be wildly successful on the race tracks of England, orders started to flood in and in 1958 he officially founded Lola Cars Ltd in Bromley, Kent.

As Broadley was toiling away in his shed building his first racing car there’s no way he could have known that just eight years later he would be contracted by one of the world’s largest automakers to build them a new race car to defeat Ferrari.

Broadley created an updated version of his own Lola Mk6 for Ford now known as the Ford GT40, and it wouldn’t just beat Ferrari once – it won the 24 Hours of Le Mans four years on the trot between 1966 and 1969.

After The GT40 – The Lola T70

Immediately after Broadley left the GT40 program he set to work on a new car to build on the lessons he had learned developing the Lola Mk6 and the Ford GT40. This new car would be the Lola T70 which would be offered in three major iterations over the course of its production – the MkI, the MkII, and the MkIII coupe.

The T70 made use of a modern aluminum monocoque chassis with a lightweight fiberglass body. An American V8 was almost always used, mounted in a rear-mid position and the transmission extended out the back.

The driving position in the T70 had the driver laying almost flat on their back to get the lowest possible front area for optimal aerodynamics and CoG.

This new model from Lola would prove so popular that over 100 were made, countless race victories were taken and before the era of cars like the Porsche 917, McLaren M6, and the Ferrari 512 the T70’s main competition was the Ford GT40.

The enduring popularity of the Lola T70 has resulted in a number of companies existing today to build replicas, Broadley Automotive based in England builds T70s that are so historically accurate that they have been granted FIA Historic Technical Passports (HTPs). These cars now compete alongside original T70s, Ferrari 512s, Ford GT40s, McLaren M6s, and Porsche 917s for victories in vintage motorsport competition.

The Lola T60 Shown Here

The T70 you see here is a MkI from the first year of production – 1965. Interestingly this Lola was formerly owned by two of America’s biggest motorsport names: Carroll Shelby and Dan Gurney.

This car was raced by Dan Gurney’s All American Racers (AAR) in period, driven by Jerry Grant among others. It’s powered by a 5.0 liter Chevrolet racing V8 with power sent back through a Hewland 4-speed manual transmission to the rear wheels.

More recently this car was a participant in the Rolex Monterey Reunion in 2011, 2012, and 2016. It was also a participant in the Road America Concours d’Elegance in 2017 and 2019, it was shown at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering in 2011, and it was shown at the Carmel-By-The-Sea Concours on the Avenue in 2014.

If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on Mecum, it’s due to cross the auction block in mid-October and at the time of writing there’s no price guide.

Images courtesy of Mecum

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For Sale: A “Back To The Future” Spec Toyota SR5 Pickup Truck

Although the DeLorean DMC-12 is the undisputed automotive lead character in the Back to the Future series, the jet black Toyota SR5 Pickup Truck that appears in all three films as a key plot point for Marty McFly is a close second.

It would be the Toyota that Marty was driving in the third and final film when he refuses to drag race Douglas J. Needles and his gang, as a result he no longer has the crash that had formerly caused him to have such an unfortunate future.

Fast Facts – Back To The Future And The Toyota Pickup

This Toyota SR5 Pickup Truck was built to be an exact replica of the model used in the “Back To The Future” films, right down to the license plate “2BAK860.”
The truck remains the second most memorable car in the film trilogy (after the aforementioned DeLorean), and it helped elevate the profile of the SR5 globally.
Toyota has been selling versions of its pickup truck, known as the Hilux in many countries outside the USA, since 1968 and it’s now on its seventh generation.
Thanks to its role in the “Back To The Future” films the truck became a cultural touchstone, and modern electric vehicle startup Alpha Motors has developed a pickup truck strongly influenced by the McFly Toyota.

Marty McFly’s Toyota

Every kid (and I’m sure many adults) who saw Back To The Future in the 1980s remembers the overwhelming feeling of lust that overcame them when they first saw the gloss black 1985 Toyota SR5 Pickup Truck appear on screen.

This 1985 Toyota SR5 was built to be indistinguishable from the example used in the second two films, right down to the license plate.

There can be no denying the fact that the appearance of the truck in the BTTF films helped to elevate Toyota’s pickup trucks from tradesmen’s workhorses to objects of desire, not just in the United States but around the world.

Sadly the truck used in the first film is believed to have been wrecked by the person who won it in a raffle after filming was completed. A second truck was then sourced and built to almost identical spec to the first one – this was the truck used in the following two films.

No one could have predicted that the second Marty McFly truck would end up being used by smugglers to run drugs between the United States and Mexico, or that it would end up being painted bright orange and sold for next to nothing on Craigslist in California decades later.

Thankfully the truck was discovered along with its original documentation and completely restored back to the way it looked on screen – if you’re interested in its fascinating backstory you can hit play on the 30 minute documentary below.

Above Video: This 30 minute documentary covers the restoration of the real, screen-used Toyota SR5 from “Back To The Future.”

The Marty McFly-Spec Toyota SR5 Pickup Truck Shown Here

The truck you see here was painstakingly converted into the same specification as the original from the second two films, right down to the number plate “2BAK860.”

The recipe to build your own Marty McFy truck is mostly limited by the rarity of the 1985 SR5 Pickup Truck, a one year only model in this trim before Toyota changed the front suspension from a live axle to fully independent.

The original truck has black and chromed steel wheels with locking front hubs, a 5-speed manual transmission, a gloss black roll bar in the rear with four KC Daylighter spotlights paired with a front bull bar and twin KC spots. It also has a suspension lift and a polished black paint job, and it rides on Goodyear Wrangler tires.

The truck you see here was built to this specification and it’s now indistinguishable from the original, with the exception of the prodigious price tag of course. It’s now for sale with Mecum and will be crossing the auction block in mid-October.

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

Images courtesy of Mecum

The post For Sale: A “Back To The Future” Spec Toyota SR5 Pickup Truck appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/back-to-the-future-toyota-pickup-truck/
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The Unusual Nash-Healey Roadster – A British/American Joint Project

The Nash-Healey is a British/American sports car that was thought up over dinner and drinks aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth ocean liner on a journey between the United States and Great Britain.

By pure coincidence, Donald Healey was traveling to the United States on the ship looking to secure a supply of Cadillac V8 engines, he got chatting to a fellow photography buff onboard who he later learned was the Nash-Kelvinator CEO George Mason.

The two men hashed out a plan to supply the Donald Healey Motor Company with engines, transmissions, and rear axles for a new sports car if Cadillac should refuse. Cadillac did refuse, and so we got the Nash-Healey.

Fast Facts – The Nash-Healey

The Nash-Healey would start out as a British/American joint project before becoming a British/American/Italian joint project in 1952.
The original cars had a chassis and body built in Britain with an engine, gearbox, and axle supplied by Nash in the United States.
Nash used the Nash-Healey as a halo car to boost the profile of their regular family cars, and Donald Healey used the opportunity to race the cars extensively at Le Mans and the Mille Miglia, increasing the profile of his own brand.
The Nash-Healey would be succeeded by the Austin Healey 100, a somewhat similar arrangement with the Austin Motor Company, with the Austin A90 Atlantic supplying the engine, transmission, and axle.

The Nash-Healey

The chance meeting between Donald Healey and George Mason aboard an ocean liner that resulted in the Nash-Healey being built is the stuff of automotive legend.

The meeting led to cars being developed that would compete with great success at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Mille Miglia, a Nash-Healey was even used as the official pace car of the 1951 Carrera Panamericana, going on ahead of the race cars to ensure the course was clear for them.

As a first-year, 1951 Nash-Healey this car has a more traditional headlight arrangement, unlike the later cars with bodies by Pininfarina.

Some claim that the Nash-Healey was the first sports car introduced in the US by a major automobile manufacturer after the Second World War, however this is hotly debated as the cars were built in England.

Over the course of its 1951 to 1954 production run over 500 Nash-Healeys would be built, including some prototypes and race vehicles. Today they’re considered highly collectible and a few can be seen competition in vintage race meets, staying true to their motorsport heritage from the early 1950s.

Nash-Healey – Specifications

As with almost all cars of the time, the Nash-Healey was made using body-on-frame construction, with independent front suspension and a live axle rear end with drum brakes on all four corners.

The body was initially designed by the Donald Healey Motor Company and built by Panelcraft Sheet Metal in England, though from the second year of production onwards Nash had Pininfarina redesign the body to more closely follow Nash styling cues, and Pininfarina then built the bodies in Italy.

The interior is somewhat reminiscent of the later Austin-Healey 100, a car built to a very similar recipe as the Nash-Healey.

The chassis used on both versions was essentially a widened and reinforced version of the chassis used on the Healey Silverstone – a box-section ladder-type steel frame. The independent front suspension consists of coil springs with a trailing link and a sway bar, and in the rear the car rides on leaf springs, with a live axle located with a Panhard rod.

Power is provided by a 3.85 liter inline six-cylinder engine from the Nash Ambassador, power is sent back through a three-speed manual transmission with a Borg-Warner overdrive to the live axle rear. In original configuration the engine produced 112 hp however Donald Healey, a highly experienced race car driver in his own right, realized a power increase was needed.

He had a lightweight aluminum alloy cylinder head developed that gave the engine higher-compression and better flow characteristics. A pair of 1.75 inch SU carburetors were then added, boosting power to 125 hp in road-going trim initially, rising to 140 hp in later cars.

The Nash-Healey was capable of doing the 0 to 60 mph dash in 12 seconds, a respectable time for the era, and it had a top speed when new of approximately 104 mph. By and large Americans loved the car although the later cars by Pininfarina with the headlights set into the grille were an acquired taste for some.

Power is provided by a 3.85 liter straight-six engine from the Nash Ambassador, in this case fitted with a Healey racing alloy head and triple SU carburetors.

The Nash-Healey Shown Here

The car you see here is a first-year example of the Nash-Healey, built before Pininfarina restyled the car and took over production of the bodies. Just 104 of these 1951 cars were built, and those later Pininfarina cars are a more commonly seen coming up for sale.

This example of the Nash-Healey was bought by internationally celebrated sculptor and furniture artist Wendell Castle in the early 1990s. He sent it off to Posies Rods and Customs of Hummelstown, Pennsylvania for a restoration, and the engine was sent to Concours Classics Motor Cars of Macedon, New York for a rebuild.

The body rebuild included a few unique touches, including the fitment of an earlier Nash grille, and the engine was rebuilt with a rare Healey factory racing aluminum head and triple SU carburetors. Sadly, Castle would die before the unusual car could be completed.

Today the car sits in the condition it was in when he died, and the auction listing states that “much of the remaining work is said to consist of the installation of various hardware and parts and the sorting of mechanical systems.”

Unusual project cars like this don’t come along every day, particularly out of the ownership of a signifiant artist, so it’ll be interesting to see what this Nash-Healey sells for when it crosses the auction block with RM Sotheby’s on the 7th of October.

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