Special Saloon/Super Saloon Register

[allenbrown]

Anyone up for this? When did Special Saloons really start and when did Super Saloons arrive? At what connects this to the Donington GTs of the 1980s?

I just found this result but I'm wondering if it's really necessary to go back further:

Thruxton 30 Apr 1972 (Motoring News 4 May 1972 p27)

Overall:
1. Brian Cutting - 3.0 Ford Escort-Martin V8
2. Peter Dodds - 3.9 Jaguar Mk 2
Also
John Turner - 1.0 Anglia-BRM (John McDonald's)

[allenbrown]

Snetterton (MN 11 May 1972 p7)

1. Teddy Savory in Mick Hill's Tricentrol Lotus Motor Group Boss Capri
DNS John Pope ex-Marshall Viva

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

Anyone up for this? When did Special Saloons really start and when did Super Saloons arrive? At what connects this to the Donington GTs of the 1980s?

I just found this result but I'm wondering if it's really necessary to go back further:

Thruxton 30 Apr 1972 (Motoring News 4 May 1972 p27)

I would think so as the first Special Saloon car race I saw was on the 4th April 1969 at Oulton Park!

[Alan Brown]

Depends on what you want to include. It could be space-framed cars with replica/silhouette bodies (eg Maguires) and racing car/sports racing car-based versions (eg "Chimp). This would exclude the big-engined cars of the 1960s eg Alan Brodie Viva-Chevy, Brian Bolton Cortina Ford 4.7, Brian Tarrant A40-Chevy, various Capri V8s etc. When Thruxton re-opened in 1968 it ran Special Saloon races, usually in 2 groups with 2 classes in each. What about Doc Merfield's Cortina?

[John Turner]

Quite a bit of discussion about these cars in the History forum, where you may get more joy, Allen. As Alan says, there is a notable difference between the pre space-framed cars and those later cars. Do you want me to move it, or leave it here?

You probably know, but just for the record, I'm not the John Turner mentioned.

[allenbrown]

I've seen the long and fascinating thread in the history forum but my thought here was to start putting together a structured list of the cars that were built. The problem is not knowing where to start.

Maybe somebody would be willing to go through the Autosport end-of-season reviews and give us a paragraph or two on each season so we can better judge where to start.

The Group 2 or Group 4 cars will be covered by the touring car historians such as Frank but the truly "special" saloons don't fit into the FIA's Groups 1-9 and I'm not sure that anybody is looking at them.

[John Turner]

Allen, I think it's an excellent idea. I remember the pre spaceframe cars with great affection.

Maybe, I'll work through the threads and do a list, for starters, and also from memory.

I'd also like to see a similar task undertaken for the early modsports cars - they were great fun to watch too. Did they not then join the saloons and come morph into ths spaceframe era.

[driftwood]

a great can of worms here girls!
i think the special saloons really started in the 66 season because there where Group 5 saloon races for cars that where homologated ( technically we would say these Gp5 cars where more akin to Gp2 spec cars) and had go faster engines or tuning kits on them
the cars then filtered down into club racers hands with other mods like wider wheels flared arches lighter panels and then people like Terry Sanger fitted big engines in Cortina circa 67/8 that really kicked off the hybrid saloon cars that we can call SPECIAL saloons
there where 2 or 3 sets of regs over the many years that covered special saloon then we had the Super saloon regs circa 73-75
Donington GT racing was an amalgamation of special saloons and the withering Modsports race cars with its own "open" set of rules

Modsports had very specific rules on tuning and mods allowed in relation to a cars homologation
later there was Thundersaloons and Modified saloon car championships

there are 3 threads currently running
the only way to deal with this thread is to proceed 1 year at a time or it willjump around like mad as it has done already on these other threads where you can glean a lot of info already All I will say good luck to you on this one (I was there in period and the cars changed hands rapidly) im off and I will leave you to it

[John Turner]

Drifty, I'm working on a couple of the threads with the intention of splitting into 1) pre spaceframe cars and 2) spaceframe cars. I agree it could get messy if we separated them into the different rules that governed them, so why do we just not identify the 'special' saloons with whatever history we can get?

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by John Turner

Drifty, I'm working on a couple of the threads with the intention of splitting into 1) pre spaceframe cars and 2) spaceframe cars. I agree it could get messy if we separated them into the different rules that governed them, so why do we just not identify the 'special' saloons with whatever history we can get?

John, definately a

Special Saloons as I see it fall into five types:

1) Re-engined cars without major surgery to the shell.
2) Semi spaceframe where parts of the shell were replaced with a structure to carry major components etc.
3) Fully Spaceframed - usually with a glassfibre body
4) Monocoque construction - usually converted S2000 etc.
5) Central seat - usually converted F2 cars or similar.

I am sure others will increase the number of 'categories'.

[driftwood]

i prefer it being done in years
start at 66/67 and work through the cars
however there is a plethora of Minis Imps anglias escorts in the sub 1300 cc class that will be hard to determine who built a car sold to another and who bought ex Fraser or Broadspeed Gp 2/5 cars and modified them for special saloon club racing

If you try running 1 tread with 5 sub divisons we will have 5

plus 3 lots of lots of and it could all get very

[allenbrown]

I like Drifty's idea. Shall we try doing it year by year and see how we get on?

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

I like Drifty's idea. Shall we try doing it year by year and see how we get on?

For once I think Drifty may have had a good idea! Now all we need to do is get someone to teach him how to type!

[driftwood]

wotyermean by that?

[John Turner]

Well, I had been working on posts from several threads but if you want to do it year by year, that's frankly beyond me, so I think that I'll let you guys get on with it!

[driftwood]

OK Jt hopw about you collate all you have and maybe dump here as 1 long thread with names cars to refer back to but i think if we wnet yeaqr on year we willcathc the cars a sthey materialise or we willend up with 2 guys yapping away on minis form 81 back to 75 and forward again while others are talking escorts imps and baby bertha and nothing will logically get sorted

Is it possible to have this thread with tiers or drop down menu to have each year?

[John Turner]

Ok, what I'll do, is continue to pull together the posts, that at least highlight the individual cars. Afterall, it is surely the first aim, to identify as many of thgem as possible. I'll do the earlier cars first because I understand those a little better, and from my point of view the earliest example that I remember is 'Doc' Merfield's Fraud Cortina. You can then start dissecting it, to build it the way you wish.

The later cars are going to be more difficult, but we do have a number of big threads covering them off. I suspect it is these where putting them into specific years may be ultimately beneficial. I also suspect it is the area that the frequenters of this archive have a greater interest in collating because they often involved the use of chassis from racing car manufacturers that you all have a penchant for!

I doubt that we can add a dropdown menu to a thread, but, I can but ask!

[Steve Wilkinson]

If this grows like I suspect it will would there be a chance of another Sub-Forum like the Chassis Archive but specifically for Saloon Cars? I see this containing not just Special Saloons but also all the threads on Group A, BTCC, etc.

[John Turner]

Steve, you are just sooo demanding ..... but I guess it's a possibility!

At the moment, I'm having problems copying some of the threads over to my 'work area' but will get there, eventually!

[driftwood]

Trust SW to addd ina 3rd diemsnion next we will be in the Twilight zone
as far as i am concerned and AB willno doubt agree BTCC GpA etc are different threads and soem cars are already being discussed in deatil plus Frank de jong has a website with info there is another for BTCC chassi numbers/car info so lest not waste time duplicating these concepts

this thread should be for special saloon and later Donington Gt cars

some o fthese willneed autospsort race reports read and pit n paddock and adverts for sale gleaned
in some other cases race programmes form teh various cicrucits will sort out many cars

there are lots of tiddlers 850 cc class 1 litre class 1300 class Minis imps anglias the larger classes 1600--5 litres not so many cars and easily dissected plus the website with the 70`s racing photos has already disesected many of these cars with fotos of each year/car owner

I recall a lot of the cars from mid 74 onwards till 185 ish cos my father raced special saloons Don GT before he went single seater / sports car racing

[allenbrown]

The difference to me is that the saloon car racing experts such as Frank will cover Group 1, Group 2 and maybe Group 4 (in 1970s-speak) and sports car experts such as Martin will cover aspects of Group 4 as well as Group 5, Group 6 and and Group 7 but these cars fall outside those definitions so are in danger of being completely ignored.

[driftwood]

BTCC Gp a etc is covered elsewhere special sallons is club racing means frik all to rest of world although most countries had similar concept of saloon car racein

all i can say is K.I.S.S
keep it simple stupid!

[Steve Wilkinson]

24/04/69

John Myerscough 1594 Anglia
Peter Jackson 1594 Cortina
Gerry Marshall 1975 Viva GT
Terry McNally 997 Anglia
Ken Coffey 1594 Escort - #
John McDonald 1594 Anglia
John Morris 1558 Escort
Tony Algieri 1558 Cortina - #
Barris Swan 997 Anglia
Malcolm Hague 1275 Mini Cooper S
James Howden 998 Hillman Imp
John Hipkiss 999 Riley Elf
Bob Fox 1275 Mini Cooper S - #
Chris Inch 1293 Mini Cooper S
Michael Kearon 1293 Mini Cooper S
Mike Harding 1293 Mini Cooper S
Willie Dick 1300 BMC Mini
Hugh Denton 1293 Mini Cooper S - #
Mike Evans 1293 Mini Cooper S
Mac Ross 1293 Mini Cooper S
Brian Chatfield 1274 Mini Cooper S
Geoff Wood 999 Mini Cooper S
Gideon Lloyd 970 Mini Cooper S
David Millington 850 BMC Mini - #
Nick Cole 998 BMC Mini
R.J. Jones 970 BMC Mini
John Chappel 999 BMC Mini - #

20/09/69 (plus those marked # above)

Mick Hill 3800 Ford/Jaguar Anglia
Stuart Turner 1860 Anglia
Graham Birrell 1858 Escort
Geoff Pollitt 1650 Anglia
Tony Sugden 1594 Escort
G. Williams 1650 Anglia
Gerry Marshall 2315 Viva
Brian Robinson 1558 Cortina
Robin Farquhar 1293 Mini Cooper S
Peter Hawthorne 1293 Mini Cooper S
Ian McDonald 1293 Mini Cooper S
Anthony Pearce 1293 Mini Cooper S
Mike Darrieulat 999 Mini MG Gnat
James Howden 998 Singer Chamois
Paul Hartley 997 Anglia
George Wills 848 Mini
David Edge 850 Randall Mini
Ginger Marshall 846 M&F Mini

[Dan Rear]

From a purely selfish point of view, the 'proper' Saloons don't much interest me. Its the hybrids that surely are of more interest, when the Spec Saloons started to be based on 'real' racing cars.

[allenbrown]

From a purely selfish point of view, I would agree.