Hi Peter,
1/18th scale?
Well detailed.
I'm curious about what's under the hump in the cover in front of passenger seat. Couldn't pick it from the real photo either.
Oooooh! I had one of those for my Scalextric track when I was a kid. It was fast too!
I also had a Scalextric AC Cobra in British Racing Green.
IIRC they were aftermarket kits that you had to build yourself (like Airfix but a different brand) and the motors were about twice the size of a stock Scalextic car. My friends used to refuse to race against me if I pulled either of those cars out as they were way faster than their cars.
Mike that hump is in the "Fly Screen", which is a Fold down screen which has no glass in it...Instead of glass it has fine wire mesh. It can be hinged up to the vertical or laid down flat in a foreward direction. The "Hump" in that screen gives you access the large circular fuel filler cap beneath it.
Larry, I built one of those kits for my Scalextric track...Mine was a Maserati 250F...It was impossible to drive until I fitted an elastic band around each wheel, to act as tread. It was then invincible!
Sad to say, the one that is up for auction is a bit of a fake. It has no racing history, no connection with Le Mans, and was for at least the first 8 years of its life a fabric bodied saloon . I suppose the one thing that can be said for it is it is an "old " fake , having been converted between 1938 - on one version of events - and 1948 on another , to this open tourer bodied 4.5 litre
PS I too fitted rubber bands round the tyres of scalextric cars - the one I particularly remember doing this with was a Cooper-Bristol
All this talk of Scalextric is bring back happy memories. I had a racing motorcycle and sidecar outfit that was a bear on some corners as it would flip over if the corner was taken too quickly (I can't remember now if it was left or right turns but one way could be taken almost flat out and the other resulted in a roll-over).
I finally fixed the issue with a bit of ingenuity and a cut-down spring from a propelling ball-point pen.
I mounted the spring between the swing arm for the front wheel and the underside of the body and hey presto, working front suspension and no more roll-overs!
