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Monday 9 November 2015

Vanwall

The Donington Grand Prix Collection at the Donington Park museum includes a comprehensive display of Vanwall F1 cars. Here are some photographs I took on a visit there in September 2014.

This is the car raced by Vanwall in 1955 - I saw it that season in the British Grand Prix at Aintree and the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park.

This is the experimental streamlined body, the only appearance of which was during practice for the 1957 French Grand Prix on the high-speed Reims circuit. It was not used in the race.

The Colin Chapman/Frank Costin designed car which was introduced in 1956 and had considerable success in the 1957 and 1958 seasons.

The 1961 rear-engined car designed for the 3 litre Intercontinental Formula series introduced when F1 changed from 2½ to 1½ litres, but the Intercontinental Formula wasn't popular in Europe and the car soon became obsolete.

The tightness of the street circuit at Monaco meant that cars were prone to front-end damage caused by minor shunts, so Vanwall used this short-nosed car for the races there in 1957 and 1958. Connaught did the same thing with the 'toothpaste-tube' B type.

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