£ 75,000

Triumph Dolomite Sprint "Works" Race Car - SOLD

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Description:

This car is in preview on The Market website. The auction will be live soon. Price is a lower estimate.

All bidding takes place on The Market (see photos for web address), plus you will find further text, over 90 photos/video fully illustrating the car and its service history, and the ability to ask questions directly to the seller. The text below is just a brief summary of our full description.

When we believed this to be one of only three works-assisted, factory-built cars ever built, we went to the man himself: Martin Thomas. We sent this car on a trailer to his home so he could look at it in person and cast his expert eye over the documentation. As a result, Martin says "this is one of the three shells we made. Bill Shaw made one Elf car for me and there were two Shell-sponsored cars also". After studying the internals of the engine of our car Martin also added "it is a Don Moore-built engine. Looks to be the big block [engine]". So this example was raced in the RAC British Saloon Car Championship, and throughout Europe, in the years 1974-77. Campaigned by Brian ‘Yogi’ Muir, Martin Thomas and John Hine, it comes with an FIA Historic Vehicle Identity form and all the required period technical data, making it ideal for whatever historic racing series floats your boat. Martin did point out that it the car in its present state does not have all the component parts it had when he ran it.

It was fully rebuilt in 1992, including the original Don Moore Group 1 engine and this very car is featured in the book ‘Those Were the Days’ by Peter Collins.

Freshly taken out of storage, it will certainly need recommissioning but its untouched status will allow the winning bidder to decide what course to take, whether that be sympathetic conservation to preserve its character as part of a collection or a complete rebuild using modern components in order to take podium places.

The bodyshell was seam-welded when the car was first built, and more seam-welding appears to have been carried out at some point in its life and while seam-welding is an expensive and time-intensive process it does make for a very rigid shell, which is exactly what you want for competition.

The wheelarches were rolled to accommodate the wider wheels. In the day there where apparently 13-inch wheel rims similar to what you see fitted here. They were made specially for the car, and while they are indistinguishable from the originals - and are the same overall width, so look right but we can't authenticate that the ones on this car are original. The originals were made slightly differently in profile in order to accommodate 205-section radial tyres. The rims in this auction, along with the spare set of four matching wheels, seem to be straight and undamaged but will need refurbishing. The tyres have clearly deteriorated, flat and will need replacing.

Still fitted with its period livery, it presents very well indeed. Not museum-pristine of course because this is, after all, a genuine racing car that quite rightly wears its patina proudly. There is some rust along some of the panel edges but this looks to be superficial and could almost certainly be caught fairly easily.

The car was probably fitted with thinner than standard glass when it was raced, which was a common, if illegal trick. This has been removed and standard glass is now fitted. That said, modern manufacturing techniques mean that thinner glass would be fairly easy to commission. #justsaying

A rear fog lamp has been fitted, as have fire and electrical cut-out switches and boot and bonnet retaining pins. What looks to be the original windscreen retaining tabs are still in place.

For much more description and photos see The Market website.

The vehicle can be viewed with us in Abingdon, South Oxfordshire.

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