Back in 1958, I found some nice pictures on website cobracars.be
I you read Tony and Rinsey books it makes a good compilation with those pics.
Project LM5000 started in 57, Thames Ditton commissioned Tojeiro to build the car. The body was studied by Morton.
If you look at page 229 on Rinsey's book and the picture showing the engine, the chassis looks different. Anybody to tell us why ?
The car is lovely from this angle, you can notice the yellow sticker on the left of the numberplate. This is Le Mans regulation for the drivers to identify the different categories of groups and classes when following...
Tony Bancroft gives the story of the Test at Goodwood before Le Mans. Ken Rudd was not very enthousiast about handling.
Is there a reason at that time the wheelbase was different from each side ? Some old road cars have a short difference due to suspension but in that case...
100D2 engine
On the road to Le mans, I loved the anecdot about the crewman in the ferry who INSISTED to shunt the car and despite the fierce engine and the hard brakes, he bumped the front [
!]. I think you can notice this incident at the front left of LM5000 during scrutineering.
The car driven by Peter Bolton and Dickie Stoop was timed just under 5', disappointing ! But top speed was good on Mulsanne straight at more than 150 mph (I always thougt strange this part of the circuit has a different name in french, for us it is "Hunaudières straight" because Mulsanne is the slow corner at the end of it)
The car during the race
1958 edition was very wet, the two Aces (LM5000 and BEX399) finishing close together in 8th and 9th position overall. It was very hard at the end for LM5000 due to rear chassis failure.
Mister Bird, you have two nice babies in your garage, congratulations...![
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