Transmission Starts…
I had spent too long pouring over diagrams and Ferrari family history, but I was still no closer to what I’d seen.
Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. Although a steam engine or V8 are not beautiful in the classical sense, either of these forms can make a grown man weep. When Morgan Man had shown me what was easily the star of the local classic Hill climb I had rediscovered what makes my fascination with machines tick. A tiny Ferrari 340MM with a perfectly formed 2-litre V12 barely filling it’s engine bay struck my very being. MM stands for Mille Miglia. This was more than just a car. This was a purpose built racing grand tourer.
Purpose in yowling through the Italian countryside.
Purpose in keeping its driver safe and informed.
Purpose in firing its tiny twelve cylinders in perfect order.
I could feel its latent busy energy in the Sunday Autumn air.
So why the family history searching? Turns out, from what I can make out, the little Ferrari has the wrong body for the engine.
OR
The wrong engine for the body. The engine marked it as an earlier 166MM. The body identified a 340MM. I’m currently awaiting a reply from Morgan Man on the matter.
Coma-inducing sadness aside, what else was there? Well, as a clanging hangover had driven me and The Business Man to Prescott, as I’d crunched the gears on the PanzerWagon, as the official on the gate had looked on in horror, Morgan Man had met us at the gates. We parked up, walked up the field car park. The smell of unburnt petrol seared my nostrils. There was no mistaking it. We’d parked near a pack of TVRs.
Crossing the bridge to the infield (so to speak) revealed row after row of classic metal, plastic and rubber. Here a Type 51, there a Lotus Cortina. Here, the most immaculate Healey 3000 in the known Universe, there some students with a tiny single seater powered by a screaming superbike engine.
We were drunk on the fumes, the colours, the sounds. We were re-drunk on a couple of pints. Further staggering found an excruciatingly rare Aston martin DB7 Zagato.
“It is beautiful” I slurred,
“but then it is an XJS underneath”. Tact, as most things, goes out of the window when your blood is flooded with Guinness. Luckily, the owner wasn’t around, luckily someone laughed.
unfortunately, as my benefactor, Morgan Man, pointed out, this was the to be last hill climb of the season.
Fortunately Morgan Man promises a full season next year. By that time AutoEclectic may have made the leap to video.
Transmission Ends…
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