Thread: Great racing cars from the past

Here is a Miller 91 front wheel drive engine. Considerable rework was necessary to turn the engine around and take the drive to the other end of the car. The large centrifugal blower had to be moved to the firewall end as it was blocking air flow through the radiator, and the cam tower and accessory (magneto) drive moved to the radiator end. Not just a matter of turning the engine end for end.

The Napier-Railton, a racer designed back in 1933 was an interesting car. It have a 12 cylinder 24 liter engine developing 500hp @ 2200 rpm it was capable of reaching 270 kph not to bad for a 1933 car.
Between 1933 and 1937 tit broke 47 world speed records.

There was a thing on TV in the UK a few months back called 'The Petrol Age' in which Paul McGann started looking from the first cars and worked his way forward through the years, and one of the vehicles was the Railton, which was driven round (slowly) on some of the remains of Brooklands. He wasn't allowed to play, but it did sound bloody awesome, even just rumbling round at tickover.

Originally Posted by rick130

and IIRC he was actually speaking of kart racing when he said that

Indeed he was, I think partly in reference to the fact that F1 was becoming hugely commercialised at the time, and he spent more time making sponsors appearances etc than actually driving the car, none of which was present in karting, just man and machine against others.

Watching an on board lap of him (or any of the other really great drivers) does help you understand it though.

Originally Posted by Chucaro

The Napier-Railton, a racer designed back in 1933 was an interesting car. It have a 12 cylinder 24 liter engine developing 500hp @ 2200 rpm it was capable of reaching 270 kph not to bad for a 1933 car.
Between 1933 and 1937 tit broke 47 world speed records.

so its a W12 configuration??

here a vid Arthur
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwDSBxxfigo"]Napier Railton - YouTube[/ame]

Yes, Napier Lion from WW1. Rated HP 450 @1925 rpm. Bore 5 1/2" Stroke 5 1/8"

Thanks for the video Pedro.
The engine was designed in 3 banks of 4 cylinders each.
There is some good info HERE
Napier designed some aircraft engines and this engine was based on the same idea.
Good info about the Napier Lion is HERE

When we talk about the Napier cars we also have to mention the Bluebird (1927) and the Irving-Napier “Golden Arrow.



Napier engine

and speaking of Senna--

for the conspiracy theorists amongst us,,

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NjSIZfG5rk]5/5 the death of Ayrton Senna - what NatGeo did not tell - YouTube[/ame]

as for winning cars--
that Golden Arrow of Arthurs raced once and secured The Land Speed Record.

a 100% winning ratio.