2015 FOS Part 3 – Historic Cars

Part 3 of our 2015 FOS collection shows some of our favourite historic racing and classic cars on display.

One of the stars of the show was the Fiat S76, a completely insane land speed record attempt car from 1911. Essentially the S76 is a 28 litre inline 4 cylinder engine with a couple of seats strapped to it. That’s right, it really is 7 litres per cylinder, producing 300hp at 1,000rpm. This thing is nuts. It managed to reach a speed of 135mph, which, in order to truly appreciate you have to picture yourself sat in the drivers seat with your face taking the brunt of the wind on tyres no wider than those on a typical mountain bike. This is the first time the Fiat had been driven in over 100 years, a really special thing to witness.

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Another wonderful moment was to watch Sir Stirling Moss in the Mercedes 300 SLR No. 722 cruise past in convoy. This is the car that Sir Stirling himself drove to victory in the 1955 Mille Miglia. The 300 SLR sports a 3 litre inline 8 cylinder engine churning out 310hp at 7,400rpm and weighing less than a 1 tonne. What this means is a top speed approaching 180mph, it’s exceptionally fast even by today’s standards. The numbering of the cars indicates the time the cars set off to embark their journey on the Mille Miglia, so for the cars you see below; #658=6:58am, #704=7:04am and #722=7:22am.

Alongside these speed machines were automobiles of a much more serene nature, such as the mind-bendingly beautiful 1939 Delahaye Type 165 Cabriolet.

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