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Our Drogo bodied 275LM was road registered. Just before it was sold, as both my brother and I had surrendered our race licences due to health problems, I took it for a last drive in the Montagnes des Maures in the south of France. When I went through the small village of Plan de la Tour, I left a trail of squawking car alarms behind me from the exhaust noise. Luckily you never see a policeman in those areas. Oddly it is actually nicer to drive as a road car than it is a race car, where its on the limit handling is very tricky and tail heavy. 

Wilson

 

 

 

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Thanks, Ronald. I found the 906 to be a delightful car, one you didn't so much drive, but rather would "think" around curves, so precise and light and predictable is the handling. It's pointless to try to debate whether it was wise to drive it on the street, since it was simply not made for 'grocery getting' and it's foolish to complain that it's  not suitable for that function, but take it on a brief, vigorous run on a beautiful Saturday morning and it'll change forever your outlook of what a sports cars should be. The 906 is the car that convinced me in the late '60s that Porsche just had to be "my" brand of car. The other factor that is often overlooked in describing and discussing the 906 is the overwhelming influence young Ferdinand Piech would have on the evolution of the Porsche legacy. The 906, or Carrera 6 if you will, was the first emphatic demonstration of his philosophy of building race cars, culminating with the 917 series.

Here's an image of a particularly well sorted and maintained 906 belonging to a friend of mine, rounding the hairpin at Sears Point, passing a  Ford GT40 on the inside, just as they did at Lemans in '66, when 906s placed 4,5,6,7  behind three GT40s with engines more than twice their size, effortlessly winning their class.

Leica M240-P / 180mm Elmarit R with 2x APO-Extender handheld.

JZG

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For the next riddle car I plan to offer something completely different...................TWO choices.

Both are one-off editions of larger production run automobiles. I propose that solving either one will win you the next turn, and I will identify both cars.

Here's a cropped slice of the first of the two.

M240-P / 35mm Summilux FLE

JZG

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.............and here's the second of the pair. To provide a small clue to solving this puzzle, this unique car was a close competitor to the 906 back in their heyday.

SL / 24-90 V.E.

JZG

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7 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

Dino 206SP? 

Wilson

Yes, a Dino 206...............but this specific car is a rather special unique example with an interesting story behind it. Anyone care to try to identify this particular car with its proper full designation ?

JZG

Edited by John Z. Goriup
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9 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

The window line is a bit like a Jaguar Mk.V. 

Wilson

Wilson, sorry things got out of synch here - correct country of manufacture for the 'donor chassis', but not the right marque.

Remember, this is a one-off bespoke example, therefore, if anyone wants to solve the riddle we'll require the marque of the car and the coachbuilder. 

 

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John,

I know there is a yellow 206SPa chassis #034 in my Ferrari book, which has Drogo improved bodywork, like our 275LM had.

On the older car, might that be a body by Bertelli? Chassis is difficult to tell from your crop, as Bertelli did bodies on 3½ and 4¼ Bentleys, Bugatti, Aston Martin and 4.3L Alvis cars plus probably others. Bert and Harry (Enrico) Bertelli had their works next door to Aston Martin in Feltham, West London, so was very convenient if an Aston owner wanted something other than the basic sports bodywork on an Aston during the 1930's. 

Wilson

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Wilson, looks like you are the only participant interested and brave enough to commit to an actual guess at the identity of these two one-offs. Let's start with the dark blue older car.

It's full, official designation is a 1932 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Continental Figoni & Falaschi Pillarless Berline. Ordered originally by the Prince of Nepal, it was the only Rolls ever to receive Figoni & Falaschi's bodywork, and also has the distinction of being the largest commission ever undertaken by them. Opinions are divided, but one subsequent owner was so enamored with the car that he traded his Type 41 Bugatti Royale B inder Coupe even up for the Rolls. Unimportantly, my own perception of the car is that F&F did a masterful job of createing as sleek and elegant a shape as would be practical for such a stately behemoth, because surely the commission must have stipulated that there were to be no changes whatsoever to the traditional Rolls-Royce grille, which must have been a huge obstacle to F&F who made their reputation styling more rounded, streamlined & more voluptuous bodies rather than the angular and severe Rolls-Royce limousines of the day. 

The crowds at the Pebble Beach Concours that day were epic, therefore I was not able to get an unobstructed shot of the rear,  which in my opinion is one of the best aspects of the car and goes a long way to making it look lighter and less like a fortress........de gustibus, etc

JZG

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Is the yellow car the 1967 Frankfurt Show 206S, Chassis No. 034 (same chassis # as mentioned by Wilson in post 15271), the Paolo Martin-designed Prototipo Berlinetta Competizione by Pininfarina (which latterly was fitted with adjustable front and rear spoilers!)?

The reason for the bulky lower half of the doors was to accomodate the curved door windows which opened by sliding downwards into the door recess!

Philip.

Edited by pippy
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John, 

Phantom II Rolls Royces are surprisingly nice to drive, albeit compared with their 8 litre Bentley competitor, sloooowwww. The 7.7 litre engine produced a fairly miserable 122 BHP and that is a gross figure, the net figure being around 110 BHP or about the same as the 1 litre Ecoboost engine in a Ford Fiesta :). The 8 litre Bentley dependant on spec (compression ratio and carburettor size) made between 200 and 230 Gross BHP and in comparison to the Phantom II, is a rocket ship. However given that one only expects to make stately progress in the Phantom II, it has reasonably light and accurate steering, a very good ride, good  brakes (albeit not as good as the 8 litre which even by modern standards are good) and a very easy gear change. It is a big advance on the Phantom 1, which has very heavy and wooden steering, like its predecessor Ghost and very wallowy handling. You can understand why Rolls Royce wanted to buy Bentley and stop production of the 8 litre, as it was in nearly every way a much more advanced and better car than the Phantom II and even a tiny amount cheaper. The Phantom II has slightly lighter steering than the 8 litre but that is about it. The 8 litre has a triple eccentric driven overhead cam 4 valve/cylinder engine using full pressure lubrication, not the bypass lubrication of the Phantom with its pushrod OHV 2 valve engine. 

I don't think you would persuade me to swap the 12 litre, 300BHP Royale for a 122BHP Phantom II but for an 8 litre with a sexy body, I would have to toss a coin. 

Wilson

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On 5/11/2021 at 6:02 PM, NigelG said:

Another car where the front and back don’t sit well together to my eye...

I know what you mean, Nigel, but there's something intangible about it which, for me, makes it work somehow. I think it might even be because the front-to-rear proportioning is wrong; the stunning all-convex-curve stubby front contrasting with the mostly-concave-curve long rear section...

Philip.

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Yes the Dino (chassis #34 as mentioned by Wilson) was bodied by Pininfarina (instead of Drogo) as a unique show car for the 1967 Frankfurt Motor Show - fitted with a ‘66 Le Mans engine from the abandoned 206 S race programme - and it has (rather ugly IMHO) black adjustable front and rear wings.
It’s also got a slightly too tall/bulbous cabin in my view - I guess I would never have gotten a job designing for Sergio in the 60s...

I don’t think this chassis actually ever ran as a 206S in the prototype class ie it wasn’t a rebodied racer. I think it was an un-completed car from the abandoned homogolation production run that was then passed on to Pininfarina.

I think it’s correctly called the ‘Dino 206 S Berlinetta Competizione’ as it was not intended for “prototipo” racing.

(Photo taken at Pebble Beach?)

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Re the F & F Berline (with its recognisable beautiful door handles) I was exactly thinking as per John’s description - ie that the RR front had to be maintained within fairly exacting limits so the design was somewhat constrained - this is what I was alluding to in the comment re the front not matching the rear. Viewing straight on the front is a very familiar RR elevation with a few “extras” but the rear aspect is a kind of Darth-Vader’s-helmet-meets-Deco swoop.

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1 hour ago, NigelG said:

...I think it’s correctly called the ‘Dino 206 S Berlinetta Competizione’ as it was not intended for “prototipo” racing...

You may well be correct, Nigel. I have three books which features the car and they all caption it with slightly different names so I simply bundled all the words together to cover all bases! The 'Competizione Prototipo' bit was quoted from a large-scale 200+ page 1981 tome concerning concept cars, one-offs and the like. I've no idea why they called it such but perhaps more detailed, exact descriptions were more difficult to find in those days some 40 years ago?

My even more ancient (1974!) copy of 'Ferrari' by Hans Tanner / Doug Nye has a very minimalist caption to the corresponding snap which only states;

"The Pininfarina prototype Dino 206 with adjustable front and rear spoilers'.

As it is pictured on a page which also includes the first prototype for the road car which became the Dino 206 GT / 246 GT series as well as a photograph of the 246 production model perhaps the word 'Prototype' was incorrectly interpreted by the writers for the later volume who, perhaps, had access to the Tanner / Nye book?

Just a thought!

Philip.

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