Rounding Creg-ny-Baa en route to famous Kate’s Cottage (in reverse direction from the TT) with the roar of 16 tiny Bugatti cylinders. During the Manx TT super bikes round the Cottage corner with knee-down and descend this hill at 160 mph+.
Italophiles in the Emerald Isles
This is the Cranes we’re talking about here. When we did a tour if England and Tracy’s ancestral home on the Isle of Man, we borrowed an Alfa Romeo 164 for the trip. We started with a run up to Liverpool and took the Steam Packet (four-hour, deep water ferry) to the Island.
Change up an octave and hear Ferrari’s legendary 3-liter V-12 howl past the author’s favorite viewing spot in the Keppel Hotel bar.
If you’re a biker you know of the Manx TT (www.iomtt.com) and the island’s narrow, 31-mile road circuit through villages, between stone walls, across misty mountain meadows and short flights over humpbacked bridges–now averaged at over 130 mph by the super bikes. We were there for the Manx Classic for vintage racing cars. They would use the shorter Willaston Pursuit Sprint Course most of which was used for the British Empire Trophy Races before and after WWII.
Two Alfa Romeo RL chassis. In the rear is the RLSS that the owner had used on his honeymoon 30 years before and this is his first race meeting. In front is an RLTF in Targa Florio trim.
The Brits love Italian hardware and use it hard. There was a Maserati 6CM, a sonorous Ferrari 250 TdF and a bunch of Alfas from a broad range of vintages that included a few postwar Sprints, a pair of 8Cs, an RLSS and an RLTF. Several Bugattis ran the event.
The Bugatti Type 45 U-16 gets a pre-race fettling by it tweed-protected owner.
The most exotic was the Type 45 supercharged U-16 that I photographed getting a last minute tune by the owner dressed appropriately in period work clothes, a tweed jacket over a white shirt and neck tie. That outfit doubled as a racing uniform, with an open-faced helmet added when the Manx flag dropped at the start.
The Alfa 8C Monza attacks Cronk-ny-Mona. The exit will include lots of opposite lock and clouds of tire smoke.
The race began on Glencrutchery Road in front of the famous scoreboard. It left the TT circuit at the top of Bray Hill and went west toward Willaston then right again up a very bumpy Johnny Watterson’s Lane where the fast cars spent considerable time airborn between unforgiving stone walls cleverly disguised as hedges.
A Bugatti Type 35 being chased by an ERA
up bumpy Johnny Watterson’s Lane. Neither
car is known for real suspension compliance.
Cronk-ny-Mona (the ancient Manx language is not English, fortunately it is no longer spoken) is an acute right up hill where everything gets lots of smoky wheelspin at the exit. A fast downhill run to Signpost Corner and into Governor’s Bridge corner and back on to the Starting Straight. The following day a fast hillclimb ran the TT course in reverse direction from Brandish, at the outskirts of Douglas, up around Creg-ny-Baa corner and on through Kate’s Cottage curve to a blinding finish. I made my way around the circuit on country lanes with Phil Llewellin as my ever-fascinating guide.
Still on Cronk-ny-Mona, an Alfa 8C Touring Spider tiptoes over the crest.
We lunched at the Manx Inn in Onchan where hundreds of photos were made of the grand prix cars rounding the corner during the Empire Trophy Races. We took the opportunity of a free afternoon to lap the entire TT course averaging nearly 40 mph, though nervous in several tight areas. Get yourself a copy of the 08 TT DVD from Duke Video and invite all your biker friends for a wide-eyed evening. In the mean time we will continue our Italophile’s tour of the emerald isle on a later edition of A Car Life.
The Cranes’ Alfa 164 parked in good company.
I did the event soon after getting my Aurelia. It was primer from knees down and the smoke off the line made it more like an entrance to rock concert than the start of a car race. It was a fantastic week. The link below was my write up for the UK Lancia Motor Club magasine.
Alas I had to pass that car on – but still have “visting rights” and in fact will be watching it race this weekend.
David
http://www.londonsquirrel.com/Interests/Cars/IOM%20Classic.htm
Maybe this is a better link.
David
http://www.londonsquirrel.com/Interests/Cars/Aurelia.htm
The Bugatti 16 gentleman also had a V16 Maserati and a V.16 Cadillac, not counting an 8L. Hispano. I knew John through the years
always wearing the same tweed jacket and doing his own mechanics. John was a real gentleman, always happy to share a drive. I have also been at the Manx T.T. as a biker in 1971, and your article and pictures remind me of good times! Thanks.
Larry
Other the you, I couldn’t think of anyone I would rather get a tour from than Phil Llewellin.
I very much miss his writings, from which flowed his great personality.
He may be gone, but he’s certainly not forgotten …