Heveningham Concours, 2026

Nick Mason is a strong supporter of this event as evidenced by his 1962 Ferrari GTO chassis 3757GT gracing the terraces.

1898 Peugeot Type 15 Double Phaeton. At the time considered the pinnacle of automotive engineering, this 8 bhp 2200cc twin cylinder Double Phaeton had a top speed of 22 mph. Obviously well treated by its first owners when it turned up in a museum in the French town of Uzes in the 1950s it was in remarkable original condition. When the museum shut in the 1980s the Type 15 was snapped by Tony Smallbone and was back on the road in 1996 since when it has been a regular participant in the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run and a winner of the Regent Street Concours d’Elegance.

1928 Bugatti Type 37A, chassis 37342 was first owned by Juan Bielovucic who raced under the nom de guerre ‘Valcourt’. Born in Peru to a Croatian father and French mother, Bielovucic was a good driver but was much better known as an aviator and as the man, aged 57, who in the mid 1940s parachuted from the Eiffel Tower. Highly original but used regularly around the lanes of Suffolk.

1930 Bentley Speed Six by Martin Walter. Chassis SB2761 was purchased by Viscount Mandeville, the 10th Duke of Manchester, having been impressed with the Speed Six Close Couple Coupe bodied by Martin Walter that he saw at the 1929 British Motor Show, the Duke asked that his new Bentley be completed in the same style. His and the Motor Show car being the only examples thus bodied. In two years Mandeville put 41,000 miles on the clock and his somewhat enthusiastic motoring style earned him a stack of speeding tickets along the way.

Much later the chassis was rebodied in the style of a Vanden Plas Tourer but its original coachwork was saved and following a 3500 hour rebuild, the chassis is back to its original configuration and is blooming lovely.

1931 Aston Martin 1.5 litre Team Car LM7. Of the 22 works racing cars built prewar by Aston Martin, LM7 is considered to be the most original and best preserved example. LM7 has seen plenty of action having raced twice at Le Mans, firstly in 1931, where shared by Humphrey Cook and Jack Bezzant, they were forced to retire from a fine 5th place after 18 hours having lost and then driven over their nearside front wing (cars not being allowed to race without wings). Then in 1933, having been sold to Mort Morris Goodall, co-founder of the Aston Martin Owners Club, who was persuaded to let the factory enter the car which he shared with lady racer Elsie ‘Bill’ Wisdom, which threw a rod after 13 hours with Elsie at the wheel. Crestfallen on her trudge back to the pits she was able to tell the officials with her limited French that “Voiture bang”

1931 Bugatti Type 51, Chassis 51126 was purchased on the 27th April 1931 by serial Bugatti customer Count Stanislas Czaykowski a gentleman racer of Polish descent. Two weeks later 51126 was on the grid of the Grand Prix of Casablanca with the Count at the wheel. After 20 laps the Count was in second place, 4 seconds behind future Scuderia Ferrari driver Marcel Lehoux, but the Count had started the race with sufficient fuel to complete the distance, so when Lehoux pitted for fuel the Count took the lead which he did not relinquish. The Count scored three more podium finishes, then to round off the season chassis 51126, this time with Rene Dreyfus at the wheel, took the top seat at the Grand Prix de Brignoles.

1932 Bentley 8 Litre Saloon by HJ Mulliner, chassis YM5039 was one of a job lot of unsold chassis purchased by dealer Jack Barclay following the acquisition of Bentley Motors by Rolls Royce. Jack Barclay then sold the chassis on at a bargain price to a Rugby-based businessman who arranged for HJ Mulliner to clothe the chassis. By 1947 the Bentley had relocated to Canada into the hands of Jack Charters who, with his wife, shipped the car to Nova Scotia then drove it the 3500 miles to their home in Soda Creek, British Colombia. Jack sadly perished about a year later having got YM5039 stuck during a blizzard and trying to walk to safety.

1955 Mercedes Benz 300 SL Gullwing, chassis 5500297 was purchased new by Chilean Eduardo Kovacs Jones to go racing. Fitted with the more powerful 215 bhp engine, Rudge knock-off wheels and dispatched to Chile with ten spare tyres, Kovacs Jones entered the car in round 1 of the 1956 World Sportscar Championship. Having recruited Raul Jaras to share the entry with him they set off for the drive from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires. Having crossed over the Andes just to reach the start line they found themselves set to compete against works Maseratis and Ferraris driven by the likes of Fangio, Moss and Phil Hill. Their efforts were not in vain as they took a fine 6th place finish which elicited a letter of congratulations from Alfred Neubauer.

1955 Porsche 356 Continental, ex Denis Jenkinson. For the 1955 model year Max Hoffman, the Porsche importer for the USA, convinced the factory that the 356 would sell better in the USA if it just had a sexier name, hence the ‘Continental’ name tag. It is not known how many Continental badges cars left the factory before Ford claimed ownership of the name but unusually this example was supplied new to the UK. Soon after delivery, Jenks, who liked to put his foot down, swapped the 1.5 litre motor for the 1600 Super unit. Jenks drove the 356 all around Europe reporting on the races and even raced the 356 himself. Reporting on the 1958 Six Hours Relay at Silverstone, Bill Boddy noted that Jenks ‘hit a drum, did some ploughing, and spun at Woodcote in upholding Porsche honours.’

1956 Bentley S1 Continental DHC by Park Ward. chassis BC33BG was supplied new to Alfred James McAlpine who led the building firm his father, Sir Alfred David McAlpine, founded. Other buyers of Park Ward’s Drophead Coupe included the actor Rex Harrison and the Crown Prince of Iraq. BC33BG has won prizes at various concours and has been in the care of its current custodian for 47 years.

1959 Cooper Climax T49 Monaco, chassis CM/49 was run for Jack Brabham by the John Coombs Racing Team with Brabham’s first outing in the car being a fifth place finish, and fastest lap, at the British Empire Trophy meeting. Towards the end of the ’59 season, with Jack in a battle for the F1 drivers Championship with Moss and Brooks, just six days prior to the deciding race, Jack raced CM.49 to a class victory in the Nassau Trophy, the main event of the Bahamas Speed Week, despite having been hit in the eye by a stone in an earlier race at the meeting. No wonder Stirling called Jack the toughest of his rivals.

1954 Ferrari 250 Europa GT Pinin Farina Coupe chassis 0377GT, Supplied by Luigi Chinetti Motors to Jan de Vroom, a beneficiary of Margaret Rockefeller da Larrain and her husband Raymond.

1962 Shelby 260 Cobra, CSX2005 was the sixth Cobra made and was the first example to be publicly offered for sale. Purchased by Dick Neil but after a year of ownership, when the car broke down, he returned the car to the Shelby shop in California for repair but was persuaded by Carroll to part exchange it against a new Cobra MKII. Shelby retained the car and leased it to the makers of the film The Killers, in which John Cassavetes drives the car, except he only sits in it as it transpired that he was a novice driver not up to driving a Cobra. In June 1964 CSX2005 joins the fleet of Carroll’s School of High Performance Driving where it was used to teach the likes of James Garner and Steve McQueen the art of high performance driving.

1964 AC 289 Cobra, COB6059 was assembled from the remains of a crashed Cobra during the 1970s by Emilio Garcia, a co founder of EG Autokraft. Campaigned with much success in the 70s and 80s by John Atkins until meeting with a serious accident in the mid 1980s. The wreck was then dismantled and stored before being purchased by Roger Wright in 1984. 32 years later, following Roger’s death, the car was offered for sale again but it still remained a collection of bits. The buyer then set about rebuilding COB6059 using some historic parts obtained during the rebuild including the driver’s seat from CSX2142, the factory Cobra Le Mans Coupe driven by Ed Hugus at the 1963 Le Mans, and the passenger seat from CSX2153, a Cobra that ran in the 1964 12 Hours of Sebring.

1964 ATS 2500 GTS, Styled by Franco Scaglione and built by Allemano, this example is chassis 2008, one of only two alloy bodied race spec GTS cars built.

1965 Ferrari 275 GTB/6C, chassis 07155 is one of just 11 right hand drive examples of the six carb 6C delivered to the UK.

Nick Mason’s well known ex-Carrera Panamericana 1953 Ferrari 250MM chassis 0352MM

1966 Ferrari 330 GTC, chassis 09069 was originally supplied to Switzerland but later ended up in Venezuela where it was owned by Jose Di Mase, a Banco Construccion executive. Following the collapse of Banco Construccion and other banks in the country in 1994, Di Mase left the country, but the GTC stayed put and was not properly cared for until it found its way into the hands of Bell Sport & Classic and the current owner 20 years later. Structurally sound but in dire need of restoration, Bell Sport and Classic set about the task which was completed in 2022.

1966 Jaguar XJ13, Conceived in 1964 and designed by Malcolm Sayer, the XJ13 was intended to return Jaguar to Le Mans, but due to Sir William Lyons insisting that the car remain secret it could only be tested at MIRA on a Sunday, which slowed development and the car was not ready until 1966, by which time the regulations for Le Mans had changed and the XJ13 was no longer eligible.

Powered by a 502 bhp 5.0 litre V12, it was estimated that the XJ13 would hit 180 mph on the Mulsanne straight. In 1971 the car was taken out of storage to appear in a promo film for the V12 E Type, and legendary Jaguar test driver Norman Dewis screeched around the MIRA test track for the cameras, but just as he was about to come back in a tyre burst and the car crashed heavily. Dear old Norman had the good mind to switch the engine off and climb under the scuttle in mid flight, so to speak, and so emerged from the wreckage remarkably intact. The car was restored and finally made it to Le Mans in 2008 for a demo run.

1967 AC Frua 428 Drophead Coupe. This example is one of just two left hand drive manual drophead coupes constructed.

1968 Lamborghini Miura P400, heck, that is a great looking car, matching numbers and fully restored.

1969 Lamborghini Miura P400 S, equally as pretty, and maybe a little bit better to drive. The current owner purchased chassis 3949 from its first owner in 1977 having been inspired by an article in Car magazine by LJK Setright, in which he collected a P400 S from the factory and drove it back to the UK. Having driven the car vigorously by 2011 , with less than 20,000 miles on the clock, it was in need of restoration, so the body and mechanics were brought back to tip top condition but the lovely and original interior was left alone.

1973 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser. Purchased new by the Seal Cove Auto Musuem in Maine, USA to serve as a snow plough but soon put into storage where it would remain for over 40 years. Apart from the soft top the car is totally original, even down to the studded tyres fitted in 1973, and it has only 400 miles on the clock

1973 Porsche 911 RSR, Developed by Tuthill and driven to victory by Harry Hunt and Steve McPhee in the biennial 5000 km East African Safari Classic for pre-1986 cars.

1974 Porsche 911 RSR Turbo 2.1, One of four RSR Turbos built, chassis R5 left the factory as a Group 4 naturally aspirated 2.8 911 RSR and was campaigned with some success by the factory in 1973. Before the start of the ’74 season Porsche decided to make a car for the Group 5 class of the World Championship for Makes and R5 was developed to produce 500 bhp complete with wings, spoilers and a huge great turbocharger. Unlike the three other RSR Turbos built, chassis R5 was raced just once before being sold by the factory.

1977 Lamborghini Silhouette, chassis 50052, one of only 52 examples constructed and the only example finished in Rame Colorado paint,

1988 McLaren-Honda MP4/4. In 1988 McLaren won 15 of the 16 rounds of the Formula One world championship. This is chassis 03 which was the spare car in which Senna staged a brilliant but futile comeback to a 2nd place finish at the Brazilian Grand Prix after his original chassis suffered a fault on the parade lap. Starting from the pit lane, he muscled his way to second place only to be black flagged when it was realized that he had swapped cars later than was permitted.

From Nick Mason’s stable, 1989 Ferrari F40 .

1993 Jaguar XJ220-C, chassis 002 shared by John Neilson, David Brabham and David Coulthard technically won the GT class at that year’s Le Mans. For the 1993 edition, TWR Jaguar team entered three 220-Cs, and after suffering a fuel leak during the night, chassis 002 made a spirited comeback to win the GT class only to be disqualified due to the fact that the car was not fitted with a catalytic converter, which the scrutineers wrongly had said was contrary to the rule book. The cars were allowed to race but under appeal. TWR later proved all the evidence to support the class win but the Le Mans officialdom decided that the paperwork had arrived too late.

2023 Cadillac V Series-R. Driven by Earl Bamber, Richard Westbrook, and Alex Lynn, it finished third in that year’s Le Mans. Since 2024 this car, chassis 006, has been used as a test mule for Hertz Team JOTA.

2025 Meyers Manx x Tuthill LFG, with LFG standing for ‘Let’s Freaking Go.’ The company plan to build 100 examples with the first twenty ready to take part in the 2027 LFG Baja Tour. Engine options available include the four valve per cylinder 3500cc Tuthill flat six.

2026 Ferrari F80. As I have said before, with 1183 bhp, no doubt it is fantastically fast and goes rounds corners like nobody’s business, but couldn’t they have made it a bit prettier ?

1978 Suzuki RG500 XR22A. This is the bike in which the late great Barry Sheene used to try to win a third consecutive 500cc world championship, ultimately losing out to the eventual world champion Kenny Roberts. Presented today just as it was at the end of the final round of the season, the German Grand Prix.