ed mcdonough

The Ferrari that Won Twice at Le Mans

September 15, 2025 By pete

Ed McDonough is back! Driving the 275 P on an Essex duel carriageway. Photo Peter Collins

Review by Ed McDonough

The photos in this article are not included in the book reviewed

Ferrari 275 P Chassis 0816: the only Ferrari to have won Le Mans twice
Author Keith Bluemel
Order here:
Publisher Porter Press International
240 pages
260images
Price £125 (UK)

Any Ferrari book by Keith Bluemel is always welcome. He is by far the best of current Ferrari historians, his research is amazing and he always manages to capture the ‘feel’ of any Ferrari he writes about.

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Delahaye by Chapron

September 10, 2019 By pete

From the VeloceToday Archives, October, 2011

By Ed McDonough

It seemed extraordinary to me doing the research for this series, reading a large number of period articles and reviews in notable journals, that many of these totally failed to mention who provided the body for some of the cars reviewed. Was it just a matter of routine that performance cars would have special bodies or could it have been that the reviewer didn’t know? After all, specialised car production was just that, and the history is complex.

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Recreating the Past: The Lancia D50

December 2, 2014 By pete

Life is Beautiful, Ed at Lugagno enjoying every second. Credit: photoagencyRene

This article originally appeared in VeloceToday on August 13, 2002.

By Ed McDonough

There are cars and there are cars.

I like to work on my personal list of the greatest/most desirable racing machines of all time, and then check off the ones I’ve driven. The list is at 72 out of a possible 100 and I have managed 20 so far, lucky person that I am—Ferrari 268SP, GTO, Jaguar C-Type—all with significant history.
The Lancia D50 would have been on the list, naturally, though I knew some time ago that it would never be driven. The two surviving machines reside quietly in the Lancia and Biscaretti Museums in Turin, and never run. However, I was towed around in one of them at the end of a rope, but that hardly counts. [Read more…] about Recreating the Past: The Lancia D50

Driving the OSCA Formula Junior

April 29, 2014 By pete

McDonough wrings out the OSCA Formula Junior at Silverstone.

By Ed McDonough
Photos by Peter Collins

Formula Junior-A Training Ground

In my youth, during the period in which I first encountered motor racing, the 500cc Formula 3 had been the ‘entry’ route to serious single seat racing for some years in Europe but was by that time on its last legs. In the USA, there was less emphasis on single-seaters but by the early ‘60s, Formula Junior had caught on, and I have always seen it as an essential part of my history. I particularly was smitten by the front engine cars from Italy.

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Gordini, Driven!

June 13, 2013 By pete

By Ed McDonough
Photos by Mike Jiggle

Read Part 1

Read Part 2

As it happened, I test drove the Gordini at Silverstone on the same day as I had driven an F2 Ferrari 500, both cars having been raced by some of the most charismatic drivers ever to get behind the wheel of any racing car. Both cars had Maurice Trintignant connections, but the Gordini had led Le Mans with Jean Behra in this very seat…can you get your head around that?!

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Driving the Gordini Sports Part 2, Chassis History

June 6, 2013 By pete

Chassis 19GCS made its first racing appearance at the 1950 Le Mans as a 1.5-liter car, driven by Andre Simon (here) and the boss's son, Aldo. They retired after 6 hours.

Ed McDonough continues with the history of chassis 19GCS
Color Photos by Mike Jiggle
Historical photos from the collection of Eddie McGuire

The car you see here, chassis19GCS made its first public appearance on the Gordini stand at the 1949 Paris Motor Show. It was originally intended that all the new cars would appear at the 1949 Le Mans race, but single-seater events had taken priority. Maurice Trintignant and Robert Manzon drove 18GCS but retired, and 19GCS made a gentle entry at the Paris Show with its ohv 1.5 engine, a four-speed gearbox, and the light alloy body helped it to weigh in at only 650 kgs. The engine was known as the T15.

1950
Though it had an easy start in the racing world, 19GCS would have a reasonably hard…and long…life. It ran at Le Mans for the first time on 25-26 June, 1950 with Andre Simon and Gordini’s son Aldo driving with car number 34, but it was forced to retire. Andre Simon joined the Gordini team at the beginning of the year. The car was quick at Le Mans but the gearbox broke after six hours. It then was raced, still in 1.5-liter format, three times in July at the Mont Ventoux Hillclimb, the 12 Hours of Paris and the Rouen Sports Car Grand Prix, driven by the various members of the Gordini team. At the end of August it appeared in the rather obscure Coupe Rhineland. It must be remembered that there were an unusually large number of monoposto races going on in this period and the Gordini resources were stretched to the limit.

The 1951 Le Mans Simca-Gordini team; Pictured is #37, chassis 19GCS, driven by Pierre Veyron and Georges Monneret. It retired with engine failure.

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Ed McDonough Drives a Classic Gordini Part 1

May 30, 2013 By pete

1949 GORDINI 23S – CHASSIS 19GCS
Photo by Mike Jiggle, European Editor, VINTAGE RACECAR

By Ed McDonough

Anyone who has ever listened to Peter Ustinov’s fabulous motor racing spoof of the 1950s, the Grand Prix of Gibraltar, knows about Amédée Gordini. Ustinov’s parody of the Franco-Italian, Monsieur Orgini, and ‘eez funny leetle blue Orgini cars’ was not only hysterical but drew strongly on Ustinov’s knowledge of the then GP scene. The Orgini team was penniless, inclined to give up in existential despair and sit around smoking Gauloise, even while fueling the cars. Because they had no money for oil, they used a gift of sponsor’s cognac in the car instead! They couldn’t compete with the Teutonic efficiency of Herr Altbauer’s Schnorcedes team, or the drivers like Girling Foss and Bill Dill in the American Wildfowl.

According to Wikipedia, Ustinov was “a car enthusiast since the age of four, he owned a succession of interesting machines ranging from a Fiat Topolino, several Lancias, a Hispano-Suiza, a Delage and a Jowett Jupiter.”

While Ustinov’s portrayal of the French racing car constructor captured the frenetic way the team operated with very limited funding, it perhaps left a generation thinking that the real Gordini was not a serious player in the motor racing world, and that would be entirely wrong.

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1975 Alfa Tipo 33-TT-12

May 9, 2012 By pete

By Alan Yankolonis

There are many stories surrounding the famous Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 that was developed during the period from 1967 through 1977 and there are still a few mysteries related to the provenance of some of these famous Alfas. Of particular interest was a car that was developed in 1975 as a test mule for modifications—AR-115-12-012, an experimental car that now resides in the Simeone Foundation. Previously, there has been very little published about this car, and below we hope to put forth a few theories about the car’s competition record.

Much of the research for this article is from an excellent book published in 2005 and written by Peter Collins and Ed McDonough, entitled; Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 The Development and Racing History. The book covers the ten year span of the development of the Tipo 33 with its racing history and the difficulty of tracking the many chassis numbers, as well as the many rumors and myths surrounding this car model and Alfa Romeo in general.

The Simeone Alfa T33 as it appears today. The car had been restored by Ambrosiana Motor Car of Italy in 1988 and acquired by Dr. Fred Simeone shortly thereafter.

In the Collins/McDonough book, I read with interest that chassis number AR-115-12-012 which now resides with the Simone Foundation, received little mention as to its participation in the 1975 World Championship of Makes (WCM) (later called the World Sports Car Championship). Chassis #012 did not receive credit for participation in any of the WCM races that year, although a few races did not have chassis numbers listed. As best as I can determine five chassis were utilized in 1975, serial numbers ending in: 008, 009, 010, 011, and one test car. Could it be that #012 was in fact the test car?

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McDonough Drives a Delahaye 135M Skiff

November 23, 2011 By pete

By Ed McDonough

Photos by Mike Jiggle

It isn’t really fair to call this car a Guillore Delahaye. It might be more accurate to say that a Guillore ferry has been transformed into a racy Delahaye ‘skiff’, for indeed that is the interesting history of this 1938 135M.

As mentioned in our introductory piece, pre-war Delahayes had bodies designed and built by a very wide range of European coachbuilders, and that range covered the spectrum from fairly simple to wildly extravagant. The Guillore cars were generally at the former end of that spectrum characteristic of the Delahaye output in the immediate pre-war and post-war periods.

At 1300 kilograms, the Guillore skiff flies...if you can say that about a boat-shaped device. My only criticism is that as I was lucky enough to be driving, I couldn’t see it go by!

Who was Guillore?

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Driving the Type 135 M Delahaye

October 19, 2011 By pete

By Ed McDonough

Want a video clip of this drive? Send an email to pete@velocetoday.com.

A Chapron Delahaye

Henri Chapron gets a few mentions in 1938, and when the Paris Salon V-12 car was sent to England in 1939, Figoni and Falaschi started to get some attention. But bodies for Delahayes had also been built, often to specific customer orders, by some intriguing people…a 1949 135M with a body built by Pennoch of the Netherlands to a design by Selborne of Mayfair, London. While Figoni and Falaschi may have executed some of the most ‘daring’ designs, bodies were also built by Saoutchik, Franay, Carrozzeria Motta, Carlton Carriage Company, Henri Labourdette, Letourneur et Marchand, and others.

Delahaye used Chapron for its more conservative designs but they were always effective.

[Read more…]