Festival of Speed - Goodwood 2008

Pictures: Grant Howlett

Comments from the Magnette BBS:

It was good to see so many Magnettes at the Goodwood Revival meeting on Saturday.
I saw 4 in the pre '66 car park in addition to the two wood top ZA's being raced. I had a long chat with the mechanic involved with the blue one. This car had an mgb 5 bearing engine, sc magnette box 4.1 diff. The car ran on 2 inch su's, had an oil cooler, pacet fan and a plumbed in fire extinguisher. Internally, apart from a race seat and roll cage, both cars were pretty standard.
Both cars aquitted themselves well in the race, the blue car being particularly competative, running well until the race was red flagged due to an A35, driven I think by Tony Jardine overturning an A90! Incidentally both A35's were developing more than 140 bhp at yhe wheels!
Phil, Southampton

The blue racing Magnette used to be mine. I raced it for two years in 2003 and 2004. Before that I did track days with it for three years. It was rebuilt as a racer in 1975 by a friend of mine to compete in the Classic Saloon series, so it has a long race history. I raced against it in a Wolseley 15/50, then in an Austin A50. I bought the Magnette two owners later in 1990. It had a full-race 1500 engine which I replaced with an 1800, using the same 770 race cam, but with twin 1.75" SU's. It now has a 160hp engine on 2" SU's.
During the original rebuild, the suspension was lowered at the back by flattening the springs. Anti-tramp bars and brackets were sourced from a Jap scrapper, along with a Panhard rod. The front has lower and stiffer springs, and an anti-roll bar from a scrap Peugeot 404. We tried not to spend money in those days!
Those of you who think that drum brakes are somehow inadequate will be interested to know that all the above cars raced on non-servoed drum brakes without problems. I used MGB rear racing brake linings (VG95)on the front shoes. The race Magnettes now have discs.
The standard drums and linings on a Magnette will very nearly lock the front wheels in the dry, and will lock them in the wet, so the tyres are the limiting factor, not the brakes.
The A95 Westminster which Phil mentions has a full-race Healey 3000 engine and c/r gearbox. The A35's are 1380cc and rev to 8,000rpm.
Chris Logue, Surrey, UK