London Concours 2024: Carnaby Street

The London Concours held at the the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) is one of the highlights of my automotive calendar.

The line-up of cars at this event is always spectacular and the classes they are divided into are always interesting. This year was no exception and so to give the cars in the classes the screen time they deserve, I’ve decided to split my content from this year’s show into multiple parts.

The last post was covering the ‘Aero – Front Enlightened’ class which you can read about here: https://motorsportformentalhealth.com/2024/06/18/london-concours-2024-aero-front-enlightened

Today we’ll be looking at ‘Carnaby Street’ – a look back to the automotive icons that graced London’s streets in the 1960s and 1970s, when the city lead the world in fashion and music.

We shall begin with the 1965 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud 3 with the coupe body by coachbuilder Mulliner Park Ward.

Note the tilted quad headlights. This style headlight was briefly popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the modified American car scene. It was a little bit less common in Europe. This Rolls Royce body style had them of course, and the Gordon-Keeble GT car which was produced in the mid 1960s too. That of course was powered by a Chevrolet V8, so Bertone may have taken cues from the American market in the cars design. It’s an interesting little design feature.

Next up we have another coachbuilt car. Thomas Harrington & Sons were a coachbuilder who I had known for building bus bodies in the 1950s and 1960s.

They also built a small run of cars.

In 1961 Rootes Motors Limited raced a Sunbeam Alpine with a Thomas Harrington body at the famous 24 hours of Le Mans. The car won the “Index of Thermal Efficiency” prize which judged the most efficient car based on the distance travel, average speed and fuel consumption.

To celebrate Thomas Harrington & Sons built 250 of these Sunbeam Harrington Le Man. Most went to the U.S and less than 50 survive today. This one was restored over 12 years from a barn find.

It’s a beautiful little car and a really interesting bit of history.

The Citroen DS21 Decaportable (convertible).

Old Citroen executive cars, from the Traction Avant of the 1930s through to the XM of the 1990s, I think are really cool. If I happened to win the lottery and was able to get a proper garage and workshop I’d absolutely to own one. They’re very quirky and interesting.

Ferrari’s Dino 246GT.

The 365 GTC is a very pretty Ferrari! I know everyone likes the mid-engined super cars, but if I were to have a Ferrari I’d personally like a front engined V12 GT car. Of any era. The cars from the 1960s are obviously stunning but I really like the more modern GT cars too such as the 812 and the F12.

The more subdued colours like dark blue and silver really suit the front engined Ferraris too. It highlights their elegance whereas the Rosso Corsa, which really suits the super cars, can make the GT cars look a little garish in my opinion.

A pair of Mustangs. These were a icon of the 1960s. One coupe and one convertible.

The Volvo P1800 was made famous by The Saint, a TV show that aired through the 1960s which featured Roger Moore as the lead character Simon Templar.

The Meyers Manx beach buggy, based on the VW Beetle is a brilliant bit of fun! They are mostly associated with the California surfing scene but apparently they were used in a lot of cross desert racing back in the day.

The Porsche 356A Speedster is the earliest car in this category.

This one was delivered new to Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1956. In 2000 it was restored and won the 356 class at the Virginia Porsche Club of America Concours before being imported to the U.K.

A pre-production Jensen FF built by Italian company Vignale. Only Vignale FFs were built and only two or three survive to this day.

Finally we have the Aston Martin DB6 Vantage Volante. The Volante being the convertible.

140 DB6 derived Volantes were built and of those only 29 were Vantages. (The Vantage had triple Weber carburettors and and a higher compression cylinder head)

Thanks for reading! There are still a few more classes of the London Concours for me to cover, so if you would like to stay up to date with all my blog posts please subscribe to the blog via email (from the box at the bottom of the page).

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