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However it was painfully obvious that LM7 in its charming originality was lacking power. I did order a fresh racing engine there and then to remedy this. Later that year I realised that it would be sacrilege to strip the car of its priceless and irreplaceable originality just to make it competitive. In the end I sold the car and put the half built racing engine into storage.
I had also bought LM3 to use as a road and "practice" car and decided to keep that. When the weather looked promising in February 2007 I decided to put the family in the Volvo and take LM3 to attend a meeting of the German AMOC.
The German AMOC holds that meeting very early in winter every the year aptly named the Ice Meeting on an island in the North Sea not very far from where I live. Many members fear the cold or the possibility of salt on the road and prefer to take their “normal” car to this meeting in preference to their cherished Aston Martin. I have always regarded this as lack of courage and sporting spirit. To make a point I had wanted for al long time to take an open pre war tourer to this meeting. My first attempt in freshly rebuilt Lagonda had failed as it ran its main bearings due to faulty white metalling. On a nice and sunny but not too cold day I gave in to temptation, sent the family ahead in the Volvo Estate and started the journey in LM3. My wife mindful of the last failure of this venture had offered to follow me to act as a safety net in case of problems. But I did not want her dawdle behind a slow pre war car on the motorway with two very small children aboard and sent her ahead. I had covered thousands of trouble free miles with LM7 (albeit with a fully rebuilt engine) and LM3 had proved dependable so far. What was there to worry about. A lot actually, as it turned out...
After 15 minutes on the motorway at very moderate speeds steam, water and green foam were coming out of the radiator cap and I immediately worried about my precious engine in general and the head gasket in particular. I stopped, had a look under the bonnet which revealed the expected streams of oil and water emerging from the gasket area. A short chat with Andy Bell soothed my nerves a bit but did not cure the blown gasket. There was no alternative but to call the German Automobile Club ADAC and arrange recovery. At that stage I averaged about one recovery in some sort of older Aston or Lagonda every 6 months and I feared that they might prefer to do without my membership in future. But when I had to renew my racing licence later I was assured that they were quite happy to have me on board and instructed not to worry in future. Very sporting of them…. The recovery truck dropped me at the train station and I arrived barely in time for dinner with my wife and German AMOC friends subject to ridicule and commiseration at the same time.
A few days later we opened the engine to find a block cracked beyond reclaim. It had just stood up to light city driving but the liners had moved once it was thoroughly warmed up and would do so again. The logical thing was to build up a fresh engine around the parts that I had originally purchased to make LM7 go faster. The damaged engine was sent over to Andy to yield what parts were serviceable and the build started.
At this stage it occurred to me that a famous former race car and a fresh raceworthy engine might add up to a slot on the grid at Le Mans Classic. The organisers were duly contacted about its prospects and the race to race begun. By now I had made my piece with fate about the engine failure as this was preferable 20 miles from home with ample time to repair than to have this happen on the grid in Le Mans.
LM 3 was duly entered for Le Mans. My codriver was to be Mike Hibberd, a friend who runs and prepares most of my Lotus race cars. He is a very accomplished historic racer with numerous wins in Formula Junior to his name.
Time went on, Andy made good progress with the engine rebuild and sent the odd bill in the process. The German sporting authorities had proved themselves unhelpful, inflexible and singularly free of knowledge with regard to HTPs for pre war British cars. Rather than battle with them I elected to ship the car to Andy Bell to be reunited with its engine and have it examined for its HTP. The organisers of Classic Le Mans had made clear the without and HTP they would not grant an entry (unless You were French of course, as I was to find out later).
Having the car in England somehow gave rise to the idea of entering it in the VSCC POM. We thought this would be fun and also a useful shakedown for the freshly rebuilt car. The night before I attended the Legends annual dinner which was great fun but saddled me with a monumental hangover that made itself felt the next morning. However the drive in this quirky 20ies sports car through the Cotswolds to Silverstone in the early morning through he occasional spot of winter fog made me feel like Bertie Wooster on his way to a house party and remains one of the most pleasant memories of this season.
Driver and car sailed through their respective first POM trouble free to a unremarkable midfield finish. Mike Hibberd met me in the paddock to cheer me on and sample LM3 for the first time. He found the gear box a bit of an acquired taste and suggested that he should better try the car on the track in race conditions. We agreed to enter him later in the year well before Le Mans. There would be ample time, or so we thought.
When the engine for my Lotus 11 was not ready in time for the VSCC Silver Speed Kings event (nee VSCC See Red) I entered LM3 in one of the pre war races. That would be another useful shakedown as I was there anyway to race my pre 66 Lotus Grand Prix car. Trouble started to rear its head when the brakes started to bind after a rebuild. Fixing it proved more difficult than expected. As nice as it is to own a former works prepared race car You might find that the trick bits on it mean that no off the shelf parts fit as everything is just that tiny bit different and more refined. This turned out to be a recurrent theme during the weeks to come. Andy Bell thought he had sorted the brakes and delivered the car to the paddock. A team member borrowed the car to go to his hotel for the night. This turned out to be an eventful journey. One mile out of the circuit in the dark the brakes locked solid and took an hour to free off. Oops, some shut eye lost there…
On leaving the car park in the next morning the worm drive munched a tooth or two and literally exploded as the broken bits forced the gears and shafts apart to shatter the casing. LM3 arrived at the circuit at the end of a tow rope. The drive shaft was trailing on the road. The useful shakedown had been a bit too literal and thorough for my taste.
At the about same time I received the confirmation of my Le Mans entry. What a wonderful sequence of events. Before I had a serviceable car allthough no confirmed entry. Now I had an entry but a severely damaged car that required unobtainable bits (“I am afraid that much of the axle is scrap... have not seen so much damage before” were Andy`s very words).
Andy Bell stepped to the rescue and kindly offered the loan of a rear axle out of an International project as my own axle would take months to rebuild. Fitting this would prove a nightmare as the trick works chassis had by smashed trick brakes and would take the standard axle only after a lot of fiddling.
That the car was finished just days before Le Mans is a credit to Andy and his crew. I felt uneasy organising the trips for team, motorhome and assorted friends not knowing whether I would actually race or not.
When the car was finally ready rumours were flying around that the scrutineers would be troublesome about tires. As it was not possible to settle this matter beforehand we ended up taking 3 sets of wheels and tires to cover every possible opportunity. I had read the entire Appendix K (just newly revised and in force, actually highly recommended literature for every historic racer) and knew that on paper this would be interesting. In the event we sailed through scrutineering without problems and the tires were barely noted. But, better safe than sorry...
In the paddock of Le Mans with the car accepted I made peace with fate one more and went from histrionic to historic racer bent on just enjoying what was to come. To look on the bright side of things it was much better to have the axle go at Donington with time to fix and another car to race a hand than at Le Mans where You can just pack up and leave, kiss the substantial entry fee goodbye and wait for another 2 years. By now the car had broken engine and rear axle. The gear box was know to be bullet proof so now we were safe or so we thought.
Mike and I settled down to learn and discuss the circuit in my DB7 as the only chance to do that would be this rainy evening before the weekend closures. Mike had never driven LM3 in anger and never on the Le Mans track so we tried to do everything that could be done in the circumstances.
In this frame of mind I started the first practice only hear a bang from the engine compartment accompanied by total loss of motive power on the Hunnaudieres straight during the very first lap out of the pits. A glance under the bonnet confirmed that it was over for this session as the magneto drive had failed. Back to the pits on the recovery truck. I worked out that I had ridden nearly as many miles in front of LM3 on a recovery truck so far than actually driven it.
In the pits we found that the dynamo had exploded. To add insult to injury it was not even necessary for charging as the car had been converted to an alternator driven of the propshaft. The dynamo was left in place (apparently slightly neglected) just to drive the magneto. Now it made its presence felt. We looked at this collection of mangled 80 year old bits in desperation. Everything was either bent or worn out or both. Even the cased were severely warped. We had 6 hours to get this lot back together again. Andy Bell and Alan offered helpful advice and some very welcome bits. We grimly set to work. At fist the shaft locked solid after assembly but the careful use of a sledgehammer and some concrete steps on both shaft and casing took care of that. The engine was running with little time to spare for the next and last practice. The question would be how long though...
One had the impression that fate was decidedly against LM3 running at Le Mans in period as well as at present. LM3 been built to run in Le Mans in 1929 but was never entered because of lack of funds (AM were on the brink on bankruptcy yet again and could afford to attend foreign race meetings.).
Mike set out to practice the car in the night session, gain us a good grid position and get his first taste of a pre war car on the race track. I prayed for him to reappear every time he passed the pits. At laps time of around 8 minutes I got a fair bit of praying in especially bearing in mind that I am a confirmed atheist. Mike did very respectable times that would have put us in about mid grid. When the grid order came out we were on the grid but 3rd from last. A quick perusal of the regulations confirmed that only the day session counted towards the grid position for reasons best known to the organiser. Still, at least we were on the grid and the car was in one piece. However Mike found the car sluggish on its 21 inch wheels, the rear brakes were locking up and there was some understeer. He proposed to lighten the front damping as he would do with a single seater and proceeded to do so. We also fitted a set of 19 inch wheels with very ancient Blockleys on kind loan from Ecurie Bertelli. There would no possibility to test the effect of these drastic changes before the race which at the time did not worry us.
Come the first race the formerly gentle behaviour of the car had turned vicious. We had severe axle tramp on the front under braking, the rear brakes were still locking up and there was severe vibration coming from the tires. Still we had worked our way up the order and were by now halfway up the grid. Mike had mixed it with some cars that he no business to do so and raised the odd eyebrow. Well yes, racing in single seaters might give You odd ideas about the set up of pre war cars but it sharpens up your driving. We were now in a very competitive mood and hungry for more. I bought a fresh set of 19 inch Dunlop racing tires, had the wheels carefully balanced (the worst pair to go in the back), the front damping was tightened up again.
The next one was the night race. Ours being a fair team Mike did start this time. I was to wait for my turn in the pits. The atmosphere at Le Mans at night is just magic. I revelled in this and breathed a sigh of relief every time Mike and LM3 appeared on the start finish straight. We were carrying a GPS based data acquisition package in the car. Formula one style Data analysis had shown were I was loosing time against Mike which was mainly on the straights before the chicanes to my surprise. I was determined to whittle down this gap. When it was my turn I found the car to be as well balanced as You would expect an Aston Inter to be. The racing tires were working beautifully and the axle tramp under braking was gone especially if You were a bit careful not to slam the brakes on but apply them progressively yet firmly. This has the added advantage of inducing less unwanted movement into the chassis allowing to set the car up better for corners. The night session went very well and we had made up a lot of places again. The back bit of the course was very dark much darker than I remembered. Either my eyes are showing early signs of aging or the organisers saved some money on lighting. Either way if I return to Le Mans I will have auxiliary lights fitted. After another bout of data analysis we had a nightcap and fell into bed exhausted.
Next morning we were really determined to do well and work our way up even higher. Due to the old age of the car and its high speed relative to its displacement things were looking very good in the index of performance standings. I knew from the data that Mike was making up some time on me at Tertre Rouge. As this is at the last bend before the long straight You pay quite a lot for a small mistake there. I did take the start and went to work. Much quicker trough Tertre Rouge and the red Aston Le Mans came into sight I could not catch him into the first chicane but surely into second... Now it would be nice to report that we had done well in that last session or at least finished. This was not to be. Roaring along the straight just before the second chicane I heard that familiar small bang under the bonnet and felt the familiar total loss of power again. The magneto drive had sheared again. I seem to have this thing about ignition failures in pre war Aston at Le Mans on the Hunneaudieres straight. I have 3 to my name now. This might have been prevented if we had stripped the dynamo after the night session at 1 am in the morning regardless of how tired we were to replace the screws holding it together as a precaution. Well, the benefit of hindsight...
Well a few weeks later the fairytale ending finally did happen. Malcom Campbell talked me into entering the Aston race at the Silverstone Classic. It took him about 10 emails but he would just not take no for an answer. When it looked as if I would not get an entry with my Grand Prix car I relented only to find that I had gotten onto the pre 66 Grand Prix grid and I would drive the two cars back to back. In addition to that I would share the car with Mike in the BRDC 500.
To my surprise I found that I did profit in both cars from driving the other one. In the pre war Aston I went extremely quick (well, quicker than Mike for the fist time in my life) because I was still dialled into much quicker speeds. I revelled in the luxury of having ample time to look at and think about my line as the circuit came by in what felt like slow motion. In the Grand Prix Lotus I simply found time because I was now precisely aware of circuit details that had just been a blur at the corner of my eye previously. The upshot was that I collected the P1 class win in LM3 in the Aston race. LM3 continues its tradition of generally doing better on British soil.
However, I still have an account the settle with the Classic Le Mans event. If the organisers grant me an entry I will be back, hopefully with LM3 in fully sorted fashion to finally finish all 3 races at one event.
Rudolf Ernst