This Car Is Related To The One Above because...

Speedwell made fiberglass fastback hard tops and one piece noses for the Sprite, and the Speedwell Sprites were succesful racecars.

They also did a one off streamliner based on the Sprite ( designed by Frank Costin ), that set a record at 132MPH.

A later MG attempt at Bonneville gave us this  ZT-T estate, which ran a top speed of 225.609 mph.

James Bond's DB5 also had a machine gun protruding from next to the grille.

The original Black Beauty was built by Dean Jeffries.

He also built the Mantaray ( which was based on a Maserati Single Seater chassis. The Maserati was used in the Kirk Douglas movie "The Racers")

Like the Bluesmobile, the doors also fall off in the end:

I think I see a VW engine back there.

So for the next link, Inch Pincher.

Inch Pincher was a '56 bug driven by Dean Lowry and Darrell Vittone, of EMPI fame.

Inch Pincher's dragracing career is well known, but maybe less known is that it was raced by Dan Gurney in a VW only race at the Nassau Speed Week.




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There was a band in the 80s called Galaxie 500.
And there was also an 80s band called Pantera.

The American Ford above took its styling queues from the smaller British Ford Model Y. However, since that doesn't take us out of the Ford family, I'm going to haul us back over to the Soviet Union for this, the GAZ M1.



Both the 33 Ford and the GAZ M1 are based on the Ford Model B. There had been a technology sharing agreement signed between Ford and GAZ in 1932 which is how GAZ was able to use the Model B as the basis for their new car, just as they had with the Model A before it. This new car, the M1, was developed with lessons learned from the shortcomings of the GAZ A that preceded it, namely that it was no longer an open-topped touring car. It was found the Model A, generally considered robust enough everywhere else, wasn't robust enough for Russia, nor was it at all suitable for use in the winter, being far too exposed to the elements. So, the new car would solve this with an all steel body with an enclosed cabin, Ford's suspension would be revised with suspension of GAZ's own devising to deal with the much harsher roads, and the usual wire wheels replaced with more robust pressed steel ones instead.

The result was a car that was as iconic to the Russian automotive scene as the Ford would be to the American one, and while the GAZ M1 to my knowledge didn't have a notorious police murder to pump up its reputation, it did appear on a stamp in 2012 (thanks, Wikipedia!).

BMW M1's were used for the Procar Championship.

Which was open for professional race car drivers of several different classes ( F1, Touringcars, etc )





So not unlike the IROC ( international Race of Champions ), that used 911 RSR's.