- 1,048
- GTP_bullie77
As some of you knew, this past weekend I participated in the Algarve Classic Cars. This was a 3-day event, up to 250 kms lenght throughout the whole Algarve, exclusively for cars built until 1983. Up to 150(!) classic marvellous attended from all over the country and even from abroad, with some of them travelling by their own means, like the following example:
^That's a 1939 Citröen 11BL Cabriolet which drove from Lisbon to the Algarve on Friday and back on Sunday, with 250 kms of road course in the middle. That's 610 kms+ in 3 days for a 71 year old car!
Anyway, I participate on this event for the 2nd time - first time as a driver - on a 1965 Mercedes-Benz 230 SL. That's me on the following picture, speeding on the main straight of Portimão track, after that long downhill right handed corner that some of you have experienced in SSV8:NC!
Everyone was given the chance to drive a maximum of 15 minutes on the track - exceed you would have penaltys in the event (I was on the sport category), so I managed to do 3 full laps which make about 12 minutes on track. I did laps under the 4 minutes mark which isn't too bad for my standards considering that I never did more than 110km/h and this is one hell of a car to get the feel for it. Seriously, you have no idea how much strenght is needed to turn that very large and thin bacquelit wheel on road tires with the weight of that longitudinally placed straight 6 casted-iron engine block! and at the same time fearing to loose those 150 bhp on the back wheels coming out of the corners, specially when the guy sitting next to me was the owner of the car. Now, this gets particularly frightening when, above all, that guy is no other than... your father-in-law!
I'd like to share (the few) pics I was able to take, and apologise to Mario because there was one particular picture I was trying to get all weekend but, for one reason or the other, I never got the chance to: a beautiful 1964 Morgan Plus 4!
Is it a train engine? No. It's the HUGE straight 8 engine of the most beautiful car in the even - a 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500K! 75 years old and it looks like it'll do another 75 years easily. How nicer can a car be?
MB 500K
MB 500K dashboard
1932 MG J2 - this beautiful lightweight car has a 700cc engine that produces 70bhp. The following is exactly the same model but featured with a compressor on the front of the engine to produce 90bhp, thus making it a MG J3 (as J2's which were fitted with that compressor where knowned, opposed to the ones with it featured from the assemby line, called J4's)
1959 Jaguar XK150
To end up, let me just say I ended up in 30th place, amongst 83 cars that entered the sport category which wasn't too bad I guess. But the (family) winner was no other than my son who came home with a scaled BP truck awarded to him as the youngest co-driver of the event (he's 5 years old) and a co-driver's cup for a 2 place in the vintage class with his grandad in a 1929 Ford A Tourer. Unfortunatelly excessive overheating on Saturday caused by a malfunctioned water-pump cause them to retired and stopped them to fight for the win.
I hope you like the pictures. As soon as I got some more I'll post them here.
A very nice '79 Porsche 911SC
A '67 Ferrari 365 GT 2+2 - I'm pretty sure the tarmac opened some cracks when this guy hit the gas in the Portimão track paddock...
A very sharp-looking '73 FIAT Spider, next to a '29 Ford A Roadster
My son at the Saturday's dinner next to one of the 'fathers' of the modern micro-city cars - the BMW Isetta
A lovely '35 Triumph Gloria Southern
Another clean MG, a TD model this time
^That's a 1939 Citröen 11BL Cabriolet which drove from Lisbon to the Algarve on Friday and back on Sunday, with 250 kms of road course in the middle. That's 610 kms+ in 3 days for a 71 year old car!
Anyway, I participate on this event for the 2nd time - first time as a driver - on a 1965 Mercedes-Benz 230 SL. That's me on the following picture, speeding on the main straight of Portimão track, after that long downhill right handed corner that some of you have experienced in SSV8:NC!
Everyone was given the chance to drive a maximum of 15 minutes on the track - exceed you would have penaltys in the event (I was on the sport category), so I managed to do 3 full laps which make about 12 minutes on track. I did laps under the 4 minutes mark which isn't too bad for my standards considering that I never did more than 110km/h and this is one hell of a car to get the feel for it. Seriously, you have no idea how much strenght is needed to turn that very large and thin bacquelit wheel on road tires with the weight of that longitudinally placed straight 6 casted-iron engine block! and at the same time fearing to loose those 150 bhp on the back wheels coming out of the corners, specially when the guy sitting next to me was the owner of the car. Now, this gets particularly frightening when, above all, that guy is no other than... your father-in-law!
I'd like to share (the few) pics I was able to take, and apologise to Mario because there was one particular picture I was trying to get all weekend but, for one reason or the other, I never got the chance to: a beautiful 1964 Morgan Plus 4!
Is it a train engine? No. It's the HUGE straight 8 engine of the most beautiful car in the even - a 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500K! 75 years old and it looks like it'll do another 75 years easily. How nicer can a car be?
MB 500K
MB 500K dashboard
1932 MG J2 - this beautiful lightweight car has a 700cc engine that produces 70bhp. The following is exactly the same model but featured with a compressor on the front of the engine to produce 90bhp, thus making it a MG J3 (as J2's which were fitted with that compressor where knowned, opposed to the ones with it featured from the assemby line, called J4's)
1959 Jaguar XK150
To end up, let me just say I ended up in 30th place, amongst 83 cars that entered the sport category which wasn't too bad I guess. But the (family) winner was no other than my son who came home with a scaled BP truck awarded to him as the youngest co-driver of the event (he's 5 years old) and a co-driver's cup for a 2 place in the vintage class with his grandad in a 1929 Ford A Tourer. Unfortunatelly excessive overheating on Saturday caused by a malfunctioned water-pump cause them to retired and stopped them to fight for the win.
I hope you like the pictures. As soon as I got some more I'll post them here.
A very nice '79 Porsche 911SC
A '67 Ferrari 365 GT 2+2 - I'm pretty sure the tarmac opened some cracks when this guy hit the gas in the Portimão track paddock...
A very sharp-looking '73 FIAT Spider, next to a '29 Ford A Roadster
My son at the Saturday's dinner next to one of the 'fathers' of the modern micro-city cars - the BMW Isetta
A lovely '35 Triumph Gloria Southern
Another clean MG, a TD model this time
Last edited:
