Vintage Racing Club of BC

The Spirit of Westwood Lives On!

April 2, 2011

Greg Harper of Breakfast Television visited the Vancouver Auto Show on Friday, April 1st. You can watch the full video Clip here.  At about 3 minutes in, Greg talks to Nigel Matthews of Hagerty about the very rare 1959 Jensen 541-R, which was a big winner at last year’s All British Field Meet and will be back again for this year’s ABFM (click here) on May 21st at the Van Dusen Gardens.

With Nigel’s helpful commentary, Greg then tries to get comfortable in Tom Johnston’s Ralt in our VRCBC display. Greg, you will be able to really see how to “wear” a Formula Atlantic racing car when you come out to the BC Historic Motor Races on the June 11 – 12 weekend!

April 1, 2011

Tom Johnston’s 1990 Canadian Formula Atlantic Champion Ralt RT4 was one of the many star attractions at the Vancouver International Auto Show, which ran from March 29th to April 3rd at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Racing fans were very pleased to hear that the famous car is being “de-mothballed” and will be racing for the first time in 20 years at this year’s BC Historic Motor Races on the June 11th – 12th weekend. The Ralt was in the Classic Alley section of the Show.

March 17, 2011

VRCBC members Manny and Linda Zumm are long time volunteers at all of the road racing events at Mission; Manny as a Track Marshall and Linda with Driver Services.  Linda has always been a great help with Driver Services at our BC Historic Motor Races.  Linda recently retired and wrote a story about her motorsport experiences for her previous employer’s newsletter.  You can read it here. Great story Linda – see you at the track!

February 24, 2011

1938 BMW 327/328 Unveiled at Jellybean Autocrafters

VRCBC Members were among those invited to attend the unveiling of a beautifully restored 1938 BMW 327/328 at Jellybean Autocrafters in Surrey, on February 23rd. This BMW model is generally acknowledged as one of the most significant automobiles in history.  It had leading-edge performance and handling for its time, with its tubular frame and 2 litre, inline six cylinder engine, featuring triple carburetors and hemispherical combustion chambers.

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February 21, 2011

Intermeccanica's main shop with current work in progress

The Club held its February General Membership Meeting at Intermeccanica Custom Coach Builders in Vancouver ( www.intermeccanica.com ). Paula Reisner gave a fascinating presentation on the history of the company that she built with her husband, Frank, who passed away in 2001. Intermeccanica was founded in Turin in 1959 and eventually moved to Vancouver in 1981. The company’s first projects included speed equipment and one of the first rear-engined Formula Juniors. Over the years, they have produced a wide variety of specialty vehicles;  many of which, such as the Apollo and the Indra were immediately recognized by Club members. In recent years, production has been focussed on their Speedster replica, in its many forms. The entire company story is well told on the company website.

Henry Reisner, the president of Intermeccanica,  then walked us through the entire process of building their very impressive, high performance cars. A big thank you to Intermeccanica from the VRCBC!

And if you want to see another story of the tour with some really excellent photos, check out our friend Carl Jarrett’s blog on the SpeedHunter site here.

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