1961 Warwick-Ford Mk II
Offered by Silverstone Auctions | Warwickshire, England | February 24-26, 2023
This is an interesting race car. In the mid-1950s, some F1 teams dropped streamliner bodies over their F1 cars at high-speed tracks. Mercedes is perhaps the most famous to have done it, but the results were real. Covering the wheels decreased drag and increased speed. Eventually they were banned.
This body was used on Jack Brabham’s 1959 French Grand Prix car, which was a Cooper. The car got airborne in practice, so the pulled it off and ran the car as a typical open wheeler. Engineer John Moore spotted the body years later in the Cooper workshop.
He designed a racing car around it that could be easily converted to full-bodied sports car or an open single seater. It won the 1962 Monoposto Championship in the U.K. The car remained in competition into 1970 before it was retired. It was then partially restored around 1990, competing in historic events into the 2010s. Two Ford inline-fours accompany the car. No pre-sale estimate is yet available, but you can read more about it here.
Update: Sold $34,273.