John Burton driving his 1958, Jaguar Alton down the National Pit Lane during the RAC Woodcote Trophy For Pre '56 Sportscars, Qualifying Session
The Alton-Jaguar was designed round a blown 2-litre Alta engine, but when this protested it was found just possible to substitute a Jaguar engine and C-type gearbox. The chassis was designed and fabricated by Barker in the home garage, work commencing in 1954. The frame is of tubular ladder type, with side-members and four cross-members of 16 g. steel tubing. The posts of the double wishbone were welded-up from 3/16-in. steel plate, and Lotus coil-springs were used, which required packing up to take the greater weight of the Jaguar engine. The stub axles are Aston Martin. At the rear an A-frame linkage locates an Aston Martin back axle sprung on coil-spring units, the original anti-roll bar having been recently deleted. The axle ratio is to 1. Girling drum brakes are used all round, although the next move will probably be to fit disc brakes. The engine is a fairly “cooking” Jaguar unit but an 8-to-1 compression-ratio, high-lift camshafts and six-branch exhaust system feeding into a flexibly-mounted Servais silencer, with dual tail-pipes emerging in front of the near-side back wheel, has elevated the power output to approximately 210 As the car weighs only about 18 cwt. ready to race (it turned the scales at 16½ cwt. “wet,” with the Alta engine), acceleration is distinctly brisk, while maximum speed is 135 at 6,000 The chassis has a wheelbase of 7 ft. 9 in., a front track of 4 ft. 4 in. and a rear track of 4 ft. 6 in., and a Mistral fibreglass body, lengthened at the cockpit, fits it very well. Incidentally, this body withstood a bump with a Cooper-Bristol during the aforesaid Goodwood incident very well, the only casualty being a headlamp glass, the nose of the body being virtually undamaged and the lamp within remaining intact. The dashboard is supported on a light tubular bridge and contains a large and the usual instruments.
Size: 4967px × 3329px
Location: Silverstone Circuit, Towcester, Northamptonshire, NN12 8TN
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 56, 1958, 2019, 3800cc, alton, alton-jaguar, british, burton, car, circuit, classic, close-, jaguar, john, lane, national, pit, pre, qualifying, rac, red, session, silverstone, sports, sportscars, towcester, trophy, woodcote
