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This lot will be auctioned via Iconic Auctioneers, Race Retro Classic and Competition Car Sale 2024 on Saturday the 24th of February, Stoneleigh Park, Stoneleigh Rd, Coventry, CV8 2LG. , A slightly tongue-in-cheek suggestion by Roger Williamson, proprietor of Willhire Vehicle Rentals in Norfolk, resulted in the arrival on the club motor racing scene of the Willhire 24 Hours, an endurance race for production cars and Britain’s first 24-hour motor race.The event was staged every year between 1980 and 1994 at Snetterton Circuit, becoming known simply as “the Willhire”, and there can’t be many drivers at club and national level during those years that didn’t get involved at least once. Many Willhire winners went on to enjoy success in other forms of motor sport and we are proud to mention that our own Lionel Abbott won the race twice, in 1986 with Mike Smith (the first two-driver team to win the race) and in 1988 with Graham [Website URL removed] was initially assumed that a production car being hammered around Snetterton for 24 hours would self-destruct so, for the first two years, it was a team event with up to four cars used, however, the survival rate was surprisingly good and from 1983 onwards, it became an individual event with cars shared by between two and six drivers.The Capri on offer today is a 1981 3.0 'S' that was originally built from a Ford-supplied, trimmed body shell for the 1981 production saloon car championships. With funding from Autoplan Warranties, it was put together by Roger Dowson of Gerry Marshal Racing (prior to Roger forming Roger Dowson Engineering) and was finished just in time for the Willhire where the ebullient Gerald Marshall and the equally quick but considerably better behaved, Graham Scarborough, co-drove the car to 2nd place in that race. Gerry continued to race the car for the rest of the season winning every race entered and both Production Saloon Car Championships. (BARC and BRSCC). At the end of the year Gerry sold the car to Harold Hagan in Ireland where it continued to race with much success.Some 15 years later, in late 1996, Graham Scarborough bought the car, still in it’s original Autoplan
Central Locking; Safety Belt Pretensioners; Previously Registered Overseas