If you have been following our “Before Bonneville” series you have undoubtedly seen some photos of a 1908 Darracq as there have been several in those images collections we have shown you. The cars were stripped to nothing outside of a massive V8 engine and were among the fastest things in the world for their time period. Photos are one thing but video is another. This is a look at how terrifying it had to have been to drive one of those cars at the limit.
My sons and I watched the vast majority of the live streaming coverage from Goodwood Festival of Speed in England the last couple of years. This is a bucket list event for the family and I’ll get there one day. The live streaming coverage is amazingand we saw everything from historic racers to, Don Garlits, to Baja trucks attack the hill but nothing compared to the early race cars of the 1900s that guys were driving like they meant it. These rickety looking contraptions don’t appear to be safe to travel 15mph in but the guys who entered them showed up to show off and they put on a great show, none better than Mark Walker in his 1908 200hp Darracq racer. The open frame and wheels are powered by a 200hp V8 engine that measures out to a massive 25 liters. That’s 1,500ci for those of you playing at home.
Darracq was a French car maker that was founded in 1896 and produced automobiles until 1935 before being sucked up by a British conglomerate and losing its identity. This V8 special is the actual car that was built by Darracq as a racer more than 100 years ago and it was restored to the condition it would have been raced in back then. If you can believe it, someone actually had the guts to travel 130mph on top of this cart!
We love Walker’s run at Goodwood because he gets after it from the second the green light comes on. The first corner is proof positive with the car pitching wildly sideways and his passenger/riding mechanic grasping onto whatever he could to keep himself in the car! The driving position of Walker hunkered down over the big steering wheel which is coming up to meet his chest is classic and the rumbling sound of the massive engine is also cool.
A few guys wrecked cars at Goodwood. How? It isn’t all parade laps. Yes, there’s a lot of cars that get run up the hill that are far more appropriate for show duty than they are for go duty but most of the machines show up prepped to run as hard as they can and that’s everything from the modern racers to the ancient stuff like this. If you missed all of the live stream, we’re sorry. We were pumping it hard here at BangShift because this is one of the world’s ultimate BangShifty events. So many cars and drivers from around the world together, there’s literally nothing else like it anywhere.
Mark Walker and his passenger are the newest member of the BangShift hall of fame because in order to do what he does here you need some major league…courages.
