Splendid Chelsea AutoLegends draws in large London crowd

08 Sep 2011

Now in its second year, the expanded Chelsea AutoLegends attracted an enthusiastic 8,000-plus visitors – 50 per cent up on 2010 – to its home in the palatial grounds of the Royal Hospital on the 4th of September. Just a stone’s throw away from London’s Kings Road, a centrepiece of the Swinging Sixties, which aptly was the overall theme for 2011, the unique annual London display of race and road machinery, both old and new, again raised much needed funds for the long overdue refurbishment of the Chelsea Pensioners’ living quarters at the hospital.

As with the inaugural event, sports-racing cars and the Le Mans 24 Hours – including the Lola-Aston Martin B09/60 that finished fourth in the classic French endurance race in 2009 – were focal points of the diverse static displays which were not only larger but also spread over an increased area of the hospital’s verdant lawns. Successful privateer sportscar entrants, such as Tommy Sopwith, Colonel Ronnie Hoare, Rob Walker and John Coombs, who often beat factory entries, were celebrated with a selection of their successful cars.

Also highlighted were the 50th anniversaries of the Jaguar E Type and the Mini Cooper, on road and track, and, for the first time, road and racing motorcycles, while the motor sport celebrities on hand included Chelsea AutoLegends patron Sir Stirling Moss – a key player in Aston Martin’s 1959 victories at Le Mans and in the World Sportscar Championship; he was joined by rally legends Paddy Hopkirk and Russell Brookes, eight times motorcycle World Champion Phil Read and endurance racing aces Richard Attwood and David Piper, together with Mike Salmon and Peter Sutcliffe who co-drove the surviving Aston Martin Project 214 at Le Mans in 1964.

It wasn’t all exotic machinery amongst the 600 odd vehicles present, though, there being a varied collection of more mundane machinery, both road, competition and classic, from both sides of the Atlantic. Sixties GTs and sports cars were plentiful, as were modern road cars, including a road-registered Aston Martin One-77 in the Supercar Paddock, while among the many trade stands Aston Martin was represented by Stratstone of Mayfair, Desmond J. Smail and Aston Sales Kensington.

Fortunately, the threat of a downpour only materialised over lunchtime but it made little difference to the enjoyment and success of London’s splendid stand-alone celebration of men, machines and motor sport.