Hey, I haven't been writing about the Butterfield Musketeer for some time now (5 years to be exact, way too long). And we wouldn't want to have this lovely if not mysterious model fade into obscurity completely, don't we?
That's just when this lovely picture was flashed over to here by Simon Greatham, supposedly taken at the circuit of Brands Hatch where Christabel Carlisle famously (?) drove the Musketeer against a whole force of Lotuses. She spun the car in the race, thus ending the sporting career for the Musketeer.
There's no doubt this is the red car driven by Carlisle there, which was in fact the aluminium bodied prototype made by Williams & Pritchard and rebuilt with a Cooper 1000 engine for the race and registered '292 MJH' at the time. Is it also her standing behind it here? Together with the other two fibreglass bodied Musketeers, this car seems to have vanished from the earth since that racing day now more than 60 years ago. Let's keep hope in finding at least one of them back one day.
Butterfield Musketeer at Brands Hatch in 1962. Is that Christabel Carlisle behind it?
Picture courtesy Simon Greatham
I thought the photo looked familiar and indeed it is as it's featured in a book written by Pablo Raybould and Christabel Carlisle entitled Mini Virtuoso which chronicles Christabel Carlisle's racing career. The book captions the photo as being taken at Brands Hatch on 1st December 1961 where Christabel joined friends to take part in a non competitive practice day where she was invited to drive the Musketeer prototype registered 292 MJH. I enjoy the blog - keep up the good work! Keith
ReplyDeleteThank you for that. I don't have the book. Does it say or show more about the Musketeer?
DeleteI had another flick through the book last night and there's no further mention of the Musketeer. Keith
ReplyDeleteThanks again Keith.
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