1996 SHP Eurocar

Lot details
Registration No: N/A
Chassis No: OV8004E
Mot Expiry: N/A

The Eurocar road show of rorty racing Saloons, Pick-Up Trucks, motorcycle-engined Legends etc was the brainchild of Sonny Howard, who saw the potential in introducing the rolling starts, colourful liveries, pace cars and general razzamattazz of Amercian-style motorsport to UK spectators. A successful graduate of oval racing and club rallying, he had the vision to adapt the American format for UK tracks and the engineering nous to design and build the cars. The first of the SHP (Sonny Howard Preparations) Eurocar Saloons was the V6. A Ford Mondeo-lookalike, it comprised a tubular steel chassis clothed in Kevlar body panels and powered by a 2.9-litre Ford V6 engine. With 228 bhp in just 850 kilograms, it was a recipe for fast, close racing and, at its peak, boasted grids of up to 36 cars. The formula's success inevitably brought calls for a still more powerful version - enter the Winston Cup-style Eurocar V8. First introduced alongside the V6 for the 1996 season, the V8 again comprised a sturdy steel spaceframe chassis, this time clad in a unique Saloon body comprised of 14 Kevlar-reinforced glassfibre panels. The major difference to its junior sibling was the front-mounted, Roush-supplied V8 engine. At 5.8-litres capacity it kicked out 450-500 bhp - sufficient to propel the 1225 kilogram racer to speeds of 180 mph plus.

The Eurocar V8 offered was built in 1996 and is understood by the vendor to have been driven by oval racing legend and double Eurocar-series champion Barry 'Leapy' Lee, following which he tells us it was developed for the Nürburgring Endurance Championship by a company called Online Motorsport. These days, the left-hooker's dry-sump 5.8 litre V8 is claimed to produce some 550 bhp and drive through a Jericho four-speed gearbox to a 9-inch Strange alloy differential. The braking features four-pot AP Racing callipers front and rear and the suspension is by coil-overs linked to an Ohlins remote reservoir. Finished in blue, this rare tribute to NASCAR is described by the vendor as 'race ready'. We'll leave the last word to the SHP website, "These flame-spitting monsters will never be forgotten and maybe alone did enough to persuade investors to back the Rockingham Speedway project."