Vanwall F1 racing team-related ephemera 1955 to 1961, a collection comprising a set of royal blue zip-up mechanics overalls by Berg?res Fr?res of Mayf
£1,500 - £2,000
Vanwall F1 racing team-related ephemera 1955 to 1961, a collection comprising a set of royal blue zip-up mechanics overalls by Berg?res Fr?res of Mayfair, bearing yellow and green embroidered Vanwall and BP logo patches over the breast pockets - as issued to the team at the 1958 Monaco GP and one of only 18 sets produced, two silvered metal and green enamel lapel badges by Marples & Beasley of Birmingham featuring the Vanwall logo - two of only 100 ever made, similar metal and enamel lapel badges for Maserati and the Monza Autodrome, a period Nurburgring tie pin, a comprehensive album containing 74 photographs covering the team's activities from 1956 to 1961, including overseas Grand Prix races, factory scenes, accident damage and developments like the Reims streamliner, Monaco short-nose, through to the final rear-engined Lotus chassis, mostly monochrome 13 by 18cm., 5 by 7in. or larger press photos, but including some smaller previously unpublished personal camera shots, also some Aston Martin photos of Reg Parnell's 1956 Tasman single-seater, the 1959 F1 car and winning pit stops during the 1959 Le Mans 24-hours, plus a 1962 F1 Lola-Climax V8 postcard signed by Roy Salvadori, eight race programmes: the 1956 French and European GPs, 1957 Goodwood Easter meeting, German and Italian GPs, 1958 British, German and Monaco GPs, the latter bearing 15 signatures on its cover, including Tony Vandervell, Colin Chapman, Stirling Moss, Tony Brooks, Stuart Lewis-Evans, Peter Collins, Mike Hawthorn, Jack Brabham, Cliff Allison and Graham Hill, a large 1956 European GP souvenir programme, a 1958 season review magazine published by Autosport, four BP and Shell racing successes publicity booklets for 1956, 1957 and 1958, eight motor racing books: Vanwall 2.5 litre F1 by Ian Bamsey, Motoring is My Business by John Bolster, Le Mans 1959 by Stirling Moss & Maxwell Boyd, The Motor Yearbook 1957, Motor Racing Sketch Book by Carlo Demand & Charles Meisl, two 1950s B.R.M. V16 books - one with an 8-page engine cutaway section, The Vanwall Story by Klemantaski & Frostick with inside cover bearing 17 signatures including Tony Vandervell, Jack Fairman, Ron Flockart, Masten Gregory, Phil Hill, Bruce McLaren, Reg Parnell, Harry Schell, Carroll Shelby, Allison, Brabham, Brooks, Moss, Salvadori, three complete 1957 newspapers: L'Espoir 16 May, Motoring News 12 September and La Vigie 26 October, all with headlines celebrating a Vanwall success, a September 1958 issue of L'Automobile reporting on the death of Peter Collins, a large 12-page 1959 Vandervell Products calendar featuring black & white Vanwall racing photos but lacking dates section; also two framed Terence Cuneo calendar prints (a qty.) Based in an industrial bearing factory in Acton, the Vanwall team came to dominate F1 in the late 1950s, culminating in the team capturing the first ever World Championship for Constructors in 1958. All this came about because patriotic owner Tony Vandervell fell out with one of his customers - Enzo Ferrari - and vowed that his cars, resplendent in their British Racing Green, would eventually beat 'those bloody red machines'!