Bang
We always bid farewell to destroyed racing cars. It is always sad to have to write about the end of any racing car’s story, and this one grieves us more than most, but Nessie died at Brands last week.
We have seen guest drivers send several cars to that great scrapyard in the sky, Angelina was killed by one in November 2008, Megan died but 6 months later at the hands of another. Philip said goodbye to Katrina last year, and now we've lost Vanessa, you'd think we'd get used to it. But this time is different.
Angelina may have been my first racing car, and she carried me to my first race win, but she was always a development of someone else’s car. Megan carried Bear to his first victory then died aged only 18 months at the hands of a hire driver, but she was never a high-quality machine that pushed us forwards or caught our imagination. Katrina wasn’t even our car, and though successful she was only a reworking of an existing car that had been passed through many hands first. None of them quite had that feeling to it that they were ever really "ours."
But Vanessa was the first of the second-generation Kutuka cars, prepared from scratch to our new ethos, a development of a development to further push a line of thought we were proving with our existing cars, and an experiment to see just how quick we could get a car with a wholly stock engine.
A stronger, rigid shell, braced six ways from Sunday to withstand impact and to enhance handling, but maintaining low weight. Simple, cheap, but effective suspension, superior handling, a pretty exterior with a good number of touches that were firsts for us, technical developments we’d never tried before, personal input from all of us, a shell that was donated by my first ever Jaguar, a name borrowed from a girl deeply touched by the gesture, it all added up to a very personal project that took us to a new level.
She did it on an amazingly tight budget, we set out to build the cheapest car possible and yet still make her competitive, and she was amazingly successful. None who drove her, and a good many experienced racing drivers from various formulae have tried her at various times, could quite believe that she handled as well as she did. In short, she was proof that we were on the right track.
In addition, she immediately proved so good that we surprised ourself. Far from being a generic XJS that we didn't care about, that you could post random wannabes in and wait for the crash, she was very good indeed, and she became far more than we ever intended, a test bed for new parts, tyres, even race series.
Her first ever test session on worn out T1R road tyres, absolutely hooning round Brands Hatch in a time that humbled cars on proper race rubber, simply being given an exuberant throw and loving every second of it; her first meeting, on rather thin R1Rs but setting XJS pole at a damp Oulton Park; winning the Jag race at Cadwell with a startled Matt Skelton at the wheel mere days later; carrying me into the smokescreen of a grenading M3 engine at Oulton. Standout moments in a very brief career that lasted but two years.
Examination of the wreckage shows a very battered and bent car both front and rear, but the driver’s survival cell is wholly undamaged. All that seam-welding and extra bracing could not save the car, but it could save the pilot. Those massive 2 x 1 box section jacking points and seat mounting crossmembers served as additional side impact, and though it was all weight she had to carry the floorpans are wholly intact and her driver walked away from a huge collision. Vanessa’s last function, in addition to being a great racing car, was to preserve her driver.
But the damage sustained was too great. Fond as we are of her you can only do so much. No XJS comes back from 2 bent chassis legs. Or does it?
But, we might have a plan. She won’t be what she was, but she could come back as something different. Vanessa has long been our test bed, a car that we could try new things on. We will just have to treat this as the chance to try something radical. You can’t keep a Kutukan down, we like a challenge.
Can you repair a car if only the cockpit and windows survived? Of course not. So we'll have to have a go, obviously.
Vanessa may yet live…
VANESSA - requiem?
So her destruction is a real blow. It’s the first of “our” cars to meet her end, and we are feeling her demise more than usual. It is a peculiar thing to say, but we will miss her. You should never become fond of machinery, but there was a real joy to jumping in this car and going out to play. I will forever rue not finding that last few hundredths of a second at Oulton Park to drop her from the 2.02.0 she set, down into the 2.01s and beyond that she was well capable of. I never felt that I'd finished finding time there in that car, there was more to give.
Boom!
Her end came at Brands Hatch 6/5/13 when her hire driver came into Paddock Hill way too hot, dropped her into the gravel and shot back onto the track into the path of a lapped car. “Nessie” was t-boned in the front corner at about 90mph. The driver walked away without a scratch, a silver lining to the cloud. Vanessa did what she was designed to do, she took enormous punishment without transferring it to the soft organic component. Small mercies.
Well, that's that then. Vanessa's ignominious end.
Heading out for her first ever lap. Fittingly, at Brands, 2011.
Vanessa meets Vanessa. As reactions go, this one was priceless.
First race, Oulton Park 2011. XJS pole as car flattered driver.
Taking flight at Cadwell Park as we tested our first ever 888s.
He might well look happy, Matt Skelton, on the way to winning his first race.
One of her many happy passengers strapping in next to a large Bear at a JEC trackday.
A stunned Matt Jeffery discovering what real handling is like at Oulton.
And a sad end. If you know your numbering, Nessie was a Six. There are many copies...