DTV Vauxhalls at Goodwood

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Three icons of the Dealer Team Vauxhall (DTV) équipe stood shoulder to shoulder at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year. The first that we see here is the DTV Magnum, built by Bill Blydenstein's outfit and raced by Gerry Marshall - you can see that it largely retains the factory bodywork, which can't really be said for some of DTV's later efforts.


The next car, Old Nail, is the racer that really raised the team's profile in the seventies, with Marshall winning over 60 races in the Firenza (which was subsequently given to him to keep by the grateful team).



However, even this 2.3-litre muscle-coupé seems somewhat tame compared to the third car we see here: Baby Bertha. Built from the crashed remains of Big Bertha (a brutal V8-powered Ventora), its 5.0-litre Repco-Holden V8 produces over 500bhp, while the overtly functional bodywork was a world away from the Firenzas you'd find on the forecourt back in 1975.



The next step in the Bertha saga was Mega Bertha, a 700bhp Cavalier coupé with a Formula racer chassis. But that's another story...