Does anyone actually recognise any of the names from this car's racing history?

Just as well Evans doesn't have to put the records on himself any more - he's going to burn his fingers on this one...

If he bought a dreadfully expensive house, would anyone moan about it?

All car lovers should be pleased someone earning public money is keen to re-invest it in something interesting in a motoring context, particularly as through his charitable work he lets Joe Public get near them.

In a mid-90s issue of Car, there was a wonderful article by Colin Goodwin about his drive in a 250 GTO SWB that had interesting competition history -- it was raced by Graham Hill at Le Mans in the mid-60s, and by several other top names since.

Apparently the private GTO was driven from the UK to Le Mans by a mechanic, and 'prepared' for the race by chucking the mechanic's bags out of the boot and pumping the tyres up a bit :-D

Hill's team had it running in the top 10 until after 12 hours, the cooling fan (which actually needn't have been fitted at all) broke up, severing a coolant hose and seizing the engine.

The article started with the owner telling Goodwin: "Colin, please promise me one thing. Don't baby the car, it was built for competition so don't insult it's history by being soft on it."

Wouldn't that be nice, eh?