DB2 1951 Team Cars
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DB2 1951 Team Cars

DB2 1951 Team Cars

(1951)

Although the near production spec DB2 was easily capable of gaining class wins, overall victory at Le Mans 24 hours race against cars specifically designed for the track. Thus during the latter part of 1950, David Brown employed the ex-Auto Union designer, Robert Eberan-Eberhorst to design a pure sports racing car (the DB3) to challenge for the overall win Brown craved. Yet as developing the DB3 would take time, a further two DB2's were taken from the production line to race for the Works Team for the 1951 season.

DB2 1951 Team Cars

Building on the experience of the previous season with the DB2 and a little more development time, the new Works cars were designed to be an incredible 200kg lighter than the 1950 examples. This was achieved by stripping out any unnecessary trim from the interior, the use on 18 gauge alloy for the bodies (instead of 16), Plexiglas side and rear windows and drilling the chassis.

XMC76 (LML/50/50) and XMC77 (LML/50/55) were entered in predominantly the same events as the previous year. At Silverstone, #76 came 6th overall and 1st in class, #77 retired. At Le Mans, #76 was 7th overall and 3rd in class, bettered by #77 which was 5th overall and 2nd in class. The 1951 team cars continued to be raced by the factory during 1952 and 1953.

Despite their age (all are over 60 years old) and immense value, all five DB2 team cars are still being actively raced even today at AMOC and other classic events worldwide.