1936 Talbot-Lago T120 3-Litre Tourist Trophy Sports Style Body

1936 Talbot-Lago T120 3-Litre

Tourist Trophy Sports Style Body

• Registration: TL8749
• Chassis No: 85452
• Engine No: 65016

TL8749 is a highly unusual and important Talbot-Lago T120 3-litre, carrying period Raymond Mays provenance and later re-bodied in the style of Talbot-Lago’s celebrated T150 Tourist Trophy Sports.

Only two T120-based replicas of the T150 Tourist Trophy Sports are known to have been built, and TL8749 is the original of the pair. Tom Hardman Limited had the privilege of brokering the sale of both cars during 2016, and I am delighted to be handling the sale of TL8749 once again, nearly ten years later.

This is a car with a particularly interesting story. It began life as a Talbot-Lago T120 Coupé, first registered in the UK in 1939 to Raymond Mays of ERA and BRM fame, and it retains its original Lincolnshire registration number, TL8749. It is understood that the car was received by Mays from Antonio “Tony” Lago following his 1939 Reims-Gueux drive for Talbot-Lago, though, as previously noted in the car’s history, there is no known record of the car between 1936 and 1939.

In later life, TL8749 was transformed into the striking Tourist Trophy-style sports car it is today. In more recent ownership, it has also gained a successful competition record of its own.

During our client’s tenure, TL8749 has been enjoyed exactly as intended. It has been used, developed and campaigned, rather than simply preserved. With the support of Gareth Burnett and the team at Pace Products, the car was refined into a highly effective VSCC machine, ultimately becoming a VSCC ODM Championship winner.

During the 2020/21 off-season, Pace Products were instructed to refresh and further develop the engine performance and cooling system. The result is a notably strong 3-litre naturally aspirated six-cylinder engine, reputedly producing in the region of 200 bhp, mated to a close-ratio Wilson pre-selector gearbox rebuilt by recognised specialist Cecil Schumacher.

On the road, the performance is more than healthy. The car has real torque, flexibility and mechanical character, making it genuinely rewarding to drive. TL8749 is not simply a circuit car, either. Alongside its race use, it has competed on the endurance rally scene and has also been enjoyed on road tours.

That breadth of ability is central to its appeal. TL8749 is fast, charismatic, usable and impressively versatile — a car equally at home on the open road, on a long-distance event, or being driven hard in VSCC competition.

Unique History

By the late 1930s, Talbot-Lago was one of Europe’s great sporting luxury marques. Like W.O. Bentley before him, Antonio “Tony” Lago understood the value of competition success and believed firmly in the principle of “win on Sunday, sell on Monday.”

Following the dissolution of the Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq combine in 1934, Lago acquired the Darracq works at Suresnes and set about revitalising the marque. The new Lago-era Talbots, including the 3-litre T120 and 4-litre T150, quickly established the company as a serious force in both sporting luxury cars and competition machinery.

For the 1939 season, Lago fielded Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Prix cars against the might of the German teams. At Reims-Gueux, the French drivers René Le Bègue and Philippe Étancelin finished third and fourth respectively, behind the dominant Auto Unions. The third Talbot-Lago seat was given to Raymond Mays.

Mays, of course, is best known as one of the great figures in British motor racing history. His name is inseparable from ERA and BRM, both based in Bourne, Lincolnshire, and both of which played a defining role in Britain’s pre- and post-war racing story.

Mays’ outing at Reims was short-lived, with retirement after only ten laps, but his association with Lago would lead directly to the story of this car. It is understood that Mays received this Talbot-Lago T120 Coupé in connection with that drive, the car subsequently being registered in Lincolnshire as TL8749.

Mays retained TL8749 throughout the war years before selling it in 1950 to John Bland. During the 1960s, the car was owned by noted Talbot enthusiast Anthony Blight, at a time when he was assembling a number of important British Talbot motor cars.

In later years, TL8749 passed to Bill Barrot, a respected Talbot-Lago specialist who had become captivated by the 4-litre Talbot-Lago T150 Tourist Trophy Sports. Building his own interpretation of that great sporting design, using Raymond Mays’ T120 Coupé as the basis, became something of a dream fulfilled.

The chassis was shortened and, during the 1990s, Barrot created the all-alloy Tourist Trophy-style body the car carries today. Its form follows the spirit of the great Talbot-Lago sports racers, with teardrop influence and enveloping wings giving the car its distinctive and purposeful presence.

Importantly, TL8749 retains a number of particularly interesting period details. The magnesium alloy wheels are believed to relate to Mays’ own experiments with that material, while the car also carries a Raymond Mays radiator badge and horn button. These details add a tangible and highly appealing link to its earlier life.

TL8749 was sold by Bill Barrot to John Guyatt in 1997. Guyatt campaigned the car very successfully in VSCC events, and Bonhams recorded in 2015 that, for many years, it had held class records at venues including Loton Park, Wiscombe Park, Prescott and Shelsley Walsh.

John Guyatt described TL8749 as one of the very best Talbot-Lagos he had ever driven — a view I can entirely understand. It is a car with real presence, genuine pace and a depth of history that few comparable machines can offer.

Today, TL8749 stands as a rare and compelling Talbot-Lago: a car with Raymond Mays provenance, Tourist Trophy Sports styling, proven road manners and a successful modern historic competition record.

It is distinctive, usable and deeply characterful — a motor car with a story, a purpose and a presence very much its own.

The car is offered with its VSCC Eligibility Document, UK V5C registration document and a copy of its Registre Talbot entry.