[CMOTD]

Various photos taken during the filming of the movie have surfaced over the years and there is a long running thread in the Autosport nostalgia forum LINK which contains a lot of them but the set of 300 sheets I provided for Jason is believed to be exclusive to us and the most comprehensive set in private hands. No doubt they will soon be copied and pasted elsewhere though. Of course there are bound to be many more buried in film company vaults somewhere, whether they will ever surface is debatable. I have only put about 5 of the sheets up on the web previously and they were all deleted when Photobucket started playing silly buggers.

Jason has only used a small proportion of the collection so far and may possibly be able to add some more later. There are some really good ones of the machine they used to propel the car over the fence for the Spa crash which would be worthwhile including.

The source of the photos was former racing driver Jim Russell. He was born and lived all his life in Downham Market, 7 miles down the road from me. He set up the very first racing school at Snetterton, was heavily involved in the movie and most of the cars in the film are modified formula junior cars from the school.

He also ran a Mercedes dealership in Downham for many years, it was immediately in front of, and shared dustbins with, the ambulance station where a paramedic friend of mine was based. The whole site was demolished in 2007 to make way for a housing estate (called Russell Gardens) and just prior to that my friend found him having a clear out and about to deposit a large folder of the photos in the bin. He asked if he could have them and Jim was more than happy to pass them on. Knowing my interest in such things my friend gave them to me. I scanned them in order to preserve them as they were already beginning to fade.

I still have the originals and am open to seriously large offers for the collection, apart, of course from the hundreds of photos of Françoise Hardy.