Image Detectives - Vauxhall Firenza

Since March 2020 London Metropolitan Archives staff, later joined by volunteers, have been working on the LCC photograph project, the aim of which is to geotag and improve the descriptions of nineteenth and twentieth century images of London in order to make them more informative and research friendly. Originally created by the London County Council for administrative purposes, Series 01 comprises about 96,000 photographs, many of which document places that no longer exist, having been demolished, destroyed in wartime air raids, or redeveloped.

Fully digitised and available to view on the London Picture Archive website, the images in Series 01 focus on buildings and locations. However, they often capture objects and details which make them invaluable resources for social, and in some cases, personal history. One of our volunteers, Karen Fletcher, spotted an eye-catching car in image 108249, and embarked on a detective adventure as a result.

A car, a firebird and one careful woman driver

There is a row of three cars visible in London Picture Archive (LPA) image 108249 parked outside 30 Greenland Road, Camden Town, in 1975. Whilst the first two presented no problem, I didn’t recognise the third car, registration UHO 555M, at all. At this point I nearly gave up, but once zoomed in I could see the word 'Firenza' at the front of the car, and another view of it in LPA 108252 showed interesting paintwork, so it seemed worth pursuing.

I quickly established this was a Vauxhall Firenza, which, according to Wikipedia, was a model sold by Vauxhall between 1971 and 1975. It was restyled in 1973 and known officially as the High Performance (HP) Firenza but known colloquially as the 'droop snoot' after its distinct aerodynamic nose, which helped decipher the words over the headlamps of our car.

The Firenza HP was launched to much publicity in a special one-off race at Thruxton circuit in Hampshire in 1974, with top drivers of the day taking part, including Gerry Marshall and Barry 'Whizzo' Williams, who won the race despite having a broken ankle. It was an unfortunate time to introduce a high performance gas-guzzler though, as OPEC had declared an embargo on oil in October 1973 causing a huge rise in fuel prices and the first oil crisis. As a result, only 204 Firenza HPs were ever produced, falling far short of the projected 30,000 Vauxhall hoped to make. However, its scarcity has meant it has become a highly collectible classic car, with its own specialist forums such as the Droop Snoot Group and mentions on more general forums like Pistonheads.

It was on the latter I found my first mention of UHO 555M, two photos posted by someone called 'droopsnoot', evidently a previous owner. Both photos are from the 1970s, taken in Monaco and Cyprus.

I picked up the trail of UHO 555M again on one of the Droop Snoot Group forum threads. It was listed as taking part in that Thruxton launch race in 1974, driven by Jenny Birrell, the only woman driver in the 21 person race. According to a brief biography of Jenny on the blog Speedqueens, she raced sports and saloon cars in the 60s and 70s, starting out her career in rally navigation, chiefly for Pat Moss, the sister of Stirling Moss, the renowned British Formula One racing driver. 

There is a short film of the Thruxton Firenza race on YouTube – sadly the combination of high speed driving and low resolution film means I haven’t been able to spot Jenny or UHO 555M though. Someone who was a race marshal on that day has left a comment under the film: “It was a selling plate race… i.e., the public made a bid to purchase a car before the race started. Some people left the circuit with a very bad bargain and a seriously battered new car!”

Not our Droop Snoot though. It was sold on in good condition as I discovered with a bit more detective work via the Facebook Droop Snoot Group where UHO 555M is mentioned in a post by Panos Panoulis:

‘Hi friends... tell me if anybody remembers this... one of the first 20 ‘droop snoot’ that raced at Thruxton driven by Jenny Birrell + the first one sold after the race to me, by Monroes (Vauxhall dealers) of Andover...!!! The reason I bought this one was that Jenny was the only one who really took care of the car, while all the other ‘macho’ male drivers thrashed the other 19...!!! I was there + I know... photos are in St. Tropez - French Riviera summer 1975...!!!’

The photos show much more clearly the firebird paint job than is apparent in the LPA photos and confirmed that the 'droopsnoot' posting on Pistonheads was in fact Panos. The Facebook group looked pretty dormant with the last post being four years old, so I posted a comment with a link to the LPA images of the Firenza without much hope of a response. So, I was extremely surprised to get a reply from Panos within the hour. He was pleased to see the LPA photos and confirmed his part of the car’s history and the reason it appears parked in Camden Town:

"Hi Karen, I used to live for many years at the beginning of Camden Road, and Greenland Road was the nearest place to park my cars with a resident's parking permit...!!!"

Of course, I just had to ask him about the final fate of UHO 555M…

"It's in pieces in Cyprus awaiting resurrection...!!!"

He added: "any photos of my colorful Lamborghini Urraco which was parked also there after 1977?"

Sorry Panos, there are limits even to the wonders of the London Picture Archive.

If you would also like to contribute to detecting and describing the wonders of the LPA, please email the London Picture Archive.