Andy Blackmore'S BIO

Name: Andy Blackmore

Location: Vancouver, Canada

Previous Locations: UK

Career Path: Senior Lead Artist - Vehicle Design Concepts

Previous Career Paths: Product and Automotive Designer for McLaren Group. Also, create a number of racecar liveries and race car bodykits. Clients have included Panoz, Yamaha, Audi Sport UK, Toyota GB , SEAT Sport, MG Rover, BMW-Schnitzer, MBK Bikes, Gulf Oils, Reynard, Creation, Cummfy Banana(!), Halfords, Radio Le Mans, ITV Sport

Notable Projects/Wins: Designed the majority of McLaren F1 GTR Liveries, including the 1995 Le Mans winner. Designed McLaren pit crew helmets, race trucks, various car proposals and most of the pit garage interior you still see today. Also worked on the initial concept, for McLaren 2-seater Formula 1 car.

Car: BMW 330i E46 , Nissan Murano.

Fav Past Cars: Audi 80 Sport 16v & quattro, various VW Golf GTi's, SEAT Leon Cupra R, 1969 Fiat 500, Mini Cooper 1360 rally car. - driven a McLaren F1 roadcar and GTR, both briefly

Next Car: If I win Lotto 6-49.... KTM X-Bow Dallara, any Caterham 7, or a new Fiat 500 Abarth......if I could find a way into the country.

Car Passions: Car Design and Motorsport. I have always been interested in cars and motorsport from a young age. Completed a degree at Coventry University, in Transport Design. This including a placement, working on the design of the Yamaha OX99-11 supercar. Following this, I worked for Arena Motorsport before joining the McLaren Racing Group working in the Grand Prix, Road car and Le Mans divisions.

I follow motorsport religiously. I competed in single-venue rallying in the UK, in a Union Jack Liveried Mini Cooper (as seen in EA's Shox). I am still involved in Motorsport as a consultant/designer with race-car liveries and bodykit design.

Personal Style: jeans type of person....

Favourite Band of the Moment: Depeche Mode! LOL

Personal Motto: Make sure your doing your best or you are selling yourself short.


2,122 Posted Jan 02 2009, 06:00 AM by Andy Blackmore with 23 comment(s)

Happy new year and welcome to 2009. What better way that to look back to the 1990's with the help of BTCC.net and Peter Still Photographic archives. Many Touring Car fans would classify the ‘Super-Turing’ era as the golden era of Touring Car Championships, although the competition in recent years runs this era close. The man in the street believed his Ford Mondeo ‘rep’ car was the same, as one Nigel Mansell would drive in 1998. They were worlds apart, but customers and...

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Posted Jan 01 2009, 12:00 AM by Andy Blackmore with 13 comment(s)

Welcome to 2009 on Speedhunters! A new year means new features. Each month we will be releasing a Desktop Calendar in our standard and wide-screen sizes. As January is Mazda month on Speedhunters, I raided one of Mike Garrett's images of a flame shooting FD3S. This was taken at the HPI grip and drift event at Tsukuba, which Mike featured here . Calendar desktops can be found in the desktops section of Speedhunters. Enjoy -Andy
 
 

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2,122 Posted Dec 29 2008, 03:55 AM by Andy Blackmore with 12 comment(s)

Unless your name is Jason Plato, then the 2008 British Touring Car Championship was a classic year, with tight competition between works and independent cars. Vauxhall, SEAT, BMW and Honda were all on the top step of the podium. It really was meant to be SEAT's year. SEAT had been in the British Touring Car Championship for the last few years and 2008 was the year that they were expected to win the title. Armed with the new SEAT Leon TDi, the team expected to dominate, pre-season, just as the...

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Posted Dec 26 2008, 10:38 PM by Andy Blackmore with 19 comment(s)

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Japanese Auto Sport magazine and GTCenter.net are showing images of what appears to be a GT1 or GT2 Nissan R35 GT-R testing at Fuji, just before Christmas. No official confirmation from the Japanese manufacture, but GTR Centre believe that the car is a GT1 chassis with close to 600bhp. You can see the lowered stance, extra cooling and air outlets in the hood (bonnet!), wider fenders, skirts and of course, the rear wing. It may share the same V8 engine as the GT500 racer. The FiA GT regs forbid all...
 
 

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2,122 Posted Dec 26 2008, 02:04 AM by Andy Blackmore with 12 comment(s)

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As the year comes to an end and 2008 becomes a distant memory, we thought we would highlight the many champions in the world of Motorsport during this year. Many of the images come from our Speedhunters posts during the year. We'll start off with the main world championships and work our way around the various disciplines. Formula 1: Lewis Hamilton, McLaren MP4-23 WRC: Sebastien Loeb, Citroen C4 WRC WTCC: Yvan Muller, SEAT Leon TDi DTM: Timo Schneider, Audi A4 DTM Super GT500: Satoshi Motoyama...

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Posted Dec 24 2008, 05:04 AM by Andy Blackmore with 3 comment(s)

My turn to select some of my favourite images from this year. Its a mix of Speedhunters content and press images. Some evoke memories, others are just brilliant compositions, so lets get straight to it as wrapping presents beckons... Aston Martin Racing Probably my favourite shot of the year from Aston Martin, showcasing their pre-season racecars at Paul Ricard, La Castellet. The circuit is unique in having coloured stripes painted off course, which can really add to photos. Great shot. Bad Penny...

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2,122 Posted Dec 23 2008, 01:50 PM by Andy Blackmore with 17 comment(s)

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Happy Holidays from the Speedhunters Editorial Team! We would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support and wish speedhunters a Happy New Year! This great image is from the 'Trophee Andros', a ice-racing championship which takes place in the Alps. I will be covering this series in the new year. Regards, Rod, Antonio, Mike G, Jeroen, John, Mike H and Andy Trophee Andros
 
 

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Posted Dec 19 2008, 01:59 PM by Andy Blackmore with 25 comment(s)

Porsche month on Speedhunters was packed with features and we couldn't fit everything into one month, so we decided to keep this back for a feature as the holiday season approaches. Let me know if your interested in these sort of features and I will publish some more livery posts if there is interest. Porsche has a very successful history in motorsport and that's made it difficult to list all the favourites, but this should go some way to showcasing some of the iconic Porsche's and acting...

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2,122 Posted Dec 16 2008, 01:00 PM by Andy Blackmore with 17 comment(s)

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As everyone knows, there are very tough economic times around the world and everyone has to cut-back. Motorsport is seen by many companies as a great marketing and sponsorship resource, but also as a luxury. If a company has to made thousands of workers redundant, then its hard to justify a million dollar motorsport programme. Sadly for motorsport fans, that has been regular news for the last couple of weeks. Earlier today, Subaru followed Suzuki, by announcing their withdrawal from the FiA World...

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Posted Dec 05 2008, 04:50 AM by Andy Blackmore with 7 comment(s)

I'm very pleased to write this post, as a big fan of French race driver Yvan Muller and admin of SEATCupra.net, the largest SEAT enthusiast forum on the net. The final round of the FiA World Touring Car Championship took place in Macau earlier in November. Going into the final round, Muller and team mate, Gabriele Tarquini were the only drivers able to clinch the crown. Muller clinched the championship, after finishing third in race one. Chevrolet driver Alain Menu won the race with out-going...
 
 

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2,122 Posted Dec 03 2008, 09:34 PM by Andy Blackmore with 10 comment(s)

Sébastien Loeb staked his claim to a place in rallying’s record books recently by clinching an unprecedented fifth consecutive FIA World Rally Championship. Third place for Loeb’s Citroën C4 WRC in Rally Japan, the penultimate round of the 2008 season, was enough to put the title out of reach of his rivals. Loeb and his co-driver, Daniel Elena, now hold a unique record, as their five titles eclipse the previous record of four that they shared with Juha Kankkunen and Tommi...
 
 

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Posted Nov 26 2008, 06:00 AM by Andy Blackmore with 7 comment(s)

Back in the early days of Speedhunters, one of our first 'Retrospective' posts featured Nissan at Le Mans. Given that its Nissan month and the Speedhunters community has grown quickly this year, we have decided to republish this feature. Enjoy! - Andy A comment regarding the lack of Nissan's in our Cars of >> Le Mans - GT2 post made me think back to Nissan at Le Mans in the 80's and 90's. They didn't attain the success of Mazda or Toyota, but Nissan's media site...

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2,122 Posted Nov 25 2008, 06:39 AM by Andy Blackmore with 6 comment(s)

Regular Speedhunters may remember my post on the 2008 Porsche Calendar, back in September, the post proved very popular with requests to know when the 2009 edition was available. Surfing around today, I discovered that Lotus and Porsche have released design calendars with renders and illustrations from their respective design studios. The Lotus Calendar is a past favourite of mine. The 2009 calendar features 15 pages of development sketches, scale model photographs and digital sketches of Lotus Products...

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Posted Nov 06 2008, 12:15 AM by Andy Blackmore with 18 comment(s)

Now its my turn to post! I'm here in Las Vegas on Need for Speed business, collecting reference for future projects, but thought I would squeeze in a Speedhunter post or two. I have been to the last four SEMA shows and its a real love-hate affair for me! SEMA is huge, although with the economic problems, it is smaller than last year. If you are armed with a camera, it will take you a good 3-4 days to see the whole show, so by the end of the week, I can't wait to leave, tired and worn out...

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2,122 Posted Oct 25 2008, 02:20 PM by Andy Blackmore with 10 comment(s)

Just a quick heads-up for our North American Speedhunters. Speed TV's coverage of Formula D debuts this weekend at 4pm EST Sunday afteroon. The hour long programme featuresRound 1 from Long Beach. The programme will be repeated during the week and a new episode will air the following Sunday, all the way through to Christmas. Meanwhile, if you're in Europe, keep your eye on Motors TV. They are currently showing the EDC finale in Poland and UK Time Attack. Next air-ing is on Wednesday. - Andy...
 
 

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Posted Oct 21 2008, 03:32 PM by Andy Blackmore with 8 comment(s)

Porsche clinched the remaining two manufacture championships at the final round of the American Le Mans series last weekend. The DHL Penske Porsche of Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard finished on the LMP2 podium, scoring one more point than Acura, securing the manufactures crown. Meanwhile in GT2, valuable points from the Farnbacher-Loles team resulting in the GT2 crown going to Porsche. At the front, the dominant Audi Sport team finished 1st and 2nd, with Marco Werner and Lucas Luhr from team mates...

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2,122 Posted Oct 17 2008, 12:30 PM by Andy Blackmore with 14 comment(s)

Photographer Andrew Jennings was at Road Atlanta earlier this month, enjoying a classic Petit Le Mans event. During the weekend, Andrew had the opportunity to get close to the Drayson-Barwell Aston Martin Vantage GT2 race car. Following our popular Car Features on the GT1 Aston Martin DBR9 and Corvette C6.R , we are delighted to feature his words and images for fellow Speedhunters. Words and Images by Andrew Jennings Not long ago I was down in Atlanta to attend the 2008 ALMS Petit Le Mans 1000mile...

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Posted Oct 08 2008, 04:18 AM by Andy Blackmore with 14 comment(s)

Volkswagen UK recently published a press release highlighting the 33 year of Golf GTi history, which makes interesting reading. I thought this could form the basis of our latest Retrospective piece, on the original hot hatch. Golf GTi Mk1 1977-1984. If you are old enough, cast your mind back to 1975! The Giorgetto Giugiaro designed Golf GTi is launched at the 1975 Frankfurt Motor Show with a 1600cc 110PS engine. One of the first ever hot hatches (there had been others such as the Renault 5 Gordini...

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2,122 Posted Oct 06 2008, 05:10 PM by Andy Blackmore with 2 comment(s)

The Eleventh running of the 1000 Mile Petit Le Mans resulted in a classic Audi-Peugeot-Audi battle in the last half of the race. Andrew Jennings was at Road Atlanta taking these fantastic images for us. There was drama even before the race had started. 2nd place starter Allan McNish lost control on a warm-up lap and spun his Audi R10 TDi into the barriers. The Scott managed to get the deranged car back to the pits where the Audi crew set to repair the car. “I lost control of the Audi due to...

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Posted Oct 03 2008, 04:09 PM by Andy Blackmore with 5 comment(s)

Wow, that was a great qualifying session! Just like a sprint race. Allan McNish put in some really quick times early in the Qualifying session earlier this afternoon and with five minutes to go the Audi Engineer told Allan he could come in to the pits,his pole position was safe... However,,,,as Allan was exiting his car, Stephane Sarrazin took pole, by just 0.08 of second. An amazing performance by both teams. Given that everyone thought Peugeot would dominate qualifying, it was an impressive performance...
 
 

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