The 2.3L engine now put out 95 bhp. The Fox & Nicholl team were looking for new cars since Lagonda closed its racing programme in January. They purchased three Talbots but a disastrous fatal accident at Brooklands wrecked them. In less than five weeks, two were repaired for Le Mans. Georges Roesch, chief engineer at Clément-Talbot, was concerned that like the Blower Bentleys, the French fuels would not be suitable for the Talbots. He asked the ACO if they could run on ethyl fuel but this was refused. Leslie Callingham, head of Shell's technical department in London (and driving an Alfa Romeo in the race) said the hybrid fuel would be suitable, although the engine output would drop to about 70 bhp. The drivers were to be Johnny Hindmarsh / Tim Rose-Richards and Brian Lewis, Baron Essendon / Hugh Eaton. The other significant Le Mans debut was also a privateer entry. Alfa Romeo had already achieved great success in grand prix racing in the 1920s. Vittorio Jano’s 6C successor design, debuting in 1927, followed on this adapting as a sports car or grand prix racer in the Formula Libre events. Initially a 1.5-litre, in 1929 it was also available with a 1752cc twin-cam engine, and both versions had a supercharged variant. As well as a works team, two other new significant customer teams ran the 1750 SS: Enzo Ferrari in Italy and Fred Stiles, the London importer, focusing almost exclusively on their respective countries. Its light weight and superior handling gave it excellent acceleration and made it better through the corners than the bigger cars. Le Mans was not considered by any of the three teams. However, a car owned by wealthy British racer Earl Francis Howe was entered, with support from the Stiles team including former Bentley driver, Leslie Callingham as co-driver. With the 1.3 supercharger co-efficient they had the same Index target as the Talbots. After the withdrawals of Alvis and the new Scotsman car, the only entries in the 2-litre class were from BNC and Kenneth Peacock's supercharged Lea-Francis S-Type. Having raced the year before, Peacock had purchased a new car and returned as a privateer entry with Sammy Newsome again as co-driver. BNC had not survived the economic downturn and had been purchased by French entrepreneur Charles de Ricou, who also picked up Lombard and Rolland-Pilain, and its successor AER. The BNC Vedette was the new