primotipo…

Robert Davies captures Alan Moffat is his Ford ‘Cologne Capri’ RS3100, exiting ‘Dandy Road’ upon its Australian debut, at the Sandown Tasman meeting February 1975…

Whilst Alan Moffats’ car is well known by most Australian enthusiasts, the factory RS2600 campaigned by David Mckay in the 1972 Dulux Rally is a bit more obscure, we will come back to Moffats’ car, McKays’ was the first to appear.

David McKay was an ex-racer of world class, the most influential Australian motoring journalist of his time and boss of Scuderia Veloce, retailer of Ferraris’ and other exotica and a team which ran some of Australia’s’ best cars and drivers. https://primotipo.com/2014/07/03/pete-geoghegan-ferrari-250lm-6321-bathurst-easter-68/ and https://primotipo.com/2015/04/02/ferrari-p4canam-350-0858/

The Dulux Rally was a unique event in the World, whilst influenced by the Tour de France was different in that competitors faced both the challenges of dirt rallying and circuit racing. The Rally only lasted 2 years, such was the cost of running an event over 2 weeks commencing in Queensland and finishing in distant Victoria.

The Dulux was promoted and run by the Sydney based ‘Australian Sporting Car Club’ and worked commercially due to the support of ICI Australia, whose research showed the most effective way to promote the name change of ‘Balm Paints’ to ‘Dulux’ to the trade in 1971 was via motorsport. Re-finishers, panel and paint shop proprietors were interested in motorsport, so the key commercial support to get quite a radical event off the ground was made.

McKay very successfully ran an Alfa 1750 GTV powered by the 2 litre race engine out of his friend Brian Foleys’ ex-factory GTAm circuit racer, a veritable 210bhp wolf in sheeps clothing in 1971…McKay finished 2nd to Colin Bonds’ factory Holden Torana ‘LC’ GTR-XU1. No mean feat as Bond was one of Australia’s most versatile drivers; a winner in open wheelers, on the dirt and on the circuits as both multiple Australian Rally Champion and a winner of the Bathurst 500 and many other circuit races.

For 1972 McKay was keen on a more competitive mount, the nature of the various hats he wore and his capabilities meant he was attractive to all of the local manufacturers/importers. McKay was invited to breakfast with Fords CEO Australia, Bill Bourke, on his departure from Australia who asked if there was anything he could do for McKay in his new appointment elsewhere in the Ford empire.

McKay recalled ‘Ford were running V6 Capris’ in European Rallies and perhaps Bill Bourke could collar one which wouldn’t be missed in time for the ’72 Dulux? This he did together with a mechanic to look after a car which had been run by Ford France. Howard Marsden (head of Fords racing program in Australia) was enthused and turned on his Ford works crew’.

 

The 1972 Dulux entry was not large at 27 cars…but included International, Edgar Herrmann in a factory Datsun 240Z, Colin Bond and Peter Brock in factory Torana GTR XU1’s both of whom were equally at home on tar or dirt, Australian Rally Champion Bob Watson in a Renault 8 Gordini, Stewart McLeod, XU-1 and Bruce Hodgson, Ford Escort Twin Cam and many other top drivers.

The rally commenced after a run from Brisbane to Grafton at Surfers Paradise Raceway.

The Capri had a high speed miss which cost power, McKay finished 3rd on a track tailor made for the car. Due in Sydney on the second night, David organised the SV Team to be on hand to rectify the problem, there, out of the rain which had accompanied the rally since it’s start, a condenser was identified as the cause of the misfire and fixed.

With full power the car won the Silverdale Hillclimb and night racing at Oran Park, then a circuit on Sydney’s Western outskirts. This put a smile on Ford fans faces and gave General Motors Holden and their Torana’s cause for concern…

McKay also won the Dapto Hillclimb, having time to divert to visit his ailing mother in Bowral Hospital enroute to Canberra!

 

McKay ‘passed’ as he put it on the Mount Ginn event, ‘spitting the dummy’ over the condition of the track surface, even protesting the organisers conducting the Mt Ginn activity at all…he could do so as the Capri was comfortably in the lead at the time.

Based in Albury, on the New South Wales/Victorian border for several nights the car won the circuit events at Hume Weir, another lost circuit, and several nights of rallying. ‘The Capri was very quick on dirt surprising both (navigator) Garry Connelly who was doing the navigating and myself but it wasn’t to last’.

‘Apparently the wide Goodyear Ultragrips should have been fitted with tubes to give some protection against deflation over the rocky outcrops and we had tyre problems on one section. On another a rear coil spring became detached from its mountings and pierced a tyre. The final blow was hitting a rocky ridge in the middle of the dirt road with the front cross member and pushing the lot back out of alignment. ‘

‘No-one else had noticed the ridge, all driven safely over it as we had expected to do. In our jubilation after the wins at Hume Weir earlier in the day we had inadvertently forgotten to reset the ride height, consequently we were rallying with race track settings and it took the Ford boys a long time to straighten out the mess’.

The Torana’s therefore skipped off into the distance. On the final leg towards Melbourne the Capri won a 20 lapper at Phillip Island, lapping the Torana’s, McKay finally able to use its ‘moonshot 5th gear’ on the Islands’ long main straight.

The event finished at Melbourne’s Dallas Brooks Hall, the two ‘works’ Holden Torana ‘LJ’ XU-1’s first and second from Stewart McLeod third, McKay and Connelly seventh in the exotic Cologne Capri.

The car does not seem to have been rallied again but passed into the hands of Melbournes’ Graham ‘Tubby’ Ritter, a noted engineer/driver who mated the car with donor parts from the March 751 F5000 left in Australia by John Cannon, the engine, gearbox, suspension, and brakes all used in the cars conversion to a ‘Sports Sedan’, the March tub was attached to a VW transmission and sent to New Zealand to deal with the import duty issue which otherwise arose…

If memory serves the cars injected 5 litre Chev was later ‘twin-turboed’, if any reader knows of this RS2600’s ultimate destiny i am intrigued to know.

 

Moffats RS3100…

Alan Moffat made his name in Australia as one of our greatest touring car drivers but was born in Canada and emigrated to Australia with his father who was posted here for career reasons in the early 1960’s.

Moffat commenced racing in Australia in a Triumph TR3A and progressed to a Lotus Cortina bought from Team Lotus at the end of 1964, Moffat having worked with the team in the United States.

His racing of the Cortinas in both Australia and in the US is a story in itself, suffice it to say that at the end of 1967 he was competitive enough to be invited to join Ford’s KarKraft as a development driver.

Ford was fully committed to the TransAm Series to promote its image. It was a hotbed of competition with Shelby American representing Ford. Allan co-drove the first two rounds (Daytona 24-Hours, Sebring 12-Hours) of the 1968 Trans Am, with Horst Kwech, the car did not finish either race.

He returned to Australia to work for Bob Jane after Jane purchased a genuine 1968 ex Shelby Trans Am Mustang, Allan returned to Detroit in early 1969 and met with Jack Passino, Ford Racing Director who organised a brand new 1969 Trans-Am Boss Mustang.

Moffat brought the car to Australia and with support from Coca-Cola in one of the first commercial deals of its type in here and raced the car as a professional becoming one of the most iconic car/driver combinations in Australia.

Moffat and the Trans Am won 101 of its 157 starts but ironically not the coveted Australian Touring Car Championship for which it was intended, ATCC rule changes forced the Mustang into the Sports Sedan category. The Mustang was competitive but with new rule freedoms during 1974 wins became fewer, against the mid engined cars now being developed. Moffat, to his eternal credit chose not to ‘hack the car about’, one of only 7 genuine factory 1969 Trans Ams’…but he needed a competitive mount to replace the famous car. His immaculate Ford connections secured one of the works Capri RS3100’s at the end of Fords successful 1974 European Touring car championship campaign…

This is a slightly truncated version of Mark Oastlers tremendous article about the car in ‘Shannons’ magazine…if you have a hankering for Touring Cars its worth signing up to the Shannons site just to get access to Oastlers’ excellent articles, http://www.shannons.com.au/club/

Why Ford built the ultimate RS…

‘The catalyst for creation of the RS 3100 was the 1973 ETCC, when BMW fended off a gallant season-long challenge by Ford’s less powerful RS 2600 Capris to win the prestigious title.

BMW had caught Ford by surprise that year by equipping its 3.5 litre CSL coupe with a huge boot-mounted inverted rear wing, made even more effective by a full-width scoop mounted along the rear edge of the roof to feed it clean air flow for maximum downforce. Not surprisingly, the big CSL coupe soon earned the nickname ‘Batmobile’!

Ford rightly figured that to overcome the CSL challenge in 1974, the Capri would firstly require more power. However, the RS 2600’s German 2.6 litre V6 engine, which had already been bored out to 2.9 litres capacity and was producing around 320 bhp, had reached the peak of its development.

By comparison, the capacity of BMW’s potent 3.0 litre in-line six had been increased to 3.5 litres under the FIA’s liberal Group 2 rules, providing a big power advantage over the Fords. The obvious answer was a switch to the larger capacity 3.1 litre British-built Essex V6 as used in UK-built Capris.

The CSL’s inverted rear wing also provided a considerable edge in traction and high speed stability so Ford had no choice but to join the aero wars with a large rear spoiler of its own. Wind tunnel and track testing of various designs proved how effective a large ducktail spoiler could be.

As a result, Ford committed to production of a ‘homologation special’ called the RS 3100 that would serve as the road-going production basis for its full-house Group 2 competition cars for the 1974 ETCC attack.

Built in a batch of 250 (the minimum number required for FIA homologation) the British-built RS 3100 came with front and rear spoilers and the 3091cc Essex V6. Use of this engine of course would allow the 1974 race car to increase its engine capacity to 3.5 litres to match the BMW.

The small batch of RS 3100 road cars went on public sale in November 1973 with FIA homologation approved on January 1, 1974. Surprisingly perhaps, these rare homologation cars proved hard to sell. Evidence of that fact is that 50 of the 250 built were shipped to Australia as late as June 1974 where they were eventually sold through selected Ford dealers.

Cosworth to the rescue…

Michael Kranefuss was the man in charge of Ford’s ETCC program. Given Ford’s long and successful association with Cosworth, in particular its 3.0 litre V8 DFV Formula One engine, he approached the Northhampton firm to design the new RS 3100 race engine. Initial discussions between Ford and Cosworth about this engine had started back in 1972.

The Group 2 rules required use of the manufacturer’s standard cylinder block, but a timely change that allowed use of alternative cylinder heads for 1974 left Cosworth with the task of designing new aluminium heads with dual overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder and an initial power target of 400-plus bhp.

The Cosworth GAA-V6 was designed by Keith Duckworth and Mike Hall, featuring cast aluminium heads that could be used on either bank. The four overhead camshafts operating 24 tiny valves were belt driven by toothed pulleys at the front of the engine, with one spark plug per cylinder and Lucas mechanical fuel injection.

Cosworth needed to increase the cylinder bore size of the Essex block, but wayward casting tolerances meant that few of these mass produced blocks survived the machining process.

It settled on 3412cc as the safe limit. Cosworth also beefed up the bottom end with rugged four-bolt main bearing caps.

In-house dyno testing of the new 3.4 litre GAA-V6 began late in 1973 and it produced 420 bhp straight up, instantly meeting Ford’s 400 bhp plus target. With on-going development these engines reached 450 bhp at a spine-tingling 8750 rpm.

The RS2600’s five-speed ZF gearbox was carried over and matched with a rugged Borg & Beck triple-plate clutch in a feather-weight magnesium bell housing.

The RS 3100 Cologne Capris were built with a win-at-all-costs approach at Ford’s German competitions department in Cologne, under chief engineer Thomas Amerschlaeger. The exotic materials, quality of workmanship and attention to detail evident in the construction of these factory race cars was beyond belief.

The emphasis was on minimising weight, as the lightweight fiberglass doors, bonnets and boot lids used on the RS 2600 were no longer allowed and the new Essex V6 was slightly heavier than the German engine. This resulted in a 50 kg weight increase in the new cars, which would be offset somewhat by the more powerful 3.4 litre Cosworth engine.

They started with standard LHD steel body shells taken from the production line which were rumoured to have spent time in an acid bath to remove some excess metal before they arrived at the workshop.

Large aerodynamically shaped fiberglass wheel arch flares were installed at each corner to shroud huge wheels and tyres and lightweight laminated window glass was fitted throughout the cabin. The large front and rear spoilers, which under Group 2 rules had grown considerably from the road car versions on which they were based, were fitted front and rear.

The increased weight of the Essex V6 altered the car’s critical front to rear weight distribution, which Amerschlaeger’s team addressed by mounting the engine’s dry-sump lubrication oil tank and fuel injection pumps inside the boot area, where the battery and huge 120-litre long distance fuel tank also resided.

Oil cooling radiators for the gearbox and rear axle were also moved to the tail end and mounted directly behind the rear wheels, with oil circulation controlled by a pump driven directly by the tailshaft via a toothed belt and pulley arrangement. The engine oil cooling unit was mounted in the nose where it was fed fresh air through the grille.

The engineers also experimented with a rear-mounted engine radiator but found that there wasn’t sufficient air flow available because of the effectiveness of the huge front spoiler in stopping air from flowing under the car. Amerschlaeger eventually opted for twin side-mounted engine radiators mounted just ahead of the rear wheels.

The standard dashboard pad and door trims had to be retained but the rest of the interior was stripped bare, leaving a full set of competition gauges, remote switch panels, massive roll cage, on-board fire extinguisher system plumbed to every corner of the car and lightweight Nomex covered driver’s seat.

To minimise weight, many suspension components were made from aluminium or magnesium.

Under Group 2, a touring car’s suspension had to keep its original ‘architecture’ so the RS 3100 was equipped with strengthened front suspension towers, Bilstein aluminium McPherson struts with gas-filled adjustable dampers, a wrist-thick anti-roll bar, magnesium hub carriers and solid aluminium replacing rubber in all suspension bushes.

Likewise the Capri’s live rear axle and leaf spring design had to be retained, but Ford got very creative in its rule interpretation. It complied by fitting leaf springs, but they were made from lightweight composite materials and had no springing function at all.

This was performed instead by big coil springs and adjustable gas-filled Bilstein shocks. Ford’s homologation paperwork stated that these coils were simply ‘additional springs’ and the FIA duly agreed!

The rear axle was located fore and aft by upper and lower trailing arms and laterally via a Watts linkage that also allowed adjustment of the car’s rear roll centre.

The brakes were huge with four wheel discs permitted under Group 2, even though the road car had rear drums. The ventilated front rotors measured 12 inches (305mm) in diameter and more more than 1.0-inch thick, clamped by powerful servo-assisted calipers.

The front brakes were also fitted with an automatic water cooling system connected to a large tank in the cockpit which could spray a fine mist onto the disc rotors to cool them down each time the brake pedal was pushed. The rear discs were slightly smaller 10.5 inch diameter units.

The racing wheels and tyres were enormous given the size and weight of the car, capable of generating such huge cornering forces that the works Capris were often seen in the ETCC cornering with their two inside wheels clear off the deck.

German BBS composite rims (magnesium centres with aluminium rims) were secured by a single central locking nut and fitted with tailor-made Dunlop tyres that measured a staggering 16 inches (405mm) wide at the rear and 12 inches (305mm) on the front.

With top shelf drivers the calibre of Niki Lauda, Jochen Mass, Toine Hezemans and Dieter Glemser on the team, Ford was ready for all-out war.

The 1974 ETCC…

‘Unfortunately, the timing could not have been worse for what promised to be the battle of all battles for the ETCC crown between Ford’s new RS 3100 Capris and BMW’s mighty CSL ‘Batmobiles’.

The world’s worsening energy crisis, which had been triggered by the Arab-Israel war, forced car companies to quickly change priorities in their marketing and product development strategies. Motor racing programs were hit particularly hard during this time, including Australia where Ford withdrew its factory support in January 1974.

Sadly BMW also began to scale down its racing activities during the ETCC which left easy wins to the new Capris at several rounds. Even so, despite these outright victories and the vast sums of money spent designing, building and developing the new RS 3100s, it was the German Zakspeed-prepared RS 1600 Ford Escorts which ended up winning the manufacturer’s title for Ford due to a points system that was heavily weighted in favour of smaller capacity cars.

The last time an RS 3100 Cologne Capri competed in full works guise was when Jochen Mass and Toine Hezemans were sent to Kyalami in South Africa to compete in a gruelling non-championship 9-Hour endurance race as part of the Springbok series that featured many sports cars. The Capri was fast and faultless again, winning the touring car class and finishing an outstanding fifth outright.

The same car – chassis number GA ECPY19999 – would not return to Germany after the race, though, as it was destined for a very different life in Australia.’

The Moffat era…

‘In late February 1975, GA ECPY19999 arrived at Allan Moffat Racing in Melbourne after being shipped directly from its last race as a works car in South Africa.

Although the stunning European thoroughbred won first time out at Sandown it soon became apparent that the Capri, which was built for long distance racing on high speed European tracks, was going to be doing it hard against lighter and more powerful V8 competition on Australia’s tighter tracks in short sprint races.

Its V6 engine just couldn’t match the explosive power and torque outputs of rival V8s. And it was restricted to the local maximum wheel width of 10 inches, which was a substantial drop in traction given the car was designed to race on massive 16-inch wide rears and 12-inch fronts in Europe.

It was also comparatively heavy given its touring car racing origins, competing against increasingly sophisticated purpose-built local designs that featured mid-mounted V8 engines, space-frame chassis, Formula 5000 suspension and featherweight composite body panels.

Moffat had his sights set on winning the inaugural Australian Sports Sedan Championship (ASSC) in 1976, so when it became clear he would need V8 power to do it he sourced a state-of-the-art DeKon Chevrolet Monza from the US. With 6 litre Chevrolet V8 power, it was immediately more than a match for the best sports sedans in the land.

Even so, the RS 3100 Capri still had an important role to play as the controversial Monza was sidelined midway through the ASSC due to questions over its eligibility. So while that was being sorted out, Moffat dusted off the Capri for two crucial rounds at Wanneroo in Perth (which he won) and A.I.R in Adelaide (where he came second). The Capri proved it was still highly competitive, effectively sealing the title for Moffat and finishing its Australian career on a high note.’

Moffat retained the car, as he did the Mustang for decades before finally selling it to a lucky collector in New Zealand.

The Kiwi Connection…

For the sake of completeness there were only two other, I think, ‘Cologne Capris’ which raced in Australia, both originated from the ‘other side of the ditch’, the colloquial name we Australasians give to the Tasman Sea, which separates Australia and New Zealand.

Grant Walker raced the ex-works RS2600 imported into New Zealand by Paul Fahey which won the NZ Touring Car Championship in 1975 converted to Cossie GAA power.

Don Halliday raced the GAA powered car he and his equally talented brother built up in NZ with many factory parts as well as local ingenuity.

Both scored points in the 1976 Australian Sports Sedan Championship, ironically won by Allan Moffat in the Chev Monza which replaced his Capri, as Mark Oastler points out above the Capri did play a vital role in that series victory.

The story of these cars is well told by Steven Holmes on his ‘The Roaring Season’, click on this link for an interesting read.

http://www.theroaringseason.com/showthread.php?1274-Article-Recreating-The-Halliday-Capri

Etcetera…

 

Bunch of three photographs of David McKay in his RS2600 during the 1972 Dulux- I don’t know the venues though, assistance appreciated- Colin Bond’s Holden Dealer Team Torana GTR-XU1 lined up beside him in the shot below.

 

 

The last shot is the same car but has none other than Kevin Bartlett at the wheel, date and place unknown.

Credits…

Robert Davies, Jerry Melton, autopics.com, spooky21, Green Machine, Bruno Betti, oldracephotos

‘David McKays’ Scuderia Veloce’ autobiography, Mark Oastler/Shannons for the RS3100 article, snooksmotorsport.com

The Roaring Season

Stephen Dalton for the research assistance and material

Finito…