Melbourne’s finest trying to keep enthusiastic shoppers under control out front of ‘Georges’, Collins Street in 1965…
The car is, I think, Bib Stillwell’s Brabham BT11A Climax. The occasion some type of promotion between Georges luxury department store and Repco or Bib Stillwell Holden. Stillwells switched from Holden to Ford in 1966 before all you Melburnians correct me, clearly the crowds are fascinated by the presence of a ‘Grand Prix’ car in Melbourne’s busiest and most up-market shopping strip.
For over a century Georges was the place the ‘great and the good shopped’, an incredibly conservative joint, its intriguing to speculate just what the promotion may have been, automotive products are not at all what Georges stocked! String-backed gloves maybe and flat-caps but nothing grubby or grimy at all.
I think its Bibs car. The color scheme is right, his dealership/workshop was in Kew, not far away. He usually raced wearing #6, this car carries #3 but that’s neither here nor there. For Repco, Brabhams were badged ‘Repco Brabham’ at the time and the Coventry Climax FPF engines by that stage were largely built in Richmond under licence from CC so there were good associations to Repco’s brand.
When is it?, not sure exactly. Bib raced his BT11A from the Tasman Series 1965, he took the last of his four Gold Stars in it that year and then retired, so I guess it’s 1965…
Georges, for the curious…
http://www.georgesoncollins.com.au/
Credit…
Nigel Tait, many thanks for another tid-bit from your Repco archives
primotipo... 