primotipo…

Who would have thought our ‘Black Jack’ would be a street art star…

 But he is! Even if he looks a bit like his good mate Graham Hill, replete with moustache!

Brabham is depicted aboard his 1966 F1 World Championship winning chassis- the Repco ‘RB620 Series’ V8 powered Brabham BT19, click on the links for articles on this bolide at the end of the article.

The artist didn’t realise just how perfect the placement of this sizable work is. Its on a wall in Richmond only 1.5 Km or so from the Doonside Street, Richmond Repco factory where the first of the RB620 V8’s were built and burst into life prior to the shift of Repco Brabham Engines Pty Ltd to Maidstone, in Melbourne’s inner west, in early 1966.

I came upon the art by accident whilst on a walk, its funny the way sometimes these things happen in a serendipitous kinda way.

‘Dimmey’s was an iconic department store in Swan Street Richmond. Its been redeveloped in the last few years- thank the good lord above that the developer was forced to retain the buildings base structure and façade, with the usual, small dog-box apartments contained therein. The big mural is painted on the side of the Dimmeys building. Initially I thought the work was some sort of history of Richmond but its a timeline depiction of ‘Great Australians’ and Oz icons, of whom our Jack is definitely one.

Melburnians can check out the art and have some nice nosh closeby whilst you do so- see the work on the Green Street sidestreet wall, corner of Swan Street. It won’t last forever mind you, it ain’t guarded like the Mona Lisa, if you want a look do so soon before the ‘taggers’ attack it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It gives me the pip that in popular listings of ‘Great Australian Sportsmen’ Brabham never pops up in the top 10 or 20.

He is a member of the Sport Australia ‘Hall Of Fame’. To me, hopelessly biased as I am, Brabham’s triumphs in 1966/67, lets put to one side his Drivers Championship wins for Cooper in 1959 and 1960, make him the greatest of any Australian sportsman/athlete.

Don Bradman the cricketer is usually rated at #1, big deal, most of you globally will have never seen a game of cricket. You are lucky, it’s a dull, shit-boring invention of the Brits. Often a ‘Test Match’, the elite form of the game, goes for 5 days without a result. Cricket even makes modern Petite Prix racing look exciting!

Brabham, Ron Tauranac and Repco made the ‘bat and ball’ and then they went and belted the best in the world with it. No-one else comes close to Brabham as our #1- not Ken Rosewall, (tennis) Mark Ella, (rugby) Betty Cuthbert, (sprinter) Rod Laver, (tennis) Herb Elliott, (distance runner) Dawn Fraser (swimmer) or Bradman, none of ‘em match his achievements in my book…

Footnote…

In 1966/1967 Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme won the World Drivers Championship aboard Brabham BT19 and BT19/20/24 respectively. Brabham/Motor Racing Developments were the Champion Constructor in both years powered by Repco RB620 and RB740 Series 3 litre V8 engines.

‘RB620’ V8: Building The 1966 World F1 Champion Engine…by Rodway Wolfe and Mark Bisset

Winning the 1966 World F1 Championships: Brabham BT19 Repco…

I’ve deliberately not captioned the mural shots- I don’t know all the names of the dudes depicted myself, so I’ve left it to Aussies to have some fun picking those people and events you can and wonder who/what the ones are you can’t identify! It’s great, do take the time to go and have a look.

Tailpiece…