primotipo…

(R Schlegelmilch)

Vic Elford leans his machine gun on moustachioed teammate Lucien Bianchi’s, winged Cooper T86B BRM in search of a Messerschmitt BF109, Nurburgring 1968…

This is a pretty canny bit of impromptu PR by the Cooper boys at the height (sic) of the hi-wings explosion that summer in Grand Prix racing. That trend was all over pretty quickly due to the flimsy engineering of some of the appendages, that story covered by an article I wrote a while back; https://primotipo.com/2015/07/12/wings-clipped-lotus-49-monaco-grand-prix-1969/

Cooper’s built three T86B chassis for the 1968 season by adapting the 1967 Maserati V12 engined T86 design to accept BRM’s sportscar derived customer P101 V12 first used by Bruce McLaren during the later half of the 1967 season in the back of his McLaren M5A.

Cooper T86B- aluminium/electron monocoque chassis, front suspension by top rockers, lower wishbones and inboard mounted coil spring/dampers, rear suspension by single top link, inverted lower wishbones, twin radius rods and coil spring dampers, adjustable roll bars front and rear. Outboard disc brakes front and rear, Cooper steering rack. BRM P101 2998 cc DOHC, 2 valve, Lucas injected 60 degree circa 375 bhp V12, Hewland DG300 5 speed transaxle (Bill Bennett)

The heavy, relatively lower (a Cosworth DFV punched out about 410bhp at the time) powered machines were raced initially by Brian Redman and Ludovico Scarfiotti, who was tragically killed at Rossfeld Hillclimb over the June Spa weekend. He was replaced by Lucien Bianchi, who had an amazing year in sportscars, rally machines and in single-seaters. Click here for an article in part about Lucien; https://primotipo.com/2016/03/22/cowans-grunter/

Quick Vic got the steer after Brian Redman was badly injured at Spa when his suspension failed, the car then crashed into and over a concrete barrier, his progress arrested by a parked Ford Cortina- he escaped with a broken arm and minor burns but was out of racing for a bit. Johnny Servoz-Gavin and Robin Widdows had one-off drives. Best results for the cars were thirds for Redman in Spain and Bianchi at Monaco, whilst fourth places were scored by Scarfiotti in Spain and Monaco and by Elford in France.

German GP start, gloomy to say the least! Denny Hulme’s McLaren M7A Ford in shot, to his left and forward is John Surtees Honda RA302 with Elford’s Cooper to John’s front left. Up front are Ickx and Amon’s Ferrari 312’s, Hill is to Elford’s right in the hi-winged Lotus 49 and a slow starting Stewart, Matra MS10  in front of Hulme (PH Cahier)

Vic popped his Cooper on grid 5 at the Nurburgring but left the road on the first lap of the famously wet and treacherous race won by Jackie Stewart’s Dunlop shod Matra MS10 Ford. He won by four minutes from Graham Hill’s Firestone shod Lotus 49B Ford and Jochen Rindt’s Goodyear tyred Brabham BT26 Repco a further six seconds back. Stewart was magic that day aided by some schmick, trick Dunlop wets- one of his greatest drives in the minds of many including the great man himself.

JYS during his soggy, stunning run, Matra MS10 Ford (R Schlegelmilch)

Credits…

Rainer Schlegelmilch, PH Cahier, oldracingcars.com

Tailpiece…

(unattributed)

Finito…