primotipo…

Motorclassica must be the top-gun car display and concours in Australia these days…

Held at Carlton’s Exhibition Buildings, it’s just outside the city grid so has great access, the punters have been out in droves given some magic Melbourne Spring weather.

Its not really my thing, the racing content is not what the event is all about but a freebie ticket from Bob King, one of the concours judges changed my mind and got me in the door early, well before parents and kidlets dominated as the day unfolded.

One of the beauties of the thing is that there is something for everyone- current road exotica, car club displays in the capacious grounds outside, ‘classics’ ranging from ‘art deco’ which was a theme this year, through to American muscle-cars of the sixties and seventies as well as racers.

From a racing perspective ‘we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Australian Grand Prix’- which was great as a swag of cars from the 1928 Phillip Island ‘100 Miles Road Race’, subsequently claimed as the first Australian Grand Prix, and adjacent Phillip Island GP events made a great display.

The faux pas, to say the least, is that most of us with an interest in Australian motor racing history now recognise the first AGP, in name and actuality, if not substance, as the January 1927 event of that very name held at Goulburn in New South Wales.

It seems that some of the Victorian motoring establishment, and it is such conservative folks who own and are the organisers and officials of this event, are intent on ignoring ‘the majority’ including the Confederation of Australian Motorsport who recognise Goulburn and have moved on. Scratch the surface and state based rivalry is never too far away in our Commonwealth of Australia!

I took a million photos with my trusty iPhone, I think the best approach is to pop a few up today to give you the flavour of the gig as well as some favourites rather than carpet-bomb you with 300 happy snaps! Some of the AGP cars present lend themselves to juxtaposition of Bob King’s period race shots and the same cars now, so treat this as Motorclassica 1.

If I had to pick one car of the show it’s the Tom Roberts owned ex-Johnny Wakefield Maserati 6CM-1500 Voiturette, chassis ‘1546’, just restored marvellously by David Rapley.

It gets the blend of originality and patination spot on, I love the fact we don’t do ‘chrome and shiny’ restos of cars which never appeared that way in period, in Oz. Tom Roberts has done great justice to a car which has not seen the light of day for decades.

This short history of the car is courtesy of an article I have truncated a bit by G Jackson published in the Victorian Vintage Sports Car Club magazine, received via Bob King.

‘Johnny Wakefield, a wealthy young Englishman and top racing driver of the pre-War period…took delivery of the Maserati in June 1937, he was 22 years old.

One of 27 built, the car featured a six-cylinder supercharged engine, with twin OHC of 1993cc capacity, developing 155bhp.

In his race debut in the car at the 1937 Florence Grand Prix, Wakefield was unplaced, but in his dozens of appearances in European Grands Prix, Donington, Phoenix Park and Crystal Palace he achieved a number of placings. In April 1938, Wakefield crashed at Cork in Ireland but he and the car escaped serious damage. The Maserati was not driven again as Wakefield bought a new racing mount, ERA R14B.

During the war he flew as a test pilot for Vickers Armstrong while serving for the Fleet Air Arm, but was killed in a plane crash in 1942, a couple of weeks after his 27th birthday…’

‘After the 1938 accident the engine was removed from the car and sent back to Maserati for overhaul, but the war intervened. The car languished at Brooklands until 1940, when, under Wakefield’s instructions, Rex Tilbrook, an Australian and Wakefield’s mechanic, shipped it to Port Adelaide. As importation duties would not be paid by representatives of the Wakefield Estate, the Maserati remained in a crate on the dock for a number of years.

When acquired in 1943 by Bill Brookes of Adelaide the car was complete apart from the engine, gearbox and steering box with some accident damage to the rear of the body and chassis, and still wearing its Cork racing number 34. Brookes rebuilt the chassis and body and in 1947 sold the car to Frank Kleinig still missing the engine, gearbox and steering box’.

‘Kleinig had the intention to instal the supercharged 8 cylinder Miller engine that he had removed from the Kleinig Special to fit the first Hudson motor, but the car lay untouched until the Maserati body was transferred to the Kleinig Hudson in 1954.

Alf Blight of Adelaide bought the Maserati from Kleinig as he already owned another Maserati 6CM, chassis #’1542′, but #’1546′ was later purchased by Tom Roberts who had bought the Kleinig Hudson from Kleinig’s Estate in 1992.

‘Roberts has been able to source the original engine from Edinburgh, and a gearbox from Japan. Now with the original body fitted and the car meticulously restored by David Rapley, the magnificent Maserati is about to speak for the first time in 80 years since the Cork mishap…on display at Motorclassica’.

Since first writing this article the cars restorer David Rapley sent these two engine photographs of the 6CM, his comment ‘In the absence of the correct carburettor a two inch SU set down, twin bowl set up for alcohol was used. We received no help from anyone world-wide and had to work from pictures in books’- the result is truly stunning.

One of the great things about the day was meeting up with so many online buddies: Facebook, The Nostalgia Forum and primotipo have been great that way. That internet thingy is such a connector of kindred spirits. Bob King, Pat and Conor Ryan, Nigel Tait and his wife, Nathan Tasca, Tony Lupton, Phil Zmood and James Lambert were all folks i caught up with, only Stephen Dalton and Mike Gasking were there but we missed the connects.

Whilst wandering with James and his impressive armoury of cameras and lenses we watched Alan Jones being interviewed by Mark Fogarty, a local racing journo, the interview had substance rather than being at the ‘whaddit that Eff-Wun car do Jonesy? dull-shit boring end of the spectrum.

The boy from Balwyn’s toughest opponents were Nelson Piquet and Gilles Villeneuve ‘who was mad and never going to die in bed’ with Jones talking at length about that horrible last day for the acrobatic Canadian at Zolder.

His two Ferrari misfires were amusingly told- the first offer to join the famous Scuderia the occasion when Gilles got the drive Alan thought was his when Andretti re-signed for Lotus- that one turned out rather well for Alan as he fell into the nascent Williams team of Frank and Patrick Head. The second was when AJ messed them around when they wanted the retired Aussie to replace the injured Pironi, a drive which went Mario’s way- he popped the Ferrari on pole at Monza in the first of those rides, much to Jones’ chagrin!

He candidly admitted he retired from F1, the first time, too early at the end of 1981 ‘the first Victorian winter at Glenburn 80 Km from Melbourne (where AJ bought the pub and a farm) convinced me to move to the Gold Coast’.

A question about current F1 elicited a long response about the aero rules in particular, and their impact on the lack of overtaking, he didn’t talk about the mechanical package but said the need to bring back passing, spectacle and glamour was paramount. The grid girls got a 3 minute burst- to bring them back, his final riposte, politically incorrect as ever, ‘but why bother, they will all be wearing burkhas in a couple of years anyway’!

An absolute jaw-dropper is the Alfa 6C2300 Mille Miglia Spyder, it first broke cover for me at an Alfa Club Concours a few years ago, the local restoration completed about 5 years ago.

Amazing to see young kids totally unfamiliar with Alfa Romeo, Vittorio Jano and Zagato’s work drawn to it like bees to a honey-pot- it’s sensuous lines are just oh-so-visually arresting whatever your age or automotive knowledge base.

Singers have been on my mind for the last month or so, it was great to meet young Bendigo enthusiast Nathan Tasca who has helped with some recent articles.

He is in the process- with his father from whom he inherited his Singer passion, in restoration of a car which is now objectively assessed as being the Singer 9 Sports which Bob Lea-Wright won the 1934 AGP at Phillip Island. Lea-Wright’s family, and Bob King and his archive have assisted in both the identification process and details of the cars specification event to event.

John Lawson’s Delahaye D6/70S is a local ‘Figoni and Falaschi’ build on an imported chassis, but hey, what a car. Interested to learn more about it.

Of the racing stuff you can never see enough of the ex-Clark 1966 Tasman car- Lotus 39 Climax.

This machine’s entire racing history has been in Australasia, it’s reassuring it’s still here, James tells me Chas Kelly has given the car another ‘birthday’ in recent times inclusive of a new crank.

Earlier but more importantly in the Lotus pantheon, as Col’s first Grand Prix Lotus (whilst duly noting its primary purpose as an F2 machine), is Mike Bennett’s Lotus 12 Climax.

With seat removed is was great to get a squizz at the cars ‘Queerbox’ and driveline. Too perfect to race, it is used in demonstration type events occasionally, an impressive run in Adelaide’s Victoria Park event springs to mind a few years ago.

From a Repco Brabham perspective, two Art Valdez cars have come to Australia- Aaron Lewis has acquired Brabham BT23E Repco, Jack’s 1968 Tasman mount and Nigel Tait Brabham BT17, a sportscar ‘it’s fitted with a ‘740’ and I think has a 5 litre crank but we shall see when I pull it down’ said Nigel with a very big smile upon his face!

There is and was, much, much more, but let’s save that for bite-size slices for other times…

Tailpiece: Perky little minx- Lotus 12 Climax…

Three sixties single-seater cars seductively in the distance are Adam Berryman’s ex-McLaren/Mayer/Hill Cooper T70, a Brabham BT7A and the Clark Lotus 39.

Finito…