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Paul Hawkins had a very successful African tour in November/December 1968 with his ex-works Ferrari 350 Can-Am, winning five of the seven races he entered.

Ferrari raced four P4s in the 1967 World Sportscar Championship, one of which was an upgraded P3, at the WSC seasons end two of the cars were lightened and modified to ‘350 Can-Am’ specification. David McKay acquired one of the cars at the end of the 1967 Can-Am Challenge Cup, ‘0858’, for Chris Amon to race in the 1968 Australian Tasman Cup round sportscar supporting events where he was beaten on every occasion he raced Frank Matich’s Matich SR3 Repco. The story of the P3/350 Can-Am is here; https://primotipo.com/2015/04/02/ferrari-p4canam-350-0858/

After Chris returned to Europe Bill Brown raced the car throughout the domestic Australian season until after the Surfers 6 Hour enduro at which point Hawkins bought it and took it to Africa.

 

 

The prestigious Kyalami 9 Hour was the first race on Hawkins’ tour, there, on 11 November, sharing with South African single-seater ace, John Love, they were third having started from pole, the race was won by the Ickx/Hobbs Mirage M1 Ford. Tim Schenken took fourth outright and a 2 litre class win in a Chevron B8 BMW he shared with Brian Redman.

A week later Hawkins won the Cape Town 3 Hour at Killarney and was again victorious on 1 December at the GP Bulawayo, on the Kumalo circuit, he was second in the GP of Rhodesia on the same weekend. He again placed second in the 3 Hour de Lourenco Marques, in Mozambique that race won by Mike Hailwood and Malcolm Guthrie’s Mirage M1 Ford. He finished his tour with victories in the Roy Hesketh 3 Hours in Pietermaritzburg and 500 Km of East London on January 4 1969.

In May Hawkins raced a Lola T70 Mk3B Chev at Magny Cours, he entered Mike Hailwood in the Ferrari with Mike winning the race despite Paul setting pole and fastest lap of the race. Several days later Hawkins won the Dijon International, this time Mike started from pole and did the fastest lap but finished eighteenth. Shortly after this Paul sold the car to racer/dealer David Piper who had plenty of opportunities to evaluate the merits of the car on circuit!

 

 

 

‘Hawkeye’ was born in Melbourne’s inner eastern suburb of Richmond on October 12 1937, his father was a builder who later became a clergyman. He started racing circa 1958, having a few runs in Terry Valmorbida’s Austin Healey 100S before jumping a ship to the UK where a job with Healey quickly led to racing the marque.

He progressed through one of the toughest schools of all, British Formula Junior and then Formula 2 with John Willment in 1964, he was ninth in the 1965 South African GP aboard Willment’s Brabham BT10 Climax.

Along with Alberto Ascari, Hawkins is a Monaco Grand Prix diver survivor. He was racing Dickie Stoop’s Lotus 33 Climax towards the rear of the field on his eighthieth lap of the100 lap race in 1965. Denis Jenkinson saw it this way ‘…there was a bit of a furore at the chicane for Hawkins struck the wooden barrier at the entry and spun through the straw bales and over the edge of the quay and into the harbour. The Lotus sank to the bottom and the rugged Australian bobbed to the surface and struck out for shore, while boats went to his rescue.’

DSJ wryly observed ‘There was some discussion as to whether Hawkins used an Australian crawl or an American crawl to return to the edge of the harbour after his dive. Whatever it was it was an impressive and powerful stroke. Exactly ten years ago Ascari went in at the same place in a Lancia.’ Graham Hill won the race in fine style in his BRM P261.

 

 

 

Hawkins quickly became a very fast, safe pair of endurance/sportscar hands winning Targa together with Rolf Stommelen aboard a works Porsche 910 and the Paris 1000 Km at Montlhery in a Mirage M1 Ford with Jacky Ickx in 1967 as well as the 1968 Monza 1000 Km together with David Hobbs. He was placed in five rounds of the World Sportscar Championship assisting John Wyer’s iconic Gulf sponsored Ford GT40s to victory in 1968.

At 31 he was still a young man in a wonderful career sweet spot racing factory cars and his own cars in national and international non-championship events.

On 26 May 1969 whilst running a works supported Lola T70 Mk3B Chev during the Tourist Trophy at Oulton Park, battling to get back in the lead group whilst running sixth, he hit a tree at Island Bend with poor Paul caught in the car as it was engulfed in flames. Brian Redman wrote ‘…I have no doubt his Lola T70 Mk3B suffered suspension failure, later in the race I crashed heavily at Knicker Brook due to the same problem.’

Treat this as a teaser, we will come back to Paul Hawkins, who is somewhat forgotten in Australia, Oulton was such a tragedy at a time his career trajectory was very much on the up.

 

 

Credits…

MotorSport, Brian Redman on ‘The Nostalgia Forum’, Gary Kegel, royckdboats, Richard Winslade, Mike Hayward Collection, Peter Maslen, Rainer Schlegelmilch, autopics.com.au, Bonhams Collection

Etcetera…

We saw a bit of Paul in Australia later in his career. He contested the 1967 Surfers Paradise 12 Hour in a Lola T70 Mk3 Chev shared with car owner, Jackie Epstein, the duo were second in a race either they or the Scuderia Veloce Ferrari 350 Can-Am Hawkins shortly thereafter acquired should have won but both machines had problems, see here; https://primotipo.com/2018/08/28/1967-surfers-paradise-6-hour/

David McKay included Hawkins in his ‘works’ Holden Dealer Racing Team Bathurst 500 lineup in 1968.

Paul popped the Holden HK Monaro GTS327 he shared with Bill Brown third on the grid, but the pair were disqualified after ‘slicing’ a wheel in The Cutting and receiving outside assistance. In the shot above he is ahead of Fred Gibson’s works XT Ford Falcon GT. The race was won by Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland in another GTS.

It’s interesting to speculate about the manner in which Paul Hawkins Racing Ltd may have developed whilst Hawkeye continued to race and once he retired. Here Mike Hailwood ponders more pace from his Hawkins Racing Lola T142 Chev F5000 during the the 4 April 1969 British F5000 championship round at Oulton Park.

The spaceframe chassis, surplus T70 parts-bin special T140/142 is unlikely to be on any list of Lola’s greatest cars. This event was the first ever British F5000 championship race, Mike qualified third behind the David Hobbs Surtees TS5 Chev and Peter Gethin’s McLaren M10A Chev, Peter took the win from David with Mike a DNF after a driveshaft broke.

Tailpiece…

Paul has the big, brutal Lola T70 Mk3B Chev beautifully dancing on its tippy-toes on the way to a win in the Guards Trophy at Snetterton in April 1969.

Finito…