(Brabham Family)
Jack and Betty Brabham chillin’ between sessions at Aintree during the July, 1955 British Grand Prix weekend.
Brabham is a very youthful 29, love the Australian Racing Drivers Club badge on his once lily-white overalls-how casual does it look?
It was Jack’s championship debut in a car he built himself, a Cooper T40 Bristol. He qualified 25th and retired after 30 laps with engine trouble. The race was famously won by Stirling Moss’ Mercedes Benz W196.
(Cummins Archive)
The car was shipped to Australia for what was to become Jack’s annual summer tour. He scored a lucky AGP win at Port Wakefield, South Australia when front runners Reg Hunt, Maserati A6GCM 2.5 and Stan Jones in Maybach 3, on the front row above, had mechanical dramas. Jack is on the second row alongside Doug Whiteford’s Talbot Lago T26C
The car stayed in Australia, see articles here; https://primotipo.com/2015/07/16/60th-anniversary-of-jacks-first-f1-gp-today-british-gp-16-july-1955-cooper-t40-bristol-by-stephen-dalton/ and here; https://primotipo.com/2017/07/04/max-stephens-cooper-t40-bristol/
(unattributed)
Brabham blasting through the flat, grim, saltbush Port Wakefield terrain, 100km north-west of Adelaide. Click here for an article on the race; https://primotipo.com/2017/07/28/battle-of-the-melbourne-motor-dealers/
Credits…
Brabham Family Collection, LAT, News Ltd, Cummins Archive
Tailpiece…
(News Ltd)
To the victor the spoils, and a bit of attention from the chief.
Finito…
primotipo... 
Did not JB win the Silverstone 100 or some-such from S Moss? I am surprised that I was already following his progress in 1955. And I loved that car that maybe I should have bought when it sold in 1988.
B
Bob,
He certainly won his share of races, doubt he beat SM in ’55 however.
Jack’s line was always that he should have taken his RedeX T53 to the UK rather than go with Whitehead’s shitebox- if memory serves, he craned the Alta motor out before too long and popped a Bristol in, but the motor was not as strong as the one he developed here.
m
JB in this car gave SM in his 250F a good run for a while at a Snetterton race in 1955 butSM eventually got past him and two Vanwalls were way ahead of both of them anyway