Jack Brabham put the cat amongst the Indy pigeons in 1961 together with John Cooper. Their Cooper T54 Climax FPF 2.7 blew the minds of the establishment. They were stunned by the speed of the itty-bitty, mid-engined roller-skate despite giving away 1.5-litres to the bulky Offy engined roadsters – which hung onto The Milk until 1965 of course.
Brabham returned in 1964 with Ron Tauranac’s BT11 derived, spaceframe BT12 powered this time by an injected 4.2-litre Offenhauser twin-cam, two-valve four. The pacey package also featured a robust Colotti Francis T37 transaxle.
Jack didn’t qualify well with a multitude of problems, not least spring/shocks which were way too soft (as specified by car owner John Zinc), and time, pulled as he was by his GP commitments to straddle both sides of the Atlantic.
Famously wary at the start of that race – having been warned about how dangerous the Mickey Thompson built Thompson Ford was by Masten Gregory, who didn’t qualify his – Brabham picked up a small fracture in one of those ginormous aluminium fuel tanks in the horrific lap two accident caused by Dave MacDonald losing control of his Thompson Ford in the middle of the field. MacDonald, very much a man of the future, and the much-loved Eddie Sachs, Halibrand Ford, perished in the horrific conflagration. Brabham was out after 77 laps, the race was won by AJ Foyt’s Watson Offy from the similar front-engined roadsters of Rodger Ward and Lloyd Ruby.
When Jack returned to Europe, the John Zinc owned car was raced with plenty of speed by Jim McElreath, and a few decent hits too. The final shunt at Indy was a biggie, it wasn’t worth repairing the mild steel tube frame, in part because it would not have been legal under USAC’s 1965 rules.
Clint Brawner therefore built two chrome-moly steel tube copies of the BT12 late in 1964, one for Zinc/McElreath, and one for his – Al Dean sponsored – outfit to be driven by a talented young rookie named Mario Andretti.
Andretti loved the ‘Hawk Ford’ (chassis Hawk 1 65), winning the USAC Championship in it in 1965-66. In ‘65, McElreath was one of his closest competitors in the Zinc Brabham Offy, finishing third. The following year he went one better and placed second to the future 1978 F1 World Champ, this time Ford Indy V8 powered.
Another two BT12 copies were built for Jim Hayhoe’s outfit, with drawings provided, perhaps, via Jack Brabham in 1968.
One of these Offy powered BT12s, with suitably updated body by Jud Phillips, finished fifth in the 1971 Indy 500 as the catchily named Sugaripe Prune Spl with Billy Vukovich at the wheel. In a strong year for the seven year old design, and three year old chassis, Vukovich was third in the USAC points table. His haul included two third placings at Milwaukee and Phoenix, and a staggering second to Mark Donohue’s state-of-the-art Penske McLaren M16A Offy at Michigan.
Equally amazing was that Andretti’s old nail – the Hawk 1 65 – that he raced so successfully in 1965-66, by then owned by Jack Adams, also started the 1970 and that ’71 500 with Rick Muther the driver.
The Offy powered, Arkansas Aviation entered car was involved in a spectacular accident with David Hobbs’ Penske Lola after completing 85 laps of the race won by Al Unser’s Colt 71 Ford. Hobbs engine blew, then Muther, immediately behind him swerved in avoidance, pegged the inside wall, then veered right into Hobbs’ path and the outside wall, taking both of them out in a lucky escape.
Who said that spaceframes were old hat by the end of 1962!?
Credits…
The MotorSport Images shots at MRD were taken by David Phipps, DJ Teece, Indy Motor Speedway, Bill Daniels Collectibles
As always, thanks to Allen Brown’s mind-blowing OldRacingCars.com – racing car history results and database website. I simply cannot get the level of historic accuracy – facts – into some of these articles without his one-of-a-kind website. Click on this link to Allen’s main Indy page Indy 500 and USAC racing 1971-1978 « OldRacingCars.com then you can scroll for yourself through far more details about the BT12 cars; Brabham, Hawk and Hayhoe
Tailpiece…
Brabham ready to boogie aboard the Zinc Trackburner Special on raceday at Indianapolis in 1964.
Such an influential car the BT12, an unsung, or at least an under-recognised Brabham in some ways.
Finito…
primotipo... 
I had the Bandai 1:16 “Indy 500 Brabham Ford” kit. The driver’s name as shown on the decal sheet was “Maio Andretti” LOL
Ha ha Chris,
By 1966 I expect most of the country knew who he was!
Mark
Gidday Mark,
Recently I was able to borrow a copy of “American Road Race Specials”, a book by Allan Girdler. I found a page with some photos of the V8 engined sports car built in Bill Stroppe’s workshop by Don Edmunds. It enthralled me, and I want to build a model of it. But I have almost no details of the car. Have you come across anything about the car, especially the dimensions of the vehicle so that I can draw it in 3D and then 3D print the parts for it.
Regards,
Alan Wheeley
alan@wheeleyandtwooley.com.au
Hi Alan,
Which V8 engined sportscar?
Mark
Gidday Mark,
I have scanned the three pages in the book, and they are attached. These pages are all that I have at the moment. Mr Google does not have anything of its page about Bill Stroppe, nor on Don Edmunds. The article states that the photos and info was not published in the Road and Track magazine, and they went into their vault. I cannot get any info from Road and Track about the car. I am virtually stumped – that is why I turned to you in case you knew more about the car, or had the expertise to find out about it.
Regards,
Alan.
P.S. I cannot find a way to include the photos to this blog reply, so I will have to try another idea to get them to you. Do you have any instructions for attaching photos to replies on this blog – or do I send the photos electronically to another email address?
Alan
Hi Alan,
There is no way to include a photo in the blog reply. Try emailing me on mark@bisset.com.au.
Mark
Hi Alan,
Don Edmunds ran (runs still?) Autoresearch in Oregon.
He did some pretty interesting stuff, both in circuit racing and speedway midgets.
If you look up the website it will give you a couple of photos of his Indy forays – one of the photos – which doesn’t expand with a click – may be the BT12.
There is an email address for Don there.
Good luck with your research.
Cheers,
Rod