The Repco Record cover girl for September 1965 is the prototype 2.5-litre Repco Brabham 620 V8. Engine #E1 first spluttered into life on the Repco Laboratory testbed, Richmond on 26 March 1965…
She is quite a cutie replete with Weber carbs rather than the Lucas fuel injection with which the Repco engines always raced. Click away at the links below for plenty of articles on this engine, this is another piece from Michael Gasking’s wonderful collection of Repco memorabilia.
The public announcement of the engine was made by Repco on Monday September 13, 1965. Many thanks to historian David Zeunert who forwarded a copy of Leonard Ward’s piece about the initiative which was published in the Canberra Times the following day.
It includes an unusually detailed technical description of the engine, but makes no mention – at that point at least – of a 3-litre 620 variant for the new F1 which commenced in 1966.
That the 1275cc Morris Cooper S – ‘one of the worlds most successful small sports saloons’ – has gone into production at BMC’s Australian plant at Zealand, inner-Sydney would have been big news too, albeit well-known to enthusiasts.
Credits…
Michael Gasking Collection, Repco Ltd, Canberra Times via David Zeunert Collection
Finito…
primotipo... 
Hello Mark,
There was also a great full page colour photo of what appears to be the same engine in the November 1965 issue of Australian Motor Sports & Automobiles. This photo is of the other side.